Current mood:

mellow

painting signs and running kites
well for starters... i almost threw a fit when i couldnt find a single book store or magazine vendor in noida.. for someone who breathes books and is ridiculed for prefering books to television, this was a terrible jolt... but life got better and i found galgotias book store where i lay my hands on khaled hosseini's the kite runner. now the strange thing is that this book is there in my college library and in spite of being a book freak i never got my hands on it these past few months... but here, in noida, once i got started i couldnt stop..



from the start the story plunges into an afghanistan that most people of my age group will not recognise... peaceful streets, lively markets with kabab vendors and naan shops and the annual kite flying competition... not the bomb-infested, poverty-stricken afghanistan that i am aware of..
and enveloped in this world of peace are two boys with a kinship tying them together.. but the book is also about responsibilities... responsibilties of love and family and humanity most of all yourself. im not a profound person, i usually dont get the underlying message and i never get metaphors and allegories... but u cant help but get what hosseini is saying through his book... as afghanistan changes over night and goes through a complete overhaul the characters go through similar upheavals in their minds and lives... they walk away from fights of honour, they try to shirk responsibility and they all experience the pain of being alive...



and then there is r.k. narayan's the painter of signs...though it's written is narayan's simplistic style, it's really not that simple. u can't always define someone within a set of parameters and u cant always expect someone to live by ur definition of them.. it isnt wrong to have expectations.. but life is fragile and our expectations might never take shape... and the painter of signs is a testimony to great expectations that never see the light of day...