Daily Star Campus
Sunday 3 May 2009
Feature:
Asrar Chowdhury at the Star Literary Adda
By Tanzina Rahman
URL: http://www.thedailystar.net/campus/2009/05/01/feature_adda.htm
“The ending of the book moved me,” Ilona expressed. “The author gave a chance to the leading character for redemption,” she added.
“For me, I kept on comparing the Middle Eastern culture with Bangladeshi culture. I could relate to the relationship between the father and son…,” Priyanka said.
“But I think the writer could have made the father and son relationship much stronger in the book,” Rassen interrupted.
The intense discussion raged on. This week, Star Campus invited students from various private and public universities to attend the ‘Literary Adda’ which was held at Coffee World in Dhanmondi. Asrar Chowdhury, Assistant Professor, Economics, Jahangirnagar and North South University talked about the 2005 best-seller and debut book of Khaled Husseni ‘The Kite Runner’.
“Star Campus took an excellent approach to initiate reading habits among the youngsters and when I was asked to pick up a book for this week’s adda, I thought The Kite Runner would be the best choice to talk about the Middle Eastern countries and their culture rather than talking about the west,” Chowdhury explained.
He familiarized the author to the students before unveiling the plot of the book. Khaled Hosseni, who is originally from Afghanistan, is an American novelist and physician. In his debut book, Hosseni has successfully depicted the life of true Afghanistan before the fall of the monarchy until the collapse of the Taliban regime.
“One cannot envisage the vivid picture of pomegranates and sky full of colourful kites without reading this book since we have only seen the picture of the current situation in Afghanistan,” Chowdhury said.
The Kite Runner depicts the tale of childhood betrayal, ethnic tension and sexual predation in Afghanistan.
“The story is broken into three parts. First the author introduces the readers to the cheerful childhood of Amir, the leading character who is a bourgeois Pashtun boy, and his friend Hassan, a Hazara and the son of Ali, the servant of Amir’s father. Then the second part tells about Amir and his father taking political asylum to America while the third part reveals Amir’s attempts at redemption back in Afghanistan,” he said.
He also introduced the students with the differences of tribune culture and customs of the Afghani people.
“One of the interesting things that I found in the book was that there are many Farsi words that we take for granted. For instance, the word kaka which is referred to uncle and khala as aunty, are actually originated from Farsi that I always thought were Bengali words,” he chuckled.
Some of the students, who read the novel, brought new insights to the table.
“The Cultural Ministry of Afghanistan actually banned importing ‘The Kite Runner’ movie that came out in 2007 due to the portrayal of sexual predation in Afghanistan,” said one of the students.
Star Campus Literary Adda ended with an eager interest among the students to look forward to the next adda session.
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