Mahashweta-Sudha Murty

A woman with a serious heart condition had gone into labour, and Dr. Anand had stayed at her side the whole night. By the time the child was delivered, Anand was exhausted. He gazed at mother and child, wondering whether the precise moment of birth was determined by the baby or its mother.

Both parents play a equally significant roles in the birth of a child. But at the moment of birth-the moment of truth-the only reality is the mother. She is the one who sheltered and nurtured the baby withing her body while the father watched the sidelines.

Initially Anupama did not bother much about the patch. But as the days passed, she realized that it was growing bigger. Anupama had seen many people with leukoderma, but had hardly given them a fleeting thought. Anupama could not share her agony with Anand.

Anu hesitated for a momet then raised her sari, so that her foot was exposed. The doctor was aware that tiny white patches like that had ruined many marriages, shattered many hearts, broken mant engagements. He did not try to stop her from crying. These patches may come anywhere at any age. There is no explanation for them at all. Some women even get them during pregnancy.

Shammana was called."Take ur daughter back with u; she need not come back until she is completely cured and my son returns and send for her. we have been deceived. Make sure u leave all the expensive gifts we have given u in your room, and take only what is yours when u go". Knowing that Radakka would humiliate him further, Anu went up to her father & stopped him from falling at Radhkka's feet. She wnet o her room collected a few things that beloned to her, Anand's photo's and left with tears in her eyes and did not look back even once.

Days passed and there was no reply from Anand. Anu sat down on a stone outside the temple. If anyone jumped from there, they would definitely die. She thought-how would it matter once she was dead? Nothing would hurt her. would anybody feel sorry for her? Miss her? Anand....he would be relieved once she was gone. Her mind was made up now. Some unseen power was holding her back. Anupama was better than Girija (SIL), but a small white patch was pushing her to her death. Was it fair? She had finally discovered the real Anand. He had loved her beauty and married her for it. He was not ready to accept her if her beauty was marred. Ppl would pity him and that would be unbearable for him.
She looked down at the valley again, and saw it in a different light. Life had begun to have new meaning for her. She was now ready to face the word. She looked back and prayed to Goddess, give me courage to live no matter what happens. Anu returned home and walked up her father to say----Appa I am getting bored here. I want to go to B'bay and stay with Sumi (her college freind).

Hari was surprized when he saw her. From Sumi's description, he had imagined Anupama as an ordinary girk with white patches marring her face and body. But the girl he saw standing b4 him was breathtakingly beautiful; she was like a heavenly vision come down to earth. Compared to Anu, Sumi looked plainer than ever.

Anu was invited to a wedding..a grand one. What was the use of all that expense? The real success of a marriage depended not on superficial factors such as those, but upon love and mutual understanding btw husband and wife.

Hari reached for anupama while she was changing her sari. She slapped him across his face. "u should be ashamed of urself. U have called me ur sister..will u behave wit ur sister like this?"
Hari reurned home from work and found Sumi cooking dinner. The house was quiet.Where is Anu?....Sumi replied--Oh!! She left this morning. She got a PG accommodation in Bandra.

Vasant was concentrating on the unconscious woman in front of him. She looked in her early 20's. What a blemish on this beautiful portrait! One of the para's from the book found in the patients purse was something Vasant still remembered reading from his school time--
There is no perfection in anything in life.
Even in the great river Ganga there are black serpents.
The beautiful saraswati has jet black curls;
The moon has a dark spot
Because even in nature perfection is not possible.

Anupama do u consider urself unfortunate?
No Satya--Ofthe 1000's of flowers that blossom on a tree a few will bear fruit. And out of those few fruits, insects and squirrels will eat some. Th etree does not keep anything for itself. Does that mean that the life of the tree is wasted? I have great freinds and good students, and I am econimically independent.

When did u come from england?...Anand---"2 yrs back. Anu plz forgive me Every1 makes msitakes"
Pls sit down. Which mistake are u seeking forgiveness for? Pls remember that saying the right thing at the right time is waht makes a conversation meaningful. Language is a tool we use to express ourselves. It is what differentiate animals from animals.
Anand found courage to say--Anu, Avva is old fashioned. She was worried that if we had daughters their future would be difficult.
U were worried abt ur unborn daughters' futures. I am also sombodies daughter, did u worry abt my future. U have never treated me as a human being. I was only a beautiful object u wished to possess and flaunt. Had I known ur attitude towards life, I would have told u to marry simebady else. Suppose u got leukoderma, do u think I woludl have left you for some other man?.

I have excellent friends who trust me and will not hesitate to help me if I am in trouble. Their unconditional love has never made me think of myself as blemished. I cannot help feeling sad for those women who are still at the mercy of their husbans and in laws, and are emotionally and economically dependent on them. I am independent and I thank God for having been so fortunate".

Anupama, think one more time about what I have said..come back to me!

