Each of us is born with our own body and soul to lead our journey. Your life has your own unique story, but what makes our world fascinating is when different stories intersect. At this intersection we find purpose, we meet hope, we fall in love, we fall out too, they help us through the tedious journey lay ahead of us. Sometimes we are in control of these occurrences and most of the times we aren’t even aware ‘when’ and ‘which’ simple acts by others make life-altering decisions for us.
Is he a bad father, A father who decides to sell off his daughter so that his infant and rest of the family can live? Poverty brings despair. But one decision of a father eventually changes the course of the family’s generations to come. The decision was of the father but who planted the seed? How the chain of influence works is a mystery only the sitting far way watching over all of us knows or we call ourselves children of fate. With little control over some part of our lives, but a lot still left in our hand to shape. Hosseini’s stories are about lives lived and lost; emotions captured and abandoned.
Parallel to each other many life-breaths. In this jungle of living, babies are born every minute, and everyone grows old to die. Each living being carries a burden of his own. Look closely at the eyes of the person working for you, a doctor treating your fracture or teacher giving you a math lesson. They will be beaming with pain hidden beneath or unaware of the shadow of their past. May be unaware of the possibilities their life could have? What is taken away or given to them as their life, isn’t it. There would have been more or less, or different. Noone knows.
Hosseini has mastered this art of telling us stories that leave a more profound impact on our conscious about the bearing of Afghan and Arabs. Started with Kite Runner, A thousand splendid suns this is my third of this author. His have made me imagine streets of Kabul, progressive lifestyle and aftermath of destruction. Visiting Kabul is on my bucket list now more than ever.