‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’, the New York Times #1 best-seller, is a
story about the women in Afghanistan.
37 million copies of ‘A Thousand Splendid
Suns’ along with The Kite Runner (another best-seller by Khalled Hosseini) have
been sold.
The story begins with Mariam who is an
illegitimate child of a wealthy businessman in Herat, Afghanistan. She lives
with her mother Nana. When mariam is 15 , Nana commits suicide. Given the
circumstances, Jalil, her father, takes Mariam home with him and soon marries
her off to a 40-year old shoe-maker Rasheed.
Rasheed’s only desire is to have a
male child. Mariam’s 1st pregnancy
brings joy to their lives but she suffers a miscarriage. After a series of
miscarriages, Rasheed realises Mariam cannot give him a child and he starts
harassing her. Life turns hell for Mariam.
The second protagonist, Laila has an
open-minded school teacher as her father and a cheerful mother. During the war
Laila’s house is hit by a rocket and she loses her parents. Laila is rescued by
Rasheed from the debris of her house. He brings her home and after a few days
asks 14 yr old Laila to marry him without even consulting Mariam. Laila
realises by then that she is pregnant and that the baby’s father, Tariq, the
love of ther life, may be dead. Given the circumstances she decides to accept
Rasheed’s proposal. Laila gets Rasheed’s love but has to bare Mariam’s hatered.
Laila’s child turns out to be a daughter who is named Aziza meaning the
cherished one.
Aziza’s birth brings Mariam and Laila
close as even Mariam can’t not love Aziza. At the same time Rasheed, unhappy
whith Aziza begins to torture Laila as well. But now Mariam and Laila have
united. Mariam becomes like a second mother and at the same time like a best
friend to Laila. This strong bond succeeds in all the tests of fate and proves
to be the most superior one.
‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ is a must read for those who wish to understand the
modern history (1964 - 2003) of Afghanistan, which is told eloquently through
the eyes of Laila and Mariam.
Life is an unending search for love, family, home,
acceptance, a healthy society, and a promising future.
You can go home again,
even if "home" has evolved and been transformed. As home is transformed,
one adapts and maintains what one can of tradition.
The dying words of Laila's
father, killed by a bomb while in the seeming safety of their home, quote lines
from a 17th Century poem by Saib-e-Tabrizi in praise of Kabul:
"One could
not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, or the thousand splendid suns
that hide behind her walls."
It shows how "love manifests itself in even more
various shapes, be it romantic love, . . . or love for family, home, country,
God.
It is ultimately love that draws characters out of their isolation, that
gives them the strength to transcend their own limitations, to expose their
vulnerabilities, and to perform devastating acts of self-sacrifice."
This heart-breaking and nerve-wrenching novel would
make you weep, would make you smile and would open your eyes and tell you about the
condition of women, the wreckage that Taliban has created and prove the love that can supersede it all.
NIRAJA KAPLAY
BPT (1)
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