Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns.

And here goes another amazing book added to my "Completed Reading" list, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Its the second installment from the author of The Kiterunner fame.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a story again set in Afghanistan, Herat and Kabul to be exact. And this time there is no escaping to the U.S. but it starts, suffers and end in Afghanistan switching for a very short time to Pakistan.
The story is mainly based on two women, and gives us a close up view of their everyday life, their joys, their sufferings, their desperation to be independent from the tortures and misery and their efforts to claim it. The two female characters are chosen very carefully, the first one is Mariam, a harami born out of an accidental affair between the most richest person of Herat and his maid servant while the other one is Laila, the daughter of an university professor, educated in school and is free from wearing burkha or following any improper rules of the Muslim community. As luck would have it, the lives of these two women from completely two different rungs of society clash together and are made to walk the same path. But finally, one

What seems like an eternity

Let the lights dim out
And the candles blow off.
Let's sit in the dark today
Staring out at each other.
Let the vision pierce through the darkness
And the silence fill in our ears,
As a strange calmness spread around;
While time just seems to stop
For what seems like an eternity.

PADE Post #6 (Theme- Shape)

No shape

For you. But

Only power

You've got,

To sustain

Or destroy

An entire species.

My PADE entry for today's theme- Shape.

PADE Post #5 (Theme- Bridge)

Catch a metro and travel on this bridge, enjoying the view and soon you will find yourself in peace as you move down into the Earth, where no sound disturbs you except the roaring of the engines....

This photo is an entry for PADE, a month long photo festival organised by Sfurti & Ritu. A special thanks to these wonderful ladies for all their efforts for PADE.

PADE Post #4 (Theme- Word)

Stop inhibiting yourself.

Let the words flow

Out of your mind,

Through a pen.

And stare at wonder

To the difference it makes

Both to the world,

And to your heart.

Photo for PADE, a month long photo festival & this is my interpretation of today's theme Word.

PADE Post #3 (Theme- Window)

A window of a building in Fatehpur Sikri

 

A window of my present home

Back to PADE after a long time and it feels so good. Here is my two interpretations of today's PADE theme, i.e., Window. Hope you all like it!!

The Gift In Return

Rajibh was working in his laptop sitting on the bed when a sudden electronic beep made him look up at his digital table clock. The time was 12:00 am and it was the hourly beep. He was about to get back to his laptop screen when something suddenly caught his eye. The date. And with the date came a flood of memories.

It was on this day, exactly a year back, that Rajibh and his wife had parted their ways and put the last nail on the coffin of their three year old marriage. Yes, this was the day when Rajibh had finally got his freedom from Mousomi after several tormenting months.

What not she had done to make sure that Rajibh realised every bit of his mistake of marrying Mousomi. She had sent him to jail for a couple of days, make him pay a huge sum as alimoni, took away his mansion and even sent his ailing mother to jail. What a lady! Not lady but a bitch she was. And what was his mistake? Just to complain about her flirting nature with his friends. She had found the clue in it to divorce him. What she failed to see was his unconditional love which was the reason of him being so possessive about her.