Thousand Splendid Sons

Thousand Splendid Sons signifies the golden age of Afghanistan. After having read Khaled Hossenis 2 books I am in love with that age of Afghanistan, with the GOOD brave men who stood by TRUE principles and fought the darkness that followed and most of all I am absolutely awe struck by Afghan women. Life cannot be more wretched, brutal and full of lust. I get shivers thinking of a world in which stoning to death, cutting of boobs, tounges and rape are the most obvious punishments of freedom of speech, thought or action. For a moment I wanna be selfish, close my eyes, feel at peace thinking about beautiful India and thank God for my mom, sisters and women friends for whom freedom is a way of life.

Now getting back to the book, by Khaled Hosseni and how it played with me, read on because its quite a co-incidence. I bought this book when I was in Mumbai. Thankfully I bought the original copy from crossword and paid my dues, my conscience would have snake bit me otherwise.

I would read the book whenever I got free time in that busy 24 day vacation and was reading the book on my Rajdhani trip to Kolkata. I was on the 68 th page. THIS PAGE MAKES A BRIEF MENTION ABOUT KOLKATA AND I READ IT EXACTLY WHEN THE TRAIN WAS APPROACHING THE KOLKATA RAILWAY STATION. I smile to myself at the co-incidence and soon forget about it. The next 2 days in Kolkata are really gruesome for me and my family. We go on a hell of a trip, enduring countless points of no returns, braving stampedes, boat sinking which could have happened so easily in a place where 12 lakh (1.2 million) human beings are trying to travel on the SAME day via mediocre infrastructure. The fact that we came out so well of the intense suffering will remain with us for the rest of our lives. I had not realised that the book was playing with me then, neither have you am sure.I kept reading the book on and off through the trip and decided to continue reading it on my flight back from Mumbai. First half of the trip went well. My flight had a halt in Frankfurt, Germany. I reached the boarding point at Frankfurt around 10 minutes in time and decided to read on. Boarding started and I was still reading. I READ PAGE NUMBER 156 AND THE BOOK MAKES A BRIEF MENTION ABOUT FRANFURT, GERMANY.

Some co-incidence, the book talks about Kolkata when I am in kolkata and about Frankfurt Germany when I am there.

I get into the flight and the flight has a left engine failure. Thankfully it was caught berfore we flew, else I wouldnt be writing ;-). We sit in the flight for 4 hours waiting for it to be fixed after which the technicians give up and the flight is cancelled. We get an alternate flight to Chicago after 2 more hours. And the connecting flight has another technical flaw. It has one crucial nut missing and it takes another 2 hours to fix it. The 24 hour journey becomes a 40 hour one.The fact that the book is about intense suffering and it gives me a hint twice before I get into trouble baffled me. I finished the book by the end of the trip to Dallas, hoping that I do not read Dallas, TX in it :-)