My Literary Indulgences...

Notwithstanding the silver spoon or the aluminium cup with which we are born, Nature is our great common wealth, priceless with gems like a cool summer morn… And ‘tis a rare beauty that I behold, as I take a stroll down the streets… Broken pavement stones feeling cool beneath the soles, sprouting grass caressing the feet… A small breeze ruffles my hair, sweet and cool like a lover’s sigh… Among the clouds the sun is no furious lord, but a maiden shy… As I turn at the bend, I see some kids frolic, jump and laugh and sing… Dry, beaten bodies, who have known terrible heat, enjoy a burst pipe’s spring… A retired sour magistrate looks on from his balcony and just for a while… Where all his power, wealth does naught to cheer, this merry sight carves a smile… Yon a servant waters her master’s lawns and humming a tune of hope… For once free from sorrows, unmindful of the welts where her drunken husband had groped… Soon I cross the old, almost ancient sweet seller...

The first line of the first page reads," So you want a story? I'll tell you one now". And like all of Hosseini's stories, it was a bittersweet one. After The Kite Runner, and A Thousand Splendid Suns, expectations were plentiful from this latest work and also some apprehension, a hope that the author would not fall back to the same manner of story-telling - of lives torn apart by the wars in Afghanistan. Thankfully, he didn't. The story nonetheless is a sad tale of separation of brother and sister, Abdullah and Pari, and of the lives of a few other characters related to the leading two in some fashion. Afghanistan, Kabul to be specific, is again the glue, the common denominator that binds them all - those who lived through the wars, those who exiled and those who came in the aftermath to rebuild. In terms of plot, the story unfortunately is nigh predictable with little surprises but nevertheless it tugs at the strings of your heart and strikes all the right no...

He had a simple motto for life – where people play checkers, you play chess. And so, instead of rushing into any hot-headed moves, he planned his steps with methodical beauty. The first few confessions were too lame or too obvious to be of any use. So he waited patiently while people kept filling his arsenal. Finally one day, a confession rang a bell in his mind. Out of the galactic pile of confessions, he connected four dots forming a four star constellation – Akshita, Laveesh, Eleanor, Anirudh. Soon his devilish smirk was lighting his face up as a plan formed in his mind. When all the rough edges were sanded off, he looked up and said,” You cursed me with Asperger’s. Now watch me make use of it”. The spicy pickle these four “stars” were in was this – Laveesh and Eleanor had been in a relationship for quite some time and had recently undergone an ugly breakup. Laveesh turned to his best friend Akshita for comfort and Eleanor likewise turned to Anirudh. What Laveesh and Eleanor w...