Latest news with #TheKiteRunner
The Hindu
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
The characters one lives through
'I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked... I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.' — Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar No one captured the daunting feeling of choosing who to become more eloquently than Sylvia Plath. The fear of regret from selecting a wrong path is often so strong, it paralyses us into inaction. We remain on the sidelines, hoping not to make a decision at all, until ultimately the regret we experience is not for having chosen poorly, but for not having chosen at all. By the time the realisation of a life wasted sinks in, it's too late. All we can do is watch our life pass by like a missed train, while we stand on the platform, unable to move. So is the cruelty of nature. It offers us a million possibilities but the capacity of picking only one. But man is a cunning being. He devised ways to achieve the privilege of multiple lives, a privilege reserved only for the gods. He created stories. He built worlds. He wrote books. Man found ways to slip in and out of lives through the pages of novels he wrote. Books might be man's greatest creation yet. They let him taste the grief of a father losing his son, the longing for a partner that was never truly his, the thrill of falling in love, all encapsulated in a tiny piece of paper and ink. In them, he could live and die a thousand times, without ever leaving the quiet of his room. It's beautiful, I suppose, the quiet rebellion of it, like a whispered defiance against the tyranny of a single path. Books, like any other art forms, have always represented escapism, but novels go beyond and define another world to escape into. They have always been portals, not just mirrors. In them, we don't just reflect our lives, we rewrite them. We imagine who we could have been, and sometimes, who we're too afraid to become. I've been Amir in The Kite Runner, living in Taliban-occupied Afghanistan. I've been Nora in The Midnight Library, I've felt the ache of unlived lives. I've been the nameless protagonist in Rebecca, navigating my identity in a world dominated by men. I've been Patroclus, lover of Achilles, doomed to love in silence and to die for a war that is not mine to fight. Through them, I've grieved, yearned, fought, fled, fallen, and found myself again. These characters are not strangers on a page, they are echoes of all the lives I might have lived. And in reading them, I have lived a little more than one life, and that, I think, is a kind of salvation. ananyasaraff142@
Indian Express
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Who is Leila Aboulela, the Sudanese-Scottish writer who just won the 2025 PEN Pinter Prize?
Sudanese-Scottish author Leila Aboulela was named winner of the 2025 PEN Pinter Prize, on Wednesday, joining a prestigious list of writers who, in the spirit of Harold Pinter, have cast an 'unflinching, unswerving gaze upon the world.' The announcement was made at English PEN's annual summer party in London, where Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner, 2007) and Amira Ghazalla (Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, 2017) brought Aboulela's work to life in moving readings before an audience of writers, publishers, and cultural figures. Calling the honour 'a complete and utter surprise,' Aboulela said the award brings expansion and depth to the meaning of freedom of expression and the stories that get heard. 'For someone like me, a Muslim Sudanese immigrant who writes from a religious perspective probing the limits of secular tolerance, this recognition feels truly significant,' she said. Aboulela will formally receive the prize at a ceremony on October 10 at the British Library, where she will also announce the Writer of Courage, an individual persecuted for their work defending free expression, with whom she will share the honour. The title has previously been bestowed on figures such as British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah (2024) who was persecuted for 'spreading false news' and Uyghur folklore expert Rahile Dawut (2023), who was was reportedly sentenced to life in prison by Chinese authorities on charges of endangering state security. Born in Cairo and raised in Khartoum, Aboulela moved to Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1990. Her work explores the themes of migration, faith, memory, and the interior lives of Muslim women navigating the intersections of culture, belief, and belonging. Her novels, including The Translator (1999), Minaret (2005), and most recently, River Spirit (2023), have earned critical acclaim, have been translated into 15 languages, and are now studied in universities. Aboulela was the first winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing and has won both the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award and the Scottish Book Awards. She is an Honorary Professor at the University of Aberdeen and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. This year's judges, Ruth Borthwick, Chair of English PEN; poet and author Mona Arshi; and novelist Nadifa Mohamed, praised Aboulela for the force of her storytelling. 