Forgiving Yourself

How often have we heard that it is tougher to forgive oneself than others. If you have some guilt and you are not able to forgive yourself, the guilt keeps eating you from the inside and harms you much more than a just punishment that you would have received for whatever wrong you committed. That's why the first and most important advice that a psychiatrist / psychologist gives a patient is to forgive oneself.
Over the last week or so I have read two books: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and For One More Day by Mitch Albom. Both novels tell stories about relationships and how somethings that the protagonist did in the past keeps haunting him till he gets a chance to redeem himself.
The books are very different from each other. The Kite Runner has a childhood friendship as its central story whereas it's the relationship between a mother and her son which runs through the plot in Albom's story. Hosseini's work spans over 3 decades whereas the story in For One More Day spans just one day, with memories of years gone by forming interludes. The Kite Runner is a bigger roller-coster of emotions, more complete in the sense that it depicts so many of human emotions.
The story is told from the perspective of the main character Amir, who longs to get praised by his father, who has the best friendship with the son of the house's domestic help. His life takes him through the toughest times that Afghanistan has faced, the earlier part of the story running through the time when Russia attacked Afghanistan. Through small sub plots, the author builds up the different characters and takes you to the world where you go through the same feelings as the characters experience: the shame of betraying a friend, the fear that you will lose your parent, the hopelessness, the anger that comes with guilt, the never-ending chain of thoughts that makes you an insomniac, the realisation that something is the one chance that you will get to redeem yourself. I specially loved the later part of the book where the story becomes a little fast paced, and the author makes it so real. There is no dramatisation of events. The way you learn of shocking events, without any fanfare, seems so true to life where there is no room for extra glamour; the truth being so simple and we learning it without the camera panning at stupid angles over and over again. The Kite Runner is a must read for anyone who has interest in the way humans interact with each other, how society behaves and how small events have effects that last all your life.
Coming to For One More Day, it is the story of Chich Bonnetto, a one time Major League baseball palyer, who is down and out in his life and tries to commit suicide. Instead of dying, he meets his mother, who had died eight years earlier. From then on, the story is a web of events in the current day, memories from the past and some notes that the author has found in the lead character's belongings. The text of the novel is not as powerful as The Kite Runner. But small snippets that you find in the book are so strikingly true that you stop to think about them. For example, on his mother's death, Chick says after you lose your parents, it feels like you are going into a battle without a backup you always felt you had, no matter what. That statement is so true, I could think of it in conjunction with my life, how whenever I have any trouble, I know at the back of my mind that I have my parents to go to, in case everything else falls apart. Chick realises so many other things while spending one more day with his long lost mother, one extra day which we long for after our beloveds are gone. Another thing that hit me in the novel is Chick's mother's habit of leaving him notes. It made me think how with the advent of technology, email and mobile phones, we have forgotten the beauty and value of handwritten letters. I remember, when I was in Delhi preparing for JEE, my father used to write letters to me. Those letters were a source of strength and motivated me to work harder. And today those letters are perhaps the biggest treasure that I have, the reminders of the love and faith my parents had in me, the reminders of one of the most important phases of my life. That is what we, as a civilisation, have missed with use of mobile phones and email.
Though the two stories are very different, one thing that is common is the advice that the lead character gets from people who love him most - forgive yourself, that is the first stop on the way to a better life, a life where you feel at ease with yourself and the world around you.

Miss Marple Omnibus & Doctors!!!!

I am sure you will not be able to understand the title of this blog if you are not an avid reader of fictions.

Well, to clear your doubts, Miss Marple Omnibus is a collection of the 12 murder mystery novels written by Agatha Christie, with an old spinster Miss Marple playing Sherlock Holmes. I finished reading these novels 2 or 3 days ago. They were , though not as captivating as Holmes in the beginning of the story, quite fantastic. In fact, I felt, sometimes, the climax was outstanding. You need some patience to go through the initial chitter-chatter but as the story moves on, you find yourself unable to leave the book.

One thing to note is that all the stories are murder mysteries. In fact, in one story, our heroine probes into a murder which was committed 18 years ago!!! In most of the cases, as is usual, one cant guess who is the murderer until one reaches the climax where our lady Miss Jane Marple finally decides to lend voice to her suspicions.

For me, the best of the twelve stories was Nemesis, the last story of the series (though not the last published one). In this adventure Miss Marple is set on a mission in which she doesn't know anything about her goal, but can only expect instructions from a man who is already dead. but had made arrangements for the instructions to reach her before his death. For a very short version of the story, one may go here: http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3256

Now, on to Doctors. This is a novel by Eric Segal, which I am currently reading. This is about the lives of two doctors, their journey from innocent childhood to becoming doctors to being doctors.... It is about the pain a doctor goes through; the pain of seeing pain and suffering around him, the pain of loosing a patient, the pain of having to choose between his family and his profession. And this is shown through the lives of the protagonists Laura and Barney and the characters around them. This book promises to be a good read.

I am writing this from my office , where I have come on a Saturday because I was alone at my room, having nothing to do (one cant always read novels, they have a tendency to get on one's mind). Today's plan is to be at the office till the evening and then go to watch Star Wars 3. That's all for today. Its lunch time now!!!