“Hahahaha… You?… reading books?” well that was the first reaction I got when I asked one of my friends to help me get a book named “A Thousand Splendid Suns” . I have listened some audio novels but always felt like reading is not my cup of tea. As I remember how much I hated touching books right from my school days, it was a big challenge for me to even ask my friends for it as I used to be the one commenting their reading habit as unnecessary, waste of money, and cause of deforestation. So, I was ready to absorb whatever they would fire at me with artillery of their heavy, complex and sophisticated words learnt from reading all these years. Nonetheless, I got away pretty easily without much damage to my ego. “You’re not getting the real book. I can help you with E-book though”, as I was given this choice, I took it as it was the time of lockdown and I was not expecting to get the books made with inks on papers. So, my first experience was bound to miss the feel of the paper and its smell that so many bookworms keep mentioning about but given the circumstances, I could not complain. It was not long before I got an E-book mailed to my address.
For the few days, I Kept it sitting on my inbox like a patient waiting to be operated in a clinic. Just like a doctor looking at patients’ reports before the surgery, I had finished watching all the non-spoiler reviews about it that I could get on the YouTube. Everything seemed “Okay”, but still I was in dilemma whether I would be able to complete it given my ever-shortening attention span which could not even tolerate two hours movies these days. Enough of that thinking, I decided to go with it no matter what. So, I messaged the friend who recommended me that book and got the final nudge to get my boat sailing on the oceans of words.
As I started reading, the voices in my head started talking to me and
congratulating me for starting the book.” How long might it take to finish
the book?51 chapters and 4 parts, 5 chapters a day at max, 10 days total. Can I
keep reading it for 10 days? ” a voice popped up in my head followed by a
voice from another side “Shut up! and concentrate on the book”. Then
a remorseful voice took the charge and filled the heart with guilt ”
What is the point of reading if I’m not even focusing on the content? Am I
wasting my time? What am I even thinking?”. As the words were starting to
describe the character named Marriam and her mom in Arab setting, I was
battling with the voices in my head who were constantly chatting something
about me starting to read the novel just like the people I saw few days
back in clubhouse app shoving their opinion in every topic that follows as if
they know it all.
But slowly the voices got smaller and started fading inside the layers of my
brain as the book started to unfold a beautiful natural setting with an
innocent character filled with positivity. It didn’t take me long to get fully
invested on the Marriam and her journey as an innocent positive kid getting to
face the harsh realities as she slowly gets out from her world and starts
exploring. Not to spoil too much, the story got sadder and darker and I kept on
reading it with more interest in the search of some twist that would end all
this pain and sorrow from her life. At a point I started feeling like I stepped
on a quicksand by investing on this book which kept drowning me into more and
more sadness with every page I read. Just as remaining still is the only way to
prevent yourself from drowning in a quicksand, I stopped expecting anything
happy and positive from the storyline and thank god I did that as characters
got themselves stuck in situation of griefs that was well beyond their
control.
Then all of a sudden the writer changed the perspective and character in
second part, which got me confused If I hadn’t been paying attention well and
completely missed the setting as story which now revolved around a character
named Laila . ” Am I missing a way to read a book or is it two different
stories compiled with a stitch and called a book?” as I asked the friend
recommending me this book, I got re-assured that the stories and characters are
meant to connect in the storyline. This eased off the stress and anxiety of
wasting my time and getting nothing at the end of the story. Then I kept going
with the flow and it was not too long before I could connect the characters
portrayed in two parts. Characters from the two parts felt like a parallel lines
to me, seeing each other but never bound to meet. But then, the almighty writer
stepped in with his plot and two parallel lines were now in new space and
dimension, not only intersecting each other but overlapping
altogether.
The story also covered the war aspect and portrayed how the society had been
running when ruled by the extremists. Though the story was fictional, the real
face and the fate of the people in Afghanistan during its war was
depicted with a sense of some truthfulness in the portrayal. The laws
imposed under the extremist rule touched me the most as I myself felt like
choking as If i’d been thrown inside some cage while reading that. I would
laugh at the stupidity of those laws while reading and it wouldn’t take me long
to realize that somebody in this same planet had no choice but to follow it
which made me question the significance of individual’s knowledge and intelligence
with respect to the community and the place they choose to reside. This helped
me strengthen my opinion stronger on the point that one’s quality of life is
governed more by the place they live in rather than their intelligence,
Knowledge or ideology. I got very much upset
with the writer for writing the most hate worthy character with a name similar
to that of mine. What is this behavior khaled hosseini ? The shrewd evil character portrayed with the name
Rasheed depicted extreme of the typical patriarchal mindset with a touch of
fragile ego which became the perfect recipe to dump all our hate.
Enough of the hate and sad part, the writer
added the beauty to this novel with all the small little things he could add. The
plot itself didn’t have any big happy moment or had very few of it, but the
small moments were all along the story be it the colors of the sky, the wind,
the butterflies, tall grass, feeling of falling in love, beautiful eyes,
watching movies, visiting place and many more uncountable moments. The level of
intricacy put into the writing was unimaginably beautiful throughout the story.
I Could not stop myself from following the cues of body languages described in
various situation and reciting the dialogues just as If I were the character
myself.
Coming to the end, the best thing about the
end was that it wasn’t the end. It didn’t end with cliché “Happily ever
after” tag designed to comfort the readers to get that positive reviews.
The end was something realistic yet very positive and powerful. As it would be
the sin to spoil the story, all I can say is that the story successfully
conveyed the reality of ever going struggle in life and the choice of approach
we could take in making it more beautiful.
That’s all, honestly speaking I could not get
very deep into an old poem recited repeatedly in the book. All I could see was
some beautiful words but nothing much. Feel free to open my eyes on what it
really meant deeply, it goes as :
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls
Really Glad that I’ve started reading novels that too on my own. It just
took me three days to complete once I started reading it. How did that even happen?
Am I going to turn into a geeky book reader? Gosh! This frightens me now.
Nonetheless, Really thankful to the friend who suggested me to start reading
with this one and to the friend who managed the book for me (E-book at least).
Wisdom of the day: It’s okay to read too!