The Kite Runner: A Holy Week Reflection

The story of the “The Kite Runner” (see previous post) is set in a Muslim culture and written by Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan-American who, I presume, is also a Muslim and practices the Islamic religion. This is not a reason, for me, however, not to read in it the Christian themes of Holy Week such as Christ’s Suffering, Death and Resurrection, although this is most likely not intended by the author.

I see these themes basically in the lives of the two friends Amir and Hassan who actually have many things in common. They were both reared by single fathers and both nursed from the same nursing mother having lost their own biological mothers soon after their births. Both grew up together in the same compound and played the same games. And finally, both went through what we Christians call the Paschal Mystery of Christ that we commemorate during this holiest of weeks in Christendom.

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, in his book “The Holy Longing” describes the paschal mystery as “a process of transformation within which we are given both new life and new spirit. It begins with suffering and death, moves on to the reception of new life, spends some time grieving the old and adjusting to the new, and finally, only after the old life has been truly let go of, is a new spirit given for the life we are already living”.

Let us now see how this applies to the contrasting stories of Hassan and Amir in “The Kite Runner”.

Hassan’s passion, death and resurrection

Hassan’s passion and suffering is easy to recognize. He is the servant’s son and belongs to the oppressed Hazara tribe among the Muslims. His mother who abandoned him a week after childbirth and run away with another man is known to be a harlot. Given his parental background and ethnic origins, Hassan becomes easy target of ridicule by bullies in the neighborhood where he and Amir live. He does not escape even his friend and master Amir’s subtle taunts. His passion and suffering comes to a head when in the process of running a kite for Amir and standing his ground for Amir’s sake, he endures a most vicious attack on his person – he gets sodomized. This is followed by his friend Amir’s devilish plot against him. Amir falsely charges him with theft before Baba (Amir’s father) and Hassan admits the crime in order to save Amir.

Hassan’s paschal death (as opposed to his natural death in the end) comes almost immediately after he admits to the crime attributed to him by Amir. Together with his father Ali, Hassan leaves the place and the life he had known since birth. His dreams, the future with Amir and all that is dear to him also die with it.

Nothing is said of Hassan after this. It is reasonable to presume, however, that he has learned to let go and to forgive Amir, because what we see later on is Hassan’s resurrection and new spirit through his letter to Amir and in the person of Sohrab his son. Sohrab continues Hassan’s role