'Leila is a writer for this moment,' said Borthwick. 'She tells us rarely heard stories that make us think anew about who lives in our neighbourhoods and communities.' Arshi noted the 'subtlety and courage' with which Aboulela brings silenced lives to the forefront, while Mohamed lauded her for examining 'the interior lives of migrants' and writing with 'a commitment to make the lives and decisions of Muslim women central to her fiction.' The judges emphasised how Aboulela's work, spanning novels, short stories, and radio plays, provides 'a balm, a shelter, and an inspiration' amid global tumult and displacement, particularly poignant given the ongoing conflicts in Sudan, Gaza, and beyond. Named after the late Harold Pinter, the Nobel Laureate whose fierce moral clarity defined much of post-war British drama, the PEN Pinter Prize honours writers who exhibit what Pinter called an 'unflinching, unswerving' gaze upon the world. Since its inception in 2009, the award has recognized writers such as Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie (2018), Arundhati Roy (2024), and, Salman Rushdie (2014), who have consistently challenged political complacency through literature. The tradition continues in Aboulela's work. Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics. She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks. She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year. She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home. Write to her at or You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More
Indian Express
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
My Father and I: Writers on books and bonding
'Some of my most cherished memories are of the family trips we took together to Nainital, Nepal, Mussoorie, Pachmarhi, Jabalpur and other places.' These were not just holidays, but deeply anchoring experiences: 'Travelling with him and my mother, discovering new places, and just being together as a family gave me a deep sense of security and joy.' That sense lingers still: 'Even now, those memories evoke a warm nostalgia and a quiet smile.' Former diplomat and author Vikas Swarup with his father Vinod Swarup. (Source: Express Photo) As years pass, so too does the curiosity deepen about who our parents were before they became our parents. 'I often wonder what he was like as a young man, before life happened. We never really had that kind of conversation, and I wish we had.' But timing, always elusive: 'He turns 90 this year, but I doubt he would want to have that kind of conversation now!' He suggests two that resonate. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini — 'which captures the silences and complexities in father-son relationships.' And The Road by Cormac McCarthy — 'though bleak in tone, is a haunting meditation on the bond between a father and son.' (Vikas Swarup, former diplomat; author of Slumdog Millionaire, The Accidental Apprentice, Six Suspects; host of the podcast Diplomatic Dispatch) On a favorite memory: 'Let me show you some photographs, each one encrypted with voices and stories,' she writes. 'Old black and white photographs of my parents and me, held in place by neat cardboard corners in the stiff black pages of a vintage family album. My father, mother and me. In the active periphery of my childhood there were aunts and uncles and grandmother, each one a strong presence. But the nucleus of my world was the three of us.' She remembers a summer evening when she was three and a half, and seized by a sudden desire to become a 'Sahib'. 'Not a memsahib but a Sahib. Maybe inspired by a picture in some book my father read out to me… In the absence of a tail-coat I demanded my green winter frock-coat and in default of the fitted breeches I shrieked for my green woollen dungarees with the red embroidered squirrel on its chest-flap.' The trouble was — it was June. 'These were winter clothes, packed away with dried neem leaves and camphor balls in the heavy metal trunk, and the timing of my impassioned fantasy had fallen on a hot June evening!' Her mother tried to resist. 'My mother threatened me with a slap, several slaps and imminent hammering but I gritted my teeth and persisted.' Then came her father: 'That long-suffering man of imagination, came to my rescue and reasoned: 'The child is deeply involved in some creative make-believe. We must not shatter it. Take out the woollen clothes and dress her.'' 