Anupama picked her books, "U are a well educated man from a good family. But there is one thing u have not learnt..U should never call a woman whom u do not know by her given name"
Anand watced and Anupama walked awa

Vasant was supposed to leave for his village in 3 weeks. He still wanted to know what Anupama had decided to accept his proposal.
I am sorry Vasant, but pls forget ur idea. I dont want to get entangled in the same circle of husband and family.
Anupama u won't be 4ever young. Who will ook after u in ur old age?
Do u think we should marry and have children so that we have simeone to look after us in our oldage? This is not right..others have their own lives to lead.
Anupma smiled and Vanst tried hard to hide his unhappiness. Oh goD! If only I had known her before her husband ruined her life, I would not have lost this priceless jewel!

Freako-nOmics

• What do School Teachers and Sumo wrestlers have in common?

We all learn to respond to incentives, -ve and +ve, from the outset of life. An incentive is a bullet, a lever, a key:an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation. It simply means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. There are basic 3 flavors of incentive: economic, social and moral. Very often a single incentive scheme will include all 3 varieties.
So if sumo wrestlers, schoolteachers,and day care parents all cheat, are we to assume that mankind is innately & universally corrupt? And if so..how corrupt?

• Where have all the Criminals gone?

In 1966, one yr after Nicolae Ceausescu became the communist dictator of Romania, he made abortion illegal. "The fetus is the property of the entire society,". Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity."
Ceausescu's ban on abortion was designed to achieve one of his major aims:to rapidly strengthen Romania by boosting its population. Abortion was in fact the main form of birth control, with four abortions for every live birth. Now virtually overnight, abortion was forbidden. The only exemption were mothers who already had four children or women with significant standing in the communist party. At the same time, all contraception and sex education were banned. Govt agents sardonically known as the Menstrual Police regularly rounded up women in their woek places to administer pregnancy tests. If woman repeatedly failed to concieve, she was forced to pay a steep "celibacy tax"

Crime drop explanations: Tougher gun laws.
Debates on this subject are rarely coolheaded. Gun advocates believe that gun laws are too strict: opponents believe exactly the opp. What is gun? - Its a tool that can be used to kill someone, of course, but more significantly, a gun is a great disrupter of the natural order.

What the link between abortion and crime does say is this: when the govt gives a woman the opportunity to make her own decisions about abortion, she generally does a good job of figuring out if she is in a position to raise the baby well. If she decides she can't she often chooses the abortion.

But once a woman decides she will have her baby, a pressing question arises, what are parents supposed to do once a child is born??

• What makes a perfect parent?

What I don;t agree to :Moms and dads achieving excellence in parenting, stressing how imp it is to train a baby , early on to sleep alone through the night.

What I agree: Co- Sleeping. Sleeping alone is harmful for a baby's psyche and that he shoould be brought into the "family bed".

It is also believed that a crying baby should never be picked up unless it is in pain. As Holt, explained , a baby should be left to cry for 15-30 minutes a day as it's the baby's exercise.

Consider the parents of an 8yr old girl named, say Molly. Her 2 best friends, Amy and Imani each live nearby. Molly;s parents know that Amy's parents keep a gun in their house, so they have forbidden Molly to play there. Instead, Molly spend a lot of time at Imani's house, which has a swimming pool in the backyard. Molly's parents feel good about having made such a smart choice to protect their daughter.

But acc to the data their choice isn't smart at all. In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the US. Mean while there is 1 child killed by gun for every 1 million plus guns. So why is a swimming pool less frightening than a gun? The thought of a child being shot through the chest with a neighbor's gun is gruesome, dramatic, horrifying-in a word, outrageous. Swimming pools do not inspire outrage. This is due in part to the familiarity factor. Just as most people spend more time in cars than in airplanes, most of us have a lot more exp swimming in pools than shooting guns. But it takes only about thirty seconds for a child to drown, and it often happens noiselessly. An infant can drown in water as shallow as a few inches. The steps to prevent drowning, meanwhile are pretty straightforward: a watchful adult, a fence around the pool, a locked back door so a toddler doesn't slip outside unnoticed.

The Kite Runner- Khalid Hosseini

Reading this book was a good experience. Normally, men are generalized to be 'Baba' type's. The one's who are macho and ready to go, always on toes for any sort of struggle or challenge. But the way the character of Amir has been portrayed, we see a very rare disposition of man, where he does not want to confront things but just let them pass by without being a part of the storm even while being in the amidst of a twister. Amir's constant struggle with his pricking conscience to forget the bitter truth about Hassan is greatly shown in bits and pieces. His ill deed of witnessing the horrible scene, which ultimately tortured both his and Hassan's companionship has followed him till the end of the novel.

The emotional being in both Amir and Hassan while being cruel and kind respectively is what I liked reading. Amir tries hell lot so that Hassan leaves their house and once and for all he can get rid of the monsters in his head that remind him of the day Hassan fought for his master's kite..His 'Amir Agha's' kite. The same day when Amir was acclaimed as a winner, but in stead the toll of events made him feel nothing more than a looser.
The protagonist here is Amir, but if I would make a film.. :-))..(allow yourself to laugh!!)...in my film the lead character would be Hassan. As the story revolves around his mystery and the unexplained love from Baba for him.

