After reading 'The Kite Runner' I was in a daze of some sorts. Is it because the time was past 1.30 am, or any other reason I have no clue. Surely, I'm not a critic in literature, but one thing I learnt about the subject is how it makes a person feel. My literature teacher in high school -an atheist who only believed in the goodness of man- did a good job of hammering in the core of what literature should be. He despised all religions equally, and didn't give a damn about what his students thought about it. I learnt the baby steps of literature from him and also my tuition teacher later.
'The Kite Runner' has a little of something for every person who might take the time to read it. Love, loyalty, disappointment, heartache, disaster, regret, redemption and also romance; all neatly stitched into the fabric of the story. The irony was simply too good. It really was. The entire book was conjured up with a huge measure of irony, without it the book would not have had its due impact. I liked the character of Amir's father in what he stood for. Brave and strong without fear of anything.
Then comes Amir, the person I was too quick to judge a coward in the start. He is a coward and I'm sure he will remain so for the rest of his life. But he rose to the occasion to overcome his fear and fought it out. That I admire a great deal. Everyone knows that courage is not the absence of fear, but a sense of overcoming it. When he was lying in a hospital bed going in and out of consciousness, I knew how it must have felt. My grandmother had partial amnesia and she went back and forth from the present to the past, then to no memory at times. It was hard to jog her memory when it came to people. Even harder when trying to make her understand that her husband was no more alive. Emak found it stressful when she had to remind her own mother who she was. It took immeasurable amounts of patience from our part. At least in Amir's part he regained all his memory. Amir, in my view tried his level best to be the best he can be. That is what counts. Trying to make amends of his past, seeking forgiveness and redemption, trying to live up to his father's expectations is all good. But remembering God only on a necessity driven basis is not the way to live.
Hassan, the ever loyal friend and later to be half-brother of Amir. He suffered a lot injustice, but never spoke out against it. The demeanour and character of this person I envy. That kind of modesty and humility is hard to find indeed. His son Sohrab, like father like son. Cut from the same cloth. When reading the part of Sohrab describing how hopeless he felt and how he tried to commit suicide, my mind went back to 2005. In January that year, I went with an aid convoy to help tsunami victims in Hambantota. Our host there took us to his house and introduced a relative of his who was staying there. This man had lost his entire family -wife and 3 children- to the gigantic waves. I was only 19 then, but I remember how he just stared at us like he was mute. He hardly blinked and his eyes were that of a man that thought living to be futile. While our stay there he never uttered a word. Our host was on the edge thinking his man might take his own life. I don't know what became of him after that, only God knows. A person like Sohrab is one in a million.
Then we come to the romance in the novel emitted by Soraya. I wonder how a woman can add flavour to a novel or movie?? Without a lady its just not the same. Rather dull I suppose. I wish there had been a picture of Soraya in the book. Because sometimes words don't do justice to beauty, words cannot capture every aspect about a person in its totality. How sad it is not? How apt the saying: a picture speaks a thousand words. Ain't Amir one lucky son of a gun?!? One more thing is that Amir is a one woman man. On a personal level, I like that.
I like the reasoning behind the ritual of yelda. I had my yelda last Wednesday. I'm not sure if I can survive another one. I find it very intriguing on so many levels, but hard to put down in words. I also understood most of the words in farsi written in the book. Maybe its because I know a bit of hindi from watching movies. Then again, hindi has its roots in farsi, sanskrit and arabic. I think I like learning about languages!!
'The Kite Runner' has a little of something for every person who might take the time to read it. Love, loyalty, disappointment, heartache, disaster, regret, redemption and also romance; all neatly stitched into the fabric of the story. The irony was simply too good. It really was. The entire book was conjured up with a huge measure of irony, without it the book would not have had its due impact. I liked the character of Amir's father in what he stood for. Brave and strong without fear of anything.
Then comes Amir, the person I was too quick to judge a coward in the start. He is a coward and I'm sure he will remain so for the rest of his life. But he rose to the occasion to overcome his fear and fought it out. That I admire a great deal. Everyone knows that courage is not the absence of fear, but a sense of overcoming it. When he was lying in a hospital bed going in and out of consciousness, I knew how it must have felt. My grandmother had partial amnesia and she went back and forth from the present to the past, then to no memory at times. It was hard to jog her memory when it came to people. Even harder when trying to make her understand that her husband was no more alive. Emak found it stressful when she had to remind her own mother who she was. It took immeasurable amounts of patience from our part. At least in Amir's part he regained all his memory. Amir, in my view tried his level best to be the best he can be. That is what counts. Trying to make amends of his past, seeking forgiveness and redemption, trying to live up to his father's expectations is all good. But remembering God only on a necessity driven basis is not the way to live.
Hassan, the ever loyal friend and later to be half-brother of Amir. He suffered a lot injustice, but never spoke out against it. The demeanour and character of this person I envy. That kind of modesty and humility is hard to find indeed. His son Sohrab, like father like son. Cut from the same cloth. When reading the part of Sohrab describing how hopeless he felt and how he tried to commit suicide, my mind went back to 2005. In January that year, I went with an aid convoy to help tsunami victims in Hambantota. Our host there took us to his house and introduced a relative of his who was staying there. This man had lost his entire family -wife and 3 children- to the gigantic waves. I was only 19 then, but I remember how he just stared at us like he was mute. He hardly blinked and his eyes were that of a man that thought living to be futile. While our stay there he never uttered a word. Our host was on the edge thinking his man might take his own life. I don't know what became of him after that, only God knows. A person like Sohrab is one in a million.
Then we come to the romance in the novel emitted by Soraya. I wonder how a woman can add flavour to a novel or movie?? Without a lady its just not the same. Rather dull I suppose. I wish there had been a picture of Soraya in the book. Because sometimes words don't do justice to beauty, words cannot capture every aspect about a person in its totality. How sad it is not? How apt the saying: a picture speaks a thousand words. Ain't Amir one lucky son of a gun?!? One more thing is that Amir is a one woman man. On a personal level, I like that.
I like the reasoning behind the ritual of yelda. I had my yelda last Wednesday. I'm not sure if I can survive another one. I find it very intriguing on so many levels, but hard to put down in words. I also understood most of the words in farsi written in the book. Maybe its because I know a bit of hindi from watching movies. Then again, hindi has its roots in farsi, sanskrit and arabic. I think I like learning about languages!!
1 comment:
I read kite runner too last semester and was so deep into it, feeling every emotions hehe.. sadly i had to return the library book after holding it captive for 3 months, managed to actually renew and renew every time, without quite finishing it..I only read until the part where Amir took Sohrab out :( But I watched the movie later and it wasn't the same
Post a Comment