Book Review

"Every street of Kabul is enthralling to the eye

Through the bazaars, caravans of Egypt pass

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs

And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls"

In this patriarthal society where females are considered to be inferio. where they are suppressed and dominated, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini set in Afghanistan, is a women centric novel. This novel deals with the rights of women, their suffering and pain, stories of their perseverance, shame, reputation, love, loyalty, and belongingness, gender relations, female friendships especially under the rule of the Taliban. The protagonists, Mariam and Laila grow up during the regimes which weren't oppressive. The unfair treatment of women as portrayed in this book is horrific and brutal, abusive, and the manipulative.

The story opens and depicts Mariam when she was just a five-year-old and hears the word 'Harami' or bastard child. For the first time in her life, her mum ‘Nana’ said this to her. Mariam was an illegitimate child of her parents. Her father Jalil was an affluent man who owned a movie theatre in Herat. To Mariam, Jalil was a marvellous father and a prototype of rectitude. But to Nana, he was a lapsed burden to his family. Though Nana, her mother, nurtured her yet she is enamoured of her alienated father, Jalil.

“You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.”

Mariam was forbidden the opportunity to study in a school by her mother. Nana doesn't want Mariam to go to school because she feels she can teach Mariam everything a girl like her needs to know. Mariam and her mother are outcasts. Nana wants them to be left alone to live their lives.

After falling into deep despair after her mother's death, Mariam is abandoned by Jalil. Jalil's wives want nothing to do with Mariam. This forced Jalil to marry Mariam off to Rasheed a widowed shoemaker in Kabul. He was thirty years elder to Mariam and were married forcefully despite her attempts to prevail celibate. Her seized marriage to Rasheed ultimately propels her into a life of submission and agony. Rasheed lost his first wife and son years ago he married Mariam to get a son. He used Mariam so that she could fulfil his wish of having sons. He never loved her. He forcefully made Mariam wear a burqa. Mariam was infertile. When she fails to give Rasheed a son, Rasheed lacerates and abuses her both verbally and corporally.

“Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”

Laila is the second female protagonist of the story. Laila has a strong desire to use her intelligence and education to improve the world around her. Her father Hakim, is an advocate for women's equality and wants his daughter to receive an education and learn to think for herself. At age fifteen, Laila falls in love with her best mate since childhood, Tariq, but war forces Tariq and his parents to escape to Pakistan. But by this time Laila is pregnant with Tariq's baby. Laila's virtue and sovereignty are challenged when she decides to marry Rasheed to give her unborn child by Tariq as a father. Upon maturing into a mother, Laila puts her children first and finds she is amenable to endure constraints she once would have openly mocked.

“Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.”

Through her growing relationship with Mariam, Laila not only takes comfort in having a friend and mother figure but also begins to understand the sacrifices that are necessary to be a good mother by following Mariam's precedent. Mariam originally was aloof. Steadily warms Laila as she endeavours to cope with both Rasheed's abuse and the baby. Though Mariam was not the real mother of Aziza. Still, she unconditionally loved her. According to my inference, this is maybe because Mariam was infertile and could never produce kids that's why she loved her. Also because her father never segregated his love. He equally loved Mariam met her once a week, bought gifts for her and was enamoured of sitting her on his lap and telling her stories. Each day Rasheed would disparage upon the fact that he was blessed with a baby girl. Rasheed's sinful and evil nature is even more illuminated when he forcefully sends Aziza to an orphanage. This instance from the novel shoes that he was orthodox. He felt that his reputation was ruined after being blessed by a daughter. This Latter on the two become close friends and confidantes, formulating a proposal to escape away from Rasheed and leave Kabul, but they were forthwith caught. Rasheed beats both of them, fastening them up separately and stripping them of water and virtually annihilating Aziza.

“But the game involves only male names. Because, if it's a girl, Laila has already named her”

Both Mariam and Laila shares a strong bond of love. This is accented in the instance when Laila vows to christen her third baby Mariam if she would be endowed with a baby girl. She always assumed that Mariam is materialistically away from her. But her love nevertheless endures. And Mariam would eternally prevail gleaming in her heart forever.

In my opinion, if Traiq would not have left Laila then she might be felicitous. She would be entitled to study and work. She would have been contented and savoured her life which she was not experiencing with Rasheed. Also, Tariq would have graciously endured Aziza as his girl. That is because he was liberal, enlightened, open-minded rebellious and passionate. But on the other side if we look then Rasheed would always abuse Mariam. She could not share her tribulation with someone. She could not feel untroubled, the way she was the proximity of Laila. On the whole, she could have been the solitary quarry of the frustration of Rasheed for not being able to deliver a son and being sterile.

I was intensely moved after reading this book. This novel touched the abstrusely, most reconcile and most cryptic parts of my breast. I was shaken up and profoundly stirred after reading about the foremost protagonists Mariam and Laila. The most poignant thing which I found to be the most pitiful was that both Mariam and Laila shielded, cared and were vehement for each other. Both reciprocally understood each other and nourished each other in their most intricate and ferocious times.

I would highly endorse this book to teenagers and especially to adults. This book steers to uphold fairness before both the genders and the civilisation should treat both the genders equally, respectfully and ceremoniously. The girl upon who's birth we are fretting today might become a scientist a world-renowned astronaut, a doctor, a poet or a successful prosecutor.

So what are you all waiting for? Pick up the book and discover whatever transpired next? Did Mariam, Laila, Aziza withstand Raheed's ominous character? Did they try to escape again? Did Tariq ever revisit? Happy reading to everyone!

- Pragati Sharma