The Kite Runner by
Khaled Hosseini Bloomsbury first
published in 2001
Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie published by Vintage2006
Two Lives by Vikram Seth first published in India by
Penguin Books India 2005
Are there any connections
between these randomly picked books at a second hand book shop? Some underlying unity of theme, of events or even purpose? Admittedly, these books belonging to varying
genre - the first one a work of fiction, the second a novel and the
third, a part biography, family history
and autobiography combined - cannot
possibly dwell on a single theme or motivated by the same or similar events. But beyond the differences, there are ample
evidences of contemporary events, as
they experienced by these author, weaving with their imagination to produce these works.
If ‘A thousand Splendid Suns’
dealt with life in Afghanistan of the late 1990s when
the civil war was well on its way and the Taliban in full control of that
country, ‘The Kite Runner’ is partly a chronicle of the liberal and leisurely
lives lived by the people of that country during the 70s, that was before the overthrow
of King Zahir Shah and the power
struggle which broke out within the Communist
Party resulting in Soviet intervention.
There are splendid descriptions of joy rides to parks, tourist places,
of parties, festivals and of course, kite flying. Amir, the narrator was the son of a rich
businessman, who lived a secure, protected life. The father holds the religious
men in great disdain. Once he told his
son, “Piss on the beards of all those self-righteous monkeys. They do nothing but thumb their rosaries and
recite a book written in a tongue they don’t even understand. God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls
into their hands.” The country did fall
into their hands, to his horror and even ours!
The companion of Amir was Hassan, the Hazara boy
and servant, who alongwith his father, lives with them in the family
compound. The principle theme of the
entire story is condensed in this little piece of wisdom delivered by his
father, “There is only one sin. And that
is theft. When you steal you deprive
another of his property. When you kill a
man, you deprive a wife, her husband or a son, his father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s
right to the truth.” Alas, Amir finds
out at last that his father was a sinner too, when he was told by his father’s
best friend, Rahim Khan that Hassan, was fathered by his father!
As pointed out above, there
are splendid descriptions of nature.
Take this one, “I stood in the silver tarnish of a half moon and glanced
up a sky riddled with stars. Crickets
chirped in the shuttered darkness and a wind wafted through the trees.” Or this musing, “The desert weed lives on,
but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
Such grace, such dignity and such a tragedy.” And take this comic take,
“Take two Afghans who’ve never met, put them in a room for ten minutes, and
they’ll figure out how they are related.” Not limited to Afghanistan alone,
Indeed it is a sub-continental disease!
The fiction is gripping with the
escape of son and father from Afghanistan, their exile in America, the slow and
tedious rebuilding of their lives, of romance and marriage. Ultimately, Amir revisits his country of
birth to see it gobbled up by a black-hole named Taliban. He did get one priceless possession back from
the place, which is the son of his childhood friend, Hassan, to enliven his
childless marriage.
Rushdie’s style of
narrative is familiar to his readers and this novel has all the
trademark Rushdie in it. The intermixing
of time and space, of contemporary events with the hoary past, of ancient and
mythical stories and of individual lives
lived with the lives of nations and territories. The bewitching story of Boonyi and Abdullah
(Shalimar), their affairs and marriage, the betrayal of Boonyi and the pursuit of revenge by Abdullah. Alongside we meet all kinds of characters,
the Kauls, the Abdullahs, Kachhwaha, a major in the army, Max Ophuls, the
American Ambassador, the militants, pak-trained terrorists and so on. Shalimar gets his revenge by killing Max
Ophuls in New York (a kind of solitary 9/11).
The wooing of Boonyi by the American ambassador is suggestive of
American designs on Kashmir itself!
The very first speech that Max
delivers, at the presentation of his credentials, is pompous, matching perhaps,
the American personality. He says, “We
know all about being part of an ancient civilization and we have suffered our
share of slaughter and bloodletting as well.
Our great leaders and our mothers and children, too, have been taken
from us. The loss of one man’s dream,
one family’s home, one people’s rights, one woman’s life, is the loss of all
our freedoms; of every life, every home, every hope. Each tragedy belongs to itself and at the
same time to everyone else. What
diminishes any of us diminishes us all.”
Unmistakably similar to that Amir’s father tells him in
‘The Kite Runner’ and equally unmistakably, very hollow!
Salman Rushdie’s penetration of the psyche of a
militant-preacher is tellingly evident in this peroration by the young Bulbul
Fakh (no spelling mistake this!), “The infidel believes in the immutability of
the soul. But we believe that all living
things can be transformed in the service of the truth. The infidel says that a man’s character will
decide his fate; we say that a man’s fate will forge his character anew. The
infidel holds that the picture of the world he draws is a picture we must all
recognise. We say that his picture means
nothing to us, for we live in a different world. The infidel speaks of universal truth. We know that the universe is an illusion and
that truth lies beyond the illusion, where the infidel cannot see. The infidel believes the world is his. But we shall drive him from his redoubts
and cast him into darkness and live in Paradise and rejoice as he plunges into the fire.” Could a utopian, millenarian ideology be put
more cogently than this? The novel is a
fantastic read for insights like this.
Two lives by Vikram Seth
starts and ends as an autobiography interspersed with family history strewn in
between. Shanti Uncle and Aunty Henny
are the two lives described. Shanti was
Vikram’s grandfather really (Shanti was Leila’s Uncle, Leila being Vikram’s
mother). Some of the most interesting
features of this story (stories really) are, ironically enough not so much the
lives of Shanti and Henny as much the life which Vikram leads in London and
Chicago! Which, does not mean that their stories are
unimportant. Vikram presents Shanti and
Henny as persons of great dignity and more importantly, possessing great
character.
Shanti
goes to Germany to study dentistry. By
the time he searches for employment there, Nazism takes over the country. He migrates to England, enlists as a dentist
with the royal army, fights in Africa and Europe. He loses his right hand to a stray shell in the battle to capture Mount Cassino in
Italy. He had already proposed to Henny and losing
his limb casts doubts in his mind. Henny
stands by him till her death. The pages
which narrate struggle of Shanti when Henny was sick and dying are the most
difficult to read and extraordinarily moving.
Henny’s
sister and mother die in Nazi concentration camps. The stories of how her friends and colleagues
change colour to suit the new
requirements of nazi Germany are also revealing. Such betrayal happens in all climes and
situations. A very interesting narrative
of events of the mid 20th Century told through the lives of an
Indian and a German, who also happened to be a Jew.
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