The Servant and the Master's son

Recently i concluded a famous novel "The Kite Runner" by an Afghan writer named Khalid Hosseini. It is one of the best novels i have read ever in my life. Hosseini, an Afghan physician settled in America tells us a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transforming the life of Aamir, the stories' young narrator. A personal plot arising from the close friendship between Aamir and Hassan,the son of Aamir's father's servant Ali is a thread tying the book together.The fragility of this relationship, symbolized by the kites the boys fly together, is tested as they watch their old way of life disappear. Hassan bears Amir no resentment and is, in fact, a loyal companion to the lonely boy. whose mother is dead and father a rich businessman is always busy or preoccupied.Hassan always protects Aamir from sadistic neighbourhood bullies and in turn Aamir fascinates Hassan by reading him heroic afghan folk tales.Then, during a kite-flying tournament that should be the triumph of Amir's young life, Hassan is brutalized by some upper-class teenagers. Amir's failure to defend his friend will haunt him for the rest of his life. Hosseini's depiction of pre revolutionary Afghanistan shows the tense relationships between countries different ethnic groups especially between the pashruns and Hazaras who are mostly the Shias.Aamir's father or baba is generous enough to respect his son's artistic yearnings and to treat the lowly Hassan with great kindness, even arranging for an operation to mend the child's harelip. As the civil war starts to ravage the country Amir and his father must flee for their lives.In California, Baba works at a gas station to put his son through school; on weekends he sells secondhand goods at swap meets. Despite poverty the exiled afghans manage to keep alive their ancient standards of honor and pride.As Amir grows to manhood, settling comfortably into America and a happy marriage, his past shame continues to haunt him.He keeps worrying about Hassan, wondering what has happened to him back in Afghanistan. Hosseini describes the suffering of his country under the tyranny of the Taliban, whom Amir encounters when he finally returns home, hoping to help Hassan and his family.The final third of the book is full of haunting images: a man, desperate to feed his children, trying to sell his artificial leg in the market; an adulterous couple stoned to death in a stadium during the halftime of a football match; a rouged young boy forced into prostitution, dancing the sort of steps once performed by an organ grinder's monkey. When Amir meets his old nemesis, now a powerful Taliban official, the book descends into some plot twists better suited to a folk tale than a modern novel. But in the end we're won over by Amir's compassion and his determination to atone for his youthful cowardice. Through "Kite Runner"Hosseini gives us an engaging story which reminds one how long the people of Afghanistan have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence forces that continue to threaten them even today.