The moment you close the book, almost always forcefully, you tend to look around. With eyes searching for Amir, Hassan, Ali but you are surprised not to find them. Well they should be here only, probably there is something wrong in the roads, Russians may be you imagine, then slowly you come back to the world to which you belonged, before you had started reading the book. Oh! those are all characters in the novel, you laugh but not very convincingly. But at least streets of Kabul should be outside, no my dear Kabul is miles away, farther lot farther than the author had brought it close. It looks as if Hassan and Amir had been playing and you had been watching all through. Power of words has never been so apparent and strong to me, Sometimes you wish you had some time to read the book and sometimes you pray you didn't have that much. When I had turned the book and read the review that said "Hosseini knows how to strike every thread in your heart" I did not understand it fully, but by the time I was done reading the book I knew exactly what it meant. The story arouses interest disgust, love, hatred and probably every possible feeling with equal ease. Disgust, when someone betrays his dead honest friend, Taliban kills an honest couple, when the peace of a city of customs is shattered and MIGs, rockets gunshots and death become every day affairs. Interest, when a small boy flies to catch the last kite, just that he flies on the ground and much better than the kite. circumventing its every gimmick and finally proving smarter than the kite. Hatred, towards mankind and places where inhumanity is the course of life, brutality the only way to punish, punishment being far more anti-religion(any religion) then the crime itself. The terrible transition of a city into slaughter house, is heart wrenching. Sometimes its tough to believe that such a place actually exists, that somewhere on this same earth people really suffer that much. Peace is buried and later covered with layers of human flesh and blood, but life somehow goes on. It somehow finds the strength to rise through these impermeable covers, and then a fresh leaf opens up looking up to the sky amidst the plethora of weeds. The story arouses love for the friendship that lasts, and gets stronger, even in the middle of all the chaos long after one of the friend is gone, relationships remain with reminiscences of past fondness. It arouses respect for the man who risks his life, his family everything to atone for his past blunders determined to give that tender leaf a better place to live in. After all the desperation, fighting and efforts he brings back his friend's son to his home. He breathes better after having thrown himself in the fire of sacrifice, having confessed every crime, having made amends for every ill deed. He knows that he owes his life to his late friend, and that in some way he has repaid him. His mission becomes to revive the leaf who had lost all its luster and shine, had been trampled by time, people and the world. To give whatever little he can, to this little boy who has lost all his childhood, rather has been snatched of it. When Amir was a boy like him, he had a servant cum friend, whom he had betrayed and left alone in the hour of need. Still his friend had fought to get the last cut kite to Amir, to let him show that prized possession to his father. For you a thousand time over, his friend used to say. After 26 years Amir flies a kite again this time not with his childhood friend but with his friend's son instead. Amir had always been a good kite fighter, he fights with one and soon wins over, the other kite cut lose from the owner, starts flying with the wind, on its own . The lifeless eyes of the child standing next to Amir trace the kite as it goes. Amir knows what he has to do, he runs ..runs to get the kite for the child ... maybe be its not the string of the kite he is chasing .. its the lost and long forgotten threads of his life that he is now trying to find and grasp, threads of atonement, of self less love that were always there for him to hold ... but he never tried ... people watch a middle aged man running with kids even younger than half of his age... but he knows its not for them that he is running .. its not about the kite also .. its about running to hold onto his good self, a small portion of which he has recently touched .. he is running to let lose the long held burden on his heart, to fly with the kite, to apologize to Hassan.. to tell him how much he missed his people his "watan" and to tell what has it turned into now ... he is still running he turns to see the boy watching him run... and thinks...for you a thousand times over dear son... for you a thousand times over!!