'So, hatted and booted, in thick woollen clothes, swaying a stick, a child walked down the Colonelgunj road… and into the triangular park! My Dad walked with me with a very straight face, fully co-operating with my inner life. We must have made a curious spectacle that hot June evening… I remember taking a turn or two round the park before the heat and oppression of my heavy woollen clothes put my fantasy to flight.' 'How can I ever retrieve my father in words? A lot of people who knew him used the word 'genius'… Musician, mathematician, physicist, linguist, philosopher, educationist. He was all these things… I am in no position to measure him. He was my father, playmate, refuge, counselor.' She remembers how he let her scrawl on walls, pile toys on his bed, sketch elephants, and hold captured flies in his palm before gently releasing them. 'His very first sentence, on seeing me a few minutes after I was born, was: 'This daughter is more to me than seven sons can be to their fathers. And I shall teach her seven languages.'' She reflects now: 'The one thing I wish I could tell my father (who passed away in 1990) is: Dad, it hasn't been an easy life for me but I discovered that I had hidden reserves of strength in me, thanks to the depth of security you provided me as a child.' 'Off-hand I can recall To Kill A Mockingbird.' (Neelum Saran Gour, author of 'Sikandar Chowk Park', 'Virtual Realities', and 'Messrs Dickens, Doyle and Wodehouse Pvt. Ltd.') 'As a child, I had a deep fascination for trains. I must have been three or four years old at the time. My father would take me to the Ghatsila railway station just to look at trains and listen to their piercing whistles. We used to go up on the foot overbridge and see trains passing beneath. When an engine honked loudly, I used to be so frightened I would grab my father's hand and hold it tightly.' The railway station then was still cloaked in colonial-era architecture — 'that sturdy structure of bricks and lime' — but to the young Sowvendra, 'this just added to my sense of wonder and awe, and my father was my companion in this adventure.' 'I come from a space where fathers are still figures of authority. Everything that fathers say are correct. We don't usually oppose them. So to think that I would have something to say to my father is quite unlikely.' And yet, he offers: 'Perhaps, only an apology for the disappointments I may have caused him and to tell him how much having him as my father has meant to me.' The Small-Town Sea by Anees Salim. 'This is a favourite of mine. I will recommend it to everyone but my father though.' (Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, author of The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey, The Adivasi Will Not Dance, and Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire) 'My father and I have always loved furniture-gazing in vintage shops.' It began in childhood in Calcutta — 'in the auction houses in Park Street or Russell Street or in the dingy but incredible shops of Gopalnagar near New Alipore.' Their shared passion was less about purchasing and more about the romance of discovering: 'Our budgets seldom matched our vision. (Of course, for my father, the true joy was uncovering a jewel from a dump. A set of nested tables that turned out to be rosewood: the shopkeeper did not change the original price he'd quoted as a salaam to my father.)' Later, in Delhi, this father-daughter ritual continued. 'He and I have worn out the soles of our shoes in and around MG Road and Amar Colony. There was one memorable trip to the land of Punjabi Baroque, Keerti Nagar, though we didn't buy.' Their ultimate favourite? 'Sharma Farms in Chhatarpur.' But even when purchases were made, they weren't necessarily practical: 'Our desires have always exceeded the sizes of the homes we have to furnish at any given moment. And sometimes our purchases end up giving off a whiff of grandiosity which is perhaps a little comic.' Still, the act is rich with meaning. 'Baba and I have filled mansions without owning them — and had robust disagreements about the placement of pieces in said mansions (for instance, where would one place the gorgeous corner piece with the four giant flying cherubs, in the most fine-grained of mahogany?).' 'It is glorious. It is mad. It is a regular weekday afternoon jaunt. We are pros after all; we won't go to any of these places on the weekend, when people who want to buy furniture (not dreams) come.' 