Paradise Lost - Never to be Regained

Hey, you know what? A few days back I finished The Kite Runner. Yes, yes.. I can see that look of surprise in your eyes. The eyebrows have shifted up a couple of centimeters. The mouth has curled into a slight 'O' and there is a glint of curiosity on your features which is clearly asking me what took me so long to read something which the entire world (or atleast half of it) has read a year back. Right???? Ha ha.. don't get alarmed 'coz I am not turning into a face-reader. Not just as yet.

But to use a long used cliche, 'better late than never'. Yeah, I took a year longer than the rest of them.. so what the hell? I didn't take a life time.. right? And that's all that matters. Is it not? I am not here to praise this book. 'Coz I don't wanna show the Sun a lamp (roughly and hopelessly translated version of an idiom in hindi, but I guess it serves the purpose).

I am not gonna write a review on the book. 'Coz I consider myself too insignificant and puny to even try to attempt the feat. And neither am I even attempting to baptise others who have been unfortunate enough not to taste the delicacies which this book offer. 'Coz again I'm being tempted to use another cliche, 'you can take a horse to the water but cannot ever make it drink'. Then what the hell am I doing? Yeah, you are right in asking all the wrong questions. Well, I just want to cleanse my knotted up emotions. I hope you remember that this place is my purgatory. People visit the loo and I visit you whenever I am in need of a catharsis. And I know you love me for that. I love you too.

What is the story about? I will just give you a sneak preview. The saga is set in the 1970's Afghanisthan. Long before the advent of the Russians and much long before the mayhem of the Mujahidins. It was a picturesque place, smelling of flowers n fruits and kebabs and kites (yes, kites also has their distinct aroma, especially the penultimate one which comes down from the sky on the day of the kite festival). This is the story of two boys, Aamir and Hasan, in an age when everything looks fresh, fun and frivolous. A virgin innocence.

Aamir the son of a wealthy and mighty Afgan. And Hasan his most loyal and devoted servant. For Hasan, the first word he ever uttered was 'Aamir' and probably his last too but we'll never know. For him, Aamir was the world and everything there in it. And probably that's why he became a man faster than Aamir. This is a story of loyalty and betrayal. It is a story of undying devotion and undying guilt. It is as much a story of the rough terrain of Afghanistan as much as it is a story of the cool climate of the US. Of kebabs and burgars. It is a story of innocence lost, of kids becoming adults in a matter of minutes, of insecurity and jealousy and most importantly of salvation and longing.

We all have an Aamir and a Hasan inside us. Just as we have the yin and yang. There have been so many times we have done something which we know in all our senses to be wrong, to be a sin. With the full knowledge that it will hurt the very person whom we love more than ourself and yet we have gone ahead and done just that. And from that moment onwards we have started living together with the demons of our past and 'sleep' became a matter of folklore. Isn't it a too familiar feeling? I guess we all have a sadist and a masochist within ourselves too.

But I believe and I believe this from the core of my deepest element that Life is always fair to us. No matter what the situations and circumstances are, she always gives us atleast 2 choices. To do or not to do is always the question. Like Rahim Khan says near the end of the novel, "There is a way to be good again." Might sound a bit condratictory but how many do get that golden chance to try his hand at redemption?

And even if redemption comes, won't it be a li'l too late to hear that familiar voice calling out, "For you, a thousand times over" ?

Sometimes paradise once lost can never be regained.
Just sometimes.