Although after knowing about Hassan being Baba's son, I thought how come I could not guess it. But I was really amazed to know that twist in the story.
Also it made me sad to comprehend how Amir must have felt after knowing, how could he be a silent spectator to the wrongness that took place with Hassan. Somehow, the portrayal of his
calm and unoffensive nature makes me think, even if he knew, the truth about Hassan and Baba, would he have the nerves to fight Assef and his friends and stop the injustice??

From the beginning of the book, the beauty about the town Kabul and then Afghanistan is very stunning. Rahim Khan, Ali, Soraya, Sanauber, The General, Jamila Jaan, Baba and Amir and of course Sohrab and Farid....they all have their own small stories that gives air to the entire tale of The KiTe Runner. The afgani words are something to hold on to. Tashakor...for means Thank U....Many more that I would like to list at the end.

Hassan though not a literate is depicted to more wiser and considerate than Amir. He comprehends Amir's virgin stories and dreams even much aptly than Amir himself.
"The same night I wrote my first story. It took me 30 minutes. It was a drak tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. Buteven though he had always been poor, he was happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himslef sad so that his tears could make him rich The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in his hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain bosy in his arms "
Amir narrates his story to Hassan in the middle of the night.
"Someday Inshallah, you will be a great writer. But will you permit me to ask a ? about the story, he said shyly. If I may ask,why did the man kill his wife? In fact, why did he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldn't he have just smelled an onion?"
I was stunned. That particular point, so obvious it was utterly stupid, hadnt even occurred to me. I moved my lips soundlessly. The plot hole. Taught by Hassan of all people. Hassan who couldn't had never written a single word in his entire life. A voice, cold and dark, suddenly whispered in my ear,What does he know, that illeterate Hazara. Well..I began and never got to finish my sentence.

They'd both been crying: I could tell from their red, puffed up eyes. Baba came right out and asked, "Did u steal that money? Did u steal amir's watch Hassan?" Hassan replied in a resly voice-Yes!

I flinched, like I'd been slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out the truth. Then I understood:this was Hassan's final sacrifice for me. If he has said NO, Babab would have believed him because we all knew Hassan never lied. He knew I'd seen everything in that alley, tat I'd stood there and done nothing. he knew I had betrayed him and yet he once again, maybe for the las time. I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone, and I wanted to tell them that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn't worthy of sacrifice, I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. I wanted to bearth again. Except Baba stunned me by saying"I forgive u Hassan."

Forgive? But theft was the one unforgivable sin, the common de nominator of all sins. When U kill a man, u steal alife. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. when U tell a lie u steal someone from the right to the truth. When u cheat, u steal th eright to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing. Hadn't Baba sat me on his lap and said these words?. Then how could he forgive me for not being the son he'd always wanted? Why?

We are leaving, why don;t u leave us to the bus station to Hazarajat?

Then I saw Baba do something I had never seen him doing before: he cried. It scared me a little, seeing a grown man sob. Fathers weren't supposed to cry.

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The skirting finally came to end over the dinner, when the general put down his fork and aid, " So amirJan, you're going to tell us why you have brought back this boy with you?"Jamila Jan and Soraya both objected at General's inquisitiveness....

"Its Ok SOraya, Is Ok General sahib is quite right. People will ask. "

U see genral Sahib, my father slept with his servan;t wfe. she bore him a son named Hassan. Hassan is dead ow. that boy sleeping on my couch is Hassan's son. he's my nephew. thats what u tell people when they ask"

They were all staring at me. "And one more thing General Sahib, U will never again refer to him as Hazara boy in my presence. he has a name and its Sohrab"

At this point of time I wonder, that was this confession(Where he accepts Sohrab as a nephew from his father's illegitimate relation) more painful to Amir or would in his childhood having the courage to tell that he was there when Hassan was molested, that would have been more gruesome. I guess as one's Ego grows with time, definitely he must have been more hurt to let his wife and her family know about the truth. But high time that he realized, not everything can be covered under the gloominess of night and slept over on. His wife Soraya was a doll to accept Sohrab and was patient, despite her gestures to bestow Sohrab with motherhood, which she failed every time she maintained her cool and gave all the time and space to both Amir and Sohrab to come above their insecurities relating to their respective kite running childhood's.

Some afgani words and their meanings-

• Laaf- Tendency to exaggerate
• Saratan- Cancer
• Qiyamat- The Judgement Day
• Chapandaz- Highly skilled horesmen
• Shahnamah- 10th century Epic of ancient persian heroes.
• Goshtakhar - Ear eater
• Kunis- Fag
• Moftakhir - Proud
• Khannum- Wife
• Tassali- Condolence
• Parchami - Communist
• Salaam Bachem- Hello my child
• Zinda Mirgaza- Lofe goes on
• Khastegars- Suitors
• Yelda- First night of winter
• Nang Namoos- Honor & Pride
• Mojarad- Single yound man
• Moalem- Teacher
• Komak- Somebody help
• Iftikhar- Pride
• Khar Khara Mishnassah- Takes a donkey to know a donley
• Khoshteep- Handsome
  
• Shirni Khori- Eating of Sweets
• Kochech Morgha- Chicken Bazaar
• Qishla- Military Barracks
• Ihtiram- Respect
• Hadia - Gift