Out beyond the ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
Khaled Hosseini starts the book, with this little fairy tale like poem written by Jelaluddin Rumi, in the 13th century. I was first introduced to Rumi by Hosseini in his book Thousand Splendid Suns. Ever since then I have been trying to find my life's meanings through his poems.
I am failing miserably at writing anything on Khaled Hosseini or his books. Like a snake charmer, he keeps playing the flute of his stories, and you are helplessly mesmerized by it's tune, and just like the snake who has rendered all its power to the charmer, you keep getting swayed to the depths of his mystical, magical land.
The intensity of emotions that I felt, with each turning page, is simply marvelous. Also, how can I forget, the style in which the story is written. Ahh! There is not, and mind you, not, a single character who doesn't get a chance to come up to the mic, and narrate their journey. Every single character, every single reference is addressed somewhere, somehow. You'd be awed how beautifully Hosseini has weaved the entire cloth, handling different threads at the same time. With each character's life - chronical, we get to see Afghanistan, California, The Greece islands of Tinos, and Paris.
I do not want to give any spoilers, but I really want to share my views, so I will share my emotions, in as few words as possible, about the two main characters of this book, with whom the book starts and also ends.
The story starts with two characters - a loving, sensitive and helpless brother, Abdullah, and his brimming with innocence, sister, Pari. Both the characters are fairly young when their father bring them to the city of Kabul from their village Shadbagh. Both are oblivious to the dark clouds looming overhead them, which will soon burst and drench them with misery.
Pari is very little when this happens, and so when we meet her again later in the book, she never remembers anything. She could barely recall the hardships that she went through, or how her life changed overnight because of the decisions made by others. Abdullah is young, but not too young to forget that how his young sister was snatched away from him. This shock, this disturbance, this traumatism, which Abdullah carries in his heart for his whole life, may be becomes the cause behind his illness in his old age, Alzheimer's. This disease makes him forget his work, his medicines, sometimes his daughter, and even Pari.
There is a heart - breaking story that Abdullah and Pari's father tells them, right in the beginning of this book. I am not spoiling it for you. You have to read it. You will see all throughout the book, that how bits and pieces of that story come back and take a shape of reality for the characters.
Their father, Saboor, who spent his childhood, in Shadbagh, aspired to become a writer or a story teller when he was a boy. Of course, Shadbagh had no gold mines, and so he couldn't pursue his passions. To be able to put bread on his family's plate, he did all kinds of very hard jobs to get very little money. Saboor is shown as a man of honor and pride, just like his name, he is patient. People who are patient, are incapable of harming anyone. So despite all that, did he harm Pari, his own daughter, by selling her off to the Wahdatis? I don't think so. Later in the book, when we meet Pari again, far away from Shadbagh, in Paris, as a Parisian, a professor, a beautiful woman with a loving husband, and three children, we realize that these are exactly all of those things that she could've never had, if she had spent her life in Shadbagh, if Saboor had decided not to sell her.
Saboor saved her life and also his other child's. With the money he got, he bought winter clothes for his family and his other infant child, Iqbal. Abdullah eventually runs away from his home, while Iqbal stays back. Poor, miserable and needy, Iqbal's life, as we get to know later in the book, turned out to be unhappy.
We see Saboor, one day jabbing big blows of ax at an old, known to be a magical, tree of his village. This tree was the pride of Shadbagh, and despite that, he destroyed it. See it was known that every time someone made a wish under the tree which was meant to become true, the tree would shed exactly 10 leaves on that person. May be Saboor wished for a happy family and got the 10 leaves, but he could never have a complete family, let alone a happy one. First he lost his first wife to death, and then he left his daughter, even worse, he sold her. He wanted to destroy this perfidious, faithless tree.
The tree had been a thorn in the heart for the sisters, Masooma and Parwana too. Parwana who married Saboor later as his second wife, was once a beautiful young girl, who was in love with young Saboor and so was her other beautiful twin sister Masooma. The only difference is you and me would find Parwana as beautiful as Masooma, but the unfair, unjust beauty norms set by this vicious and inhuman society, would never let Parwana believe that she was beautiful. They tortured her, bullied her, threw her into the deep, dark pits of self-doubt and self pity. At the same time, Masooma was the enchantress, the goddess to them. This led Parwana to despise her own sister. She did something, which she then regrets for the rest of her life.
The letter from Nabi, Parwana and Masooma's brother, is probably a part which reveals so many layers, so many answers to the countless answered questions, and so many deep, moving and shocking revelations, that I really had to read it twice. The way he recounts his relationship with Mr. Wahadati, Suleiman, and Mrs. Wahadati, Nila, is one of them most unequivocal confessions of any character.
Nabi's letter sets the stage for all that happens later in the book. Through his letter, each character is given a purpose, and we revisit them, when each of them narrate their part of the journey.
In the last part of the book, we see Abdullah and Pari again, face to face, but a lot older than the last time they saw each other. This part keeps breaking your heart with each line. Abdullah, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, he forgets very big patches of his memories, which involves his sister's memories, and it seems like, after the countless hardships, and silent sufferings, he has finally given up, and has admitted his defeat in this game that he was playing against his own fate.
You would think, that just like his father, Saboor, Abdullah too would be a diligent, tireless and kindhearted father to his own daughter, whom he names Pari. You would be right to think so too. However, some people, are in a constant battle with their destiny for their entire lives. The soreness in Abdullah's heart, that was left by his sister, Pari's absence, is then cured by the only drug that can kill all of our aching and stabbing old memories, obliviousness.
Pari, is one character, who never got a say in deciding the what colors to put on her own life's canvas. She was just made to watch the horrific paintings that people painted for her, and she was left with no option but to hang them in the galleries of her memories and heart. She never really remembers the exact sequence of events, and the good thing is, Hosseini never tries to give her character the ability to be able to recall anything clearly, till the end.
This book is full of many such complex and broken characters. The stories, the plot and the sub plots are all so engaging, delightful, sometimes disturbing, excruciating all at the same time. Khaled Hosseini really has the power to change the way you look at relationships and at life.
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