'My husband hopes that our daughter will do the same with him in Defence Expo one (Devapriya Roy, author of Indira; The Vague Woman's Handbook; Friends from College, and The Heat and Dust Project) 'My father, Pran Chopra — eminent journalist, super intelligent mind.' For much of her life, he remained emotionally reserved, and their relationship, tinged with distance. 'He was always reserved about his emotions and I was a bit formal with him.' But in the twilight of his life, a profound reversal occurred, not just in memory, but in relationship. 'Towards his last days, as that intellect wore away with age related dementia, he began to think of me as his mother and talked of his childhood, his love of me, the comfort I gave him.' In that final unraveling of mind, there was a gift of connection. 'He passed away in my arms, his head in my lap.' 'Oh dad, I loved you so. I hope you knew the comfort that you gave me.' (Paro Anand, author of Like Smoke, Nomad's Land, Being Gandhi, and I'm Not Butter Chicken; recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puruskar) 'My father passed, unexpectedly, when I was barely ten.' What remained was the ache of absence, softened only by fragments of memory: 'He was a very good humored man and my parents were very much in love. So his death tore us up. I can still feel the void.' The grief was early and searing, leaving her trying to hold on to something real. 'I remember trying to keep my eyes fixed on his feet throughout the time his body was kept in our house before the cremation, hoping that the sight would be etched in my mind forever that way.' In the years that followed, her longing became layered with speculation, of what might have been. 'It is hard to grow up without a father. I know that I probably would have disagreed with him when I grew up on many important things but I wish I had both my parents.' She offers a metaphor for the kind of nurture lost: 'Growing up with loving adults caring for you — and in our context those are mostly your biological parents — is like a sapling sprouting. By the time the sprout is ready to grow, the skin has to soften. Maybe my father would have softened by the time I was ready to leave.' (J Devika, historian, feminist, translator; author of Engendering Individuals and Kulasthreeyum Chanthappennum Undaayathengine?) Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics. She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks. She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year. She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home. Write to her at or You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
St. Francis schools to put banned books back on shelves
() St. Francis Area Schools will place banned books back on library shelves and rewrite its library policy to comply with state law, according to a settlement reached in a lawsuit filed by the teachers union. The district had banned hugely popular and celebrated books including 'The Handmaid's Tale,' 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower,' 'The Bluest Eye' and 'The Kite Runner,' among others. The settlement requires them to be returned to library shelves. Education Minnesota sued the district in March on behalf of students, teachers and parents, alleging that the district was violating state law by banning books based on their ideas, stories and characters. The American Civil Liberties Union also filed a separate lawsuit. In 2024, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor-controlled Legislature passed a law touted as a ban on book bans. The law does allow for books to be removed from shelves based on practical reasons, 'legitimate pedagogical concerns, including but not limited to the appropriateness of potentially sensitive topics for the library's intended audience,' and to comply with other state or federal laws. But school districts cannot remove books based solely on its viewpoint or the messages, ideas or opinions it contains. St. Francis Area Schools relied on a website called — which has ties to the right-wing group Moms for Liberty — to determine which books were subject to removal from school shelves. (Booklooks has since shut down, but a third-party organization is maintaining the website's catalog.) The St. Francis case provides a free speech victory following years of repression of books, especially those with themes about race, sexuality and gender. 'I think the book ban movement … it really has little to do with protecting children. It has everything to do with targeting books with diverse viewpoints that may not be in line with the reviewers' political or religious beliefs,' 'Kite Runner' author Khaled Hosseini told the Reformer in March. In the settlement with the teachers union, St. Francis Area Schools agreed to put the books back on shelves and create a new library materials policy that guarantees input from parents and qualified media specialists.
