Iam not writing any book or a movie review neither iam going to write how to run for the kites. It has nowhere any connection with the Hrithik Roshan’s Upcoming movie “KITES”(sorry if misspelt, don’t know how many Kkk’s).
But this one is about a nation known as Afghanistan. A nation which has never seen a hopeful morning since it was born, which has never embraced full-fledged democracy(though there runs government but it’s not in control as president has to urge Taliban to peacefully allow elections to occur).
Well my story starts with a tale of two friends, not usual friendship(like jai and veeru) .Here one is a lad of rich man and other one is of the poor servant. It was the time of 1970’s when Afghanistan was ruled by king ZAHIR SHAH. There was peace up to the level that one could live there. Kite flying was one such competition where people meet and socialize. Coming to the story, these two young people, one is a pashtun and other is a hazara(ethnic groups). Kabul was predominantly a pashtuns dominated city where a hazara is considered an outcast at that time. They were scoffed and seen with no dignity.
Same happened with these two young boys also when the hazara boy(named Hasan) was called a flat nosed and pariah. The father of other boy(rich one) is a man of power and great influence.
He has a lot of credibility and social status, which he flaunted while giving a birthday bash for his son. But the days of peace and affluence lasted no longer. Due to catastrophic political turmoil King Zahir Shah was sent to exile and Afghanistan was overpowered by the Communist(Russians).The Afghans went with war against the Soviets but they had immense artillery and warfare and wreaked havoc on Afghanistan and its people. It was the mammoth devastation and can be imagined that no house was left unshattered. The Soviets took the reins of Afghanistan in their hands. People flew from the country to find safe havens. The rich boy(named Amir) with his father found his new abode in the safest haven, The USA(9/11 haven’t occurred then).
Afghanistan was in anarchy. The Writer of the book had fled to USA but back home, people were horrified. Then came a ray of hope in the name of Jihad-the Taliban(military group) was formed. Taliban with Strong US Support kicked the Soviet and started to rule the country.(US supported because of the Cold War going between them). People welcomed Taliban with both hands with great expectation of a better nation but all the hopes proved to be a chimera. Taliban enforced its own rules, punished people, raped women and worked according to their whims and fancies. What was expected never happened. In the meantime our writer graduated from the prestigious university in US. But the story has a twist; he came back to Afghanistan to search his nephew.(Hasan’s Son(Hasan is writer’s brother, long story watch it or read it) His nephew named Sohrab is living in an orphanage where some people from Taliban came and took him from there. Now Sohrab is like a dancing doll for the cruel people of Taliban.
The writer came back to his home nation to save his nephew from the merciless clutches of Taliban and he succeed in it(Don’t ask how, it a story). Though it can happen in a fiction story but never in reality. While all this was going in the story I happened to think of the other children who were living in that orphanage. What not, heinous acts Taliban have done to them? I was thinking of the poor and naïve people of Afghanistan who have ceaselessly beard the disastrous destruction of war since decades.
What mindset do they live in is a question, I could not find an answer. The US army again dethroned the rule of Taliban and helped form Hamid Karzai’s Government, but their ubiquitous influence and deadly intentions are explicit. Though Afghans are living in a democratic country from 2004 but not an iota of threat has been reduced from their hearts. Afghanistan is again going for elections to form the second democratic government.
But is it really a democratic one where people do not sleep in peace and are not sure to see the peaceful dawn?