The Kite Runner

Salaam Alaykum!

I searched for long for a suitable title to go with this post that would make the reader understand exactly what i feel towards this book. After a brief pause, i decided 'Some things are best left untouched'. And, lo! This exactly defines how i feel about the integrity of this masterpiece of soul enriching literary experience.

I am touched. And, grateful. Grateful because when i picked it up last morning i was clueless and a little resigned as to what i was getting into. To put it simply, i had had it for quite sometime on my shelf and yesterday i opened it with the resigned curiosity of a reader by habit. I hadn't anticipated one bit the journey it will take me on.

Once i began reading, there was no way i was going to put it down unfinished. It just wouldn't do. I wanted to know more about Amir and Hassan. Find out what eventually happens to them in the course of the book. The book is so powerfully written, it tugs at your heart to become human in the way a human being is meant to be. There's so much wisdom in the sparsely used philosophical musings.

For instance, With Amir's last shred of remorse gone for his past, he thinks:

'I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night'.

Or in the belief in young Sohrab's words:

'Father used to say it's wrong to hurt even bad people. Because they don't know any better, and because bad people sometimes become good'.

Amir is a Pashtun and Hassan, a Hazara. The book spans the decades from before the soviet invasion into Afghanistan through Taliban regime to post 9/11 in America and Afghanistan. It begins with the pre-soviet invasion era of Afghanistan and mirrors the tranquil yet class divided society. Amir's father is a businessman with a resolute spirit. Hassan's father Ali is a servant in the household but very dear to Amir's baba as they were raised together. Amir and Hassan have a relationship that is beautiful and pure in its essence yet restrained by the class divide that is the basis of Afghan Society. It is this relationship and the change it undergoes over time that forms the soul of the book. There is loyalty, love and true friendship at one end and guilt, remorse and envy at another end. What is most gripping is the transformation that Amir's character undergoes through each phase of life. How the demons of his past haunt him, how one moment of weakness makes him believe in his cowardice for most part of his life and how he initially runs away from them only to have his past confront him and make him atone for his weaknesses in order to find true peace within.

Reading this story is like nourishing one's soul. It is one of those profoundly powerful stories that make you feel like you've completed a cycle of life. Like you were the author's shadow throughout the story, the characters' alter ego. Cheering on the protagonist deep within to 'please come out as the better man'. It isn't a story to forget. It isn't one to mark as read and move on either after a bit of hoopla. It is a story that stays. It is an experience that encapsulates you within and lets you wander through the dusty roads of Afghanistan, to the hill top with the pomegranate tree under whose shadow you can still find Amir reading stories to Hassan especially the one with 'Sohrab and Rostam', to the Kite Flying contest of Kabul, to California where Amir spends 15 years of his married life, to Peshawar where Rahim Khan shows the way of atonement to Amir, to Kabul under Taliban and later Islamabad where he finally finds his salvation. As the experience ends, you come out enriched and feel like you've known this life.

The book is sound in writing and expression. The usage of Afghani words adds to the authenticity of the experience and provides the right feel of the place. The characters are well-defined and are important in their element. The flow of the story is natural in pace and context. There is a constant undisturbed poignancy in it which makes the yearning for a peaceful end natural.

I heartily recommend everyone with a stomach for reading to go ahead and savor its flavors; for you wouldn't find many with so many in a perfect blend that will leave not just the body but the soul satisfied. Even if you don't, Zendagi Migzara!

Tashakor!

Copyright created on 18th October 2011