Pleasanton Weekly  Arts & Entertainment - January 18, 2013
Whatever happened to Afghanistan?  Memoir details the story of a
country's 'Lost Decency'  by Dolores Fox Ciardelli   "What
happened?" people are always asking Atta Arghandiwal, who
immigrated to the Bay Area in the early '80s. That question
inspired his recently published memoir, "Lost Decency: The
Untold Afghan Story," which tells of his happy, secure
childhood, then his loss of innocence with the invasion of the
Soviet Union. He'll be speaking and signing books at 7 p.m.
Thursday at the Pleasanton library.  "Afghans' history was
remarkable, peaceful, a people who believed in values and
traditions," Arghandiwal said in a recent interview. "We lived
in society together, a communal society. My neighbors were my
uncles."  The 1950s and '60s were its glory days, he said, and
Afghanistan was beginning to enjoy industrial growth. Even into
the late 1970s Afghan women pursued higher education and built
careers alongside men.  After studying English at the