Monday, September 10, 2007

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

No Nat Geo documentary or a CNN docu-drama or a Kabul Express made me understand Afghanistan as closely as this book. It made me regularly thank my fortune to be born not in the land of devastation where every living being has death as a part of his life in the most intricate and deplorable way. The death of a brother, a son, a daughter, a father…and all because of an inhuman hunger for power and politics by those who don’t give a damn!

A thousand Splendid Suns is definitely not a documentation of the History of Afghanistan, it is like Hosseini’s previous novel, a simple story.

A story of two woman- Mariam and Laila. But unlike the Kite Runner, which I mentioned could have been placed anywhere else in the world, this one is born out of the smell of Afghanistan.
Two lives- beautiful and innocent like lives always are.

One country- pure and unexploited like nature always intended.
And then the circumstances…the invaders on the lives of these woman as on the land of Afghanistan.

The metaphors are endless and yet they are not in your face. They are hidden beneath the brown sand of Afghanistan and you notice them as if the breeze from the pages you turn blows the sand away.

You feel the pain as the woman get beaten, you shudder the sound of the rockets that bombard the buildings, the wrinkles on the faces of people and the crevices on the land make you wonder who has been cheated more- the people or the land?

It’s a good read.

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