Before I begin -- I'm truly sorry — both to myself and to the genuine readers — for this one-day delay. As I write this, it's already 1:47 AM on the 1st of July. This time, the delay was entirely my fault and a result of my own carelessness. I should’ve started writing in the morning the moment I realised it, but, as usual, I waited for the night... and ended up forgetting. Still, what’s done is done. I can’t rewind the clock and go back in time, but I didn't want June to go entirely without any blog, so here we are.

Well, so last month (hurts to say, last month but anyways) I read two very good Novels, one is Ibnebatuti by Divya Prakash Dubey and the other 'A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini, it's the second one, particularly, that really messed me up emotionally and mentally. Left me with some questions and a research idea.

This Novel broke my heart many times, as the story progressed, and a constant fear of what worse can happen next, but there was also a hope, a hope — that at least the end will be good, was it? Well... for that you have to read the novel yourself, immersing yourself in that story, not just a story but a dark stark reality of many women and children in Afghanistan. And my fear turned true, what if the Taliban would return, and here we are, post the Book-release, Taliban is back, turning my fear into reality, again the same fear, same oppression, same terror everywhere, same cruelty against women, ban on education and whatnot— everything back again, and I couldn't help but wonder — how would Laila be doing now?

And the most disturbing thing I found at points is that these Islamic republics justify all these in the name of Allah and in the name of the law of the land, which planted a question inside me as a law student: can Sharia even be called a law? How conveniently they justify all the wrongs against women in the name of god and religion. And conveniently change the position as in when it comes to men.

One thing to note that how this fictional novel swiftly explores the history of Afghanistan from the soviet era to post taliban times without making it a history novel. This novel gets into deep corners of your heart to wrench it and inside your limbic system to make you feel emotions that very few novels and movies dare to evoke.

This made me ask one more question- is regime change really that bad idea? For X country to change the regime in a Y country? As we see when there were presence of USSR and America there, the people there lived much better life in terms of education and standard of living than the time they were free from outside influence. Well, it would he wrong to say that this is always true and also that it can always be fruitful, as most of the time, more often than not, these actions are driven by the intervening country's self-interest — particularly in exploiting natural resources — rather than genuine concern for the local population. A prime example is the U.S. voicing concern over women's rights in Iran, suggesting for regime change. In reality, least they care about women welfare, more about oil.

But in a utopian world, the idea is not that bad, if all the nations come together against the inhumane conditions of their fellow humans and push for regime change without any ill will or self-interest. Well, we all know in this world that it is not going to happen. As baat sunne mein toh achi lagti hai par practical nahi hai, it’s a comforting thought, but not something that holds up in the real world.

So I leave you with that thought to reflect on. And yes, I highly, highly recommend you to read it and also the first Novel, which is also very good. The only reason why I am not writing about 'Ibnebatuti' is that these two stories are exactly opposite of each other with a completely opposite vibe. While both the stories can moisten your eyes, but where the Ibnebatuti is a full of life — happening, emotional, relatable story and in one word 'लाजवाब', excellent, A splendid of thousand suns is 'heartbreaking' but- worth reading.

Well, that is it from my side, signing off till the next one :)

Thank you for reading :)