Hindustan Times
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Designer Vino Supraja is winning awards for an unusual fashion formula
'Every step in my career has been unplanned,' laughs fashion designer Vino Supraja, 45, 'but it has prepared me for exactly where I am today.' Her journey is testament to the power of serendipity, she adds. How else could a girl who 'spoke almost no English', growing up in the small temple town of Vandavasi in Tamil Nadu, end up winning a trailblazer award and delivering a speech on India's culture of sustainability, at the British House of Commons? 'I've grown to accept that when I'm willing to let go, be dismantled and reassembled, good things happen to me,' she says. Supraja started out, for instance, with a degree in architecture from Chennai. It was there that she met and fell in love with her husband 'and best friend' Deepak Renganathan, a marketing vice-president with a real-estate company. Eager to explore some of the new technology emerging in the early 2000s, she then completed a course in animation. This led to her first full-time job, as a TV presenter and radio jockey with Jaya TV. At this point, in 2011, her husband was offered a position in China, and she and their son Hriday (then six and now a medical student) moved with him. 'I spent hours browsing through courses there, trying to find something I could do,' Supraja says. That's when she stumbled upon a listing for a course in fashion design at the Shanghai outpost of the International Fashion Academy, Paris. 'This and a business course were the only two listings with websites in English, so I don't think I had much of a choice,' she says, laughing. Suddenly, it came together: her love of storytelling, her love of building, her passion for the arts. Here was a discipline where she could combine all three. Her graduate collection in 2014, inspired by the book The Kite Runner, made it to the Shanghai Fashion Week, where she won the Golden Laureate award. Her collections have since featured at the Brooklyn Fashion Week (2016), New York Fashion Week (2018), and London Fashion Week (2023), with designs increasingly rooted in Tamil culture. The instantly recognisable costumes of the ancient Tamil folk art form of Therukoothu (literally, Street Theatre) are reborn as ensembles. The iconic Bhavani jamakkalam stripes turn up in contemporary vibrancy, as accents on clutches and handbags. *** If it seems like Supraja is weaving her stories in fresh and surprising ways, it's partly because she grew up without the frames of reference of most of the urbanised world, she says. Folk lore took the place of fairy tales in her home. Her family had no TV set. Her father, the physician Dr Audikesavalu, opened up his house to patients from nearby villages that included Purisai, a hub of Therukoothu performers. The local temple hosted a range of folk artists too. 'These productions were not perfect. They were crude, raw and unpolished... which made them beautiful in their own way,' Supraja says. Her mother, Vimala Audikesavalu, ran a local school and was known for her collection of handloom saris, which she washed, starched and sun-dried every weekend, in a ritual that served as a bonding session for mother and daughter (and gave Supraja an early appreciation for and understanding of heirloom garments, traditional weaves and sustainable fashion). Syncretism was everywhere. The local church hosted Bharatnatyam classes. The Therukoothu performers let children from the neighbourhood watch and sometimes help with makeup backstage. 'My childhood was a patchwork of simple experiences but these fragments shaped me into who I am today,' she says. *** Given the opportunity to present a collection at London Fashion Week 2023, she decided to give Therukoothu 'the platform it deserves'. Her designs captured the depth and drama of the art form in flowy silhouettes. She showcased the art form itself too, through a one-minute performance by a Therukoothu artiste. Her latest collection is born of her travels to Bhavani in Erode district, to study the GI-tagged jamakkalam weave. The colourful stripes were traditionally used to make cotton rugs. She reimagines them as couture because 'if they can look like Gucci stripes, they deserve to sit alongside them too'. 'Having had my share of the limelight, I now find myself thinking: Who can I share this moment with?' Supraja says. Her eponymous label uses natural fibres and pigments. She offers to buy items back from customers after 18 months, in exchange for purchase points, and has plans to upcycle these items too. In her speech at the House of Commons, she advocated for garment workers' rights. Without the right kind of intervention, their livelihoods — which have tended to be embodiments of sustainability and yet have been tenuous and marginalised — will become even more challenging, she pointed out, 'as we encourage people to buy less'. She was awarded the Global Sustainable Fashion Trailblazer prize at the House of Commons (awarded jointly by the World Tamil Organization and the UK government) partly for her unusual approach to fashion, and for her work to promote undervalued and underestimated traditional crafts. Supraja's sustainability efforts have also yielded a self-published book (aimed at helping people navigate questions of consumerism), a podcast and a theatrical production. The designer, who now lives in Dubai, is looking forward to her next showcase at London Fashion Week, in September. And to more sustainability outreach work, particularly with children. 'Kids will ask if it's okay to buy new clothes for their birthday,' she smiles. 'They grasp the wastefulness of buying a new outfit to celebrate a friend's birthday.' Her hope is that, with enough of these conversations, they will grow into adults who treasure their heirloom garments, avoid fast fashion, and never buy into a microtrend.
