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Thursday, September 13, 2007

The Kite Runner - Stunning!

I've been away for a while...did not go anywhere, just been tied down by work...from hardly working to hard working is quite a transition, u see! Neywayz, after all the things that happened in Hyderabad, the city is making a full attempt at going back to normalcy and the impending Ganesh Chaturthi is lending more than a helping hand to the attempt.

I have finished reading Khaled Hosseini's Kite Runner in the mean time and I must say I found it quite stunning. A childhood in Kabul is not something that I quite imagined about.As far as I have seen, Kabul was always in ruins, always the war ravaged city wherein war was a way of life rather than an aberration. The description of the childhood of the author and his friend took me by surprise. There was a Kabul that existed before the war and Taliban, a Kabul that knew music, laughter and merriment, not one that was ruled by bearded suppressants.

The book was made special by the author's focus on the human element. There are very few moments that the human heart forgets...the mind might not be able to remember everything, but the heart seldom forgets. All of our life's events are stored in some corner of our hearts and at the slightest provocation, they come pouring out like they had been waiting for that moment. This is what I learnt from a lot of characters in the book. Amir could never forget his betrayal, Baba could never forget his mistakes, Hassan could never let go of his loyalty, Sohrab could never let go of his childhood, Soraya's father could never let go of his regal past...these and many more experiences in the book tell us that we will never be able to run away from our past.

The description of post war Kabul, the executions, the commodities (fathers) that war had made scarce was heart rending. It left me wondering if humans were truly capable of such barbarity. The book left a deep impact and made me say a silent prayer to my maker for having made me so lucky. There is not a soul who would impose on me the rules to live, rules for growing my beard, rules for listening to music, rules for talking or cheering loudly, rules about how to pray best to the god that has been imposed upon me, rules about who to be friends with...saying rules about everything would not even cover it. We live a free life and should be eternally greatfull for that.

One line from the book will remain in memory forever..."For you a thousand times over". Ask yourself if there is one such person in your life to whom you can say this line and be better off for it!

1 comment:

Vasu said...

Yes..it is a decent book.