Kabul

"But the game involves only male names. Because, if it's a girl, the name was already chosen". My eyes barely met with the penultimate word that it flirted with a news article on my computer screen. I sat numb with my eyes gouging into oblivion on account of two facts I conjured; Khaled Husseini is nothing less than a pied piper, Hope still seems to be too highly priced a dream for a desolation draped nation.

I was meant to be writing a book review on " A Thousand Splendid Suns" which is another class act from the author, but it would be unfair to constrict the vastitude of human misery defined in the book to be mere heart wrenching. What pains me the most is even after almost 40 years of endless wars and crimes on humanity, Afghanistan remains a blood sucking land and Kabul, a cradle of unfathomable miseries. I have never been to Kabul, but the novel teleports me from my plush mattress to the parched meadows, air conditioned coupe to sun stricken deserts. The endless times of endurance tests are beyond words and sometimes, it is hard to perceive the depth of adaptability cortex wound around human souls that transcends any emotional breakdowns and bypasses savage torture. Its unbelievable what a mass of flesh and bones can withstand in order to survive and realise its hopes.

I winced in pain when the protagonist embraced the lashes, silently wailed when mines chopped off the limbs. When I finally finished  the book, I had a sigh of relief that there will be no more EQ poking, a satisfaction of having read a wonderful piece and more importantly, the assuagement that  after all this is just a story and I just self-abased to pamper some one else's imagination. All of a sudden, when the news article that worded the brutal bombings at Kabul, struck my eyes, I knew; Beyond any veil of words of misery in a novel, beyond any magnifications by the media, there is truth in the pale story of Kabul, there is pain in every street which I might never see, but I feel it. A pain inflicted by humans on humanity with nature watching  silently as if incapacitated by its intensity. Many excuses tabled  and the burden being borne by mute ideologies which are being preached by purblind "saviours". I realise the triviality of my self assurance of existence, how obvious it seems to me that I will be alive tomorrow, how true is Maslow's hierarchy where the base level  meant nothing  more than an academician's delight to me.

But there are some painful similarities between me and a human embodiment in the land of hopes. He has learned to walk past the debris of bodies with indomitable calm, he has learned to sell his artificial leg for a meager meal, he has lost hope of seeing his kin and kith alive tomorrow morning. He has gained strength. I have learned to skim past the pages of truth with indomitable calm, I have learned to tread on others pain without a treble. I proudly claim, with an unashamed conscience, I can feign compassion.

The Kite Runner

My fascination for fiction is in its infancy and I am quite enthralled to tell you that I have been fortunate to read a gem which is termed as one of the best read in the last decade. 'The Kite Runner' is nothing but fascinating in every sense of word and beautiful beyond any bounds of tangible expression. As  I ran through the last words of the book, it was not a sense of  satisfaction that I had, but of a settled window pane that had quivered in a severe gust of wind, a satiable smile after having a ride on roller coaster of emotions.

The novel takes you through the parched lives of Afghanistan and the hardships people face to survive another day. Its an unparalleled caricature of  human story of Afghanistan with such depth and vividness that you cant tear yourself off the plot. The first hand narration of the protagonist makes you empathize the character  and your involvement to the whole plot bears an involuntary commitment.

Chanakya Chants

Its been a long time I have written a review on a book I read, the reason being successful pampering of my procrastination in ploughing out time for reading something worth. When you are happy cuddling on your idleness in life, it requires something spectacular to throw you into action and "Chanakya Chants" is nothing less than that. Its the latest novel written by Ashwin Sanghi of "The Rozabal Line" fame.

The novel starts with an old man, toiling for his last breaths at a hospital bed, watching, a woman getting sworn in as the prime minster, on television. The next chapter pulls you down the time line to some where around 500 BC when the King Paurus is brutally murdered by a female assassin. The novel is a blend of two stories occurring at different timelines but the theme being the same. The present time story has a man named Gangasagar Mishra as the protagonist who successfully thrones a poor village girl in the helm of the world's largest democracy. The second story which dates back to 500 BC or around when Vishnu Gupta alias Chanakya avenges his father's murder and in the process places Chandra Gupta Maurya as the Emperor of 'Bharath'. The novel in detail portrays the strategy carved out by both protagonists in taking their partisans to the zenith of political power. It explicitly mentions the shrewdness and diplomacy played out by both king makers in getting their jobs done.

One cannot stop admiring the precision with which Sanghi has spawned both threads and intermingled them throughout the novel in a delightful and gracefully discern manner. The novel glues to your palms from the first page and it requires quite an insensitive mental attire to even take a pee break in between. I would recommend this novel a must read for those who love political thrillers and also those who closely follow the Indian political scenario. Even though the author claims the book to be entertaining, rather than educative, I feel the second aspect has been well covered, given the depth with which the domain has been handled. Read it and conjure your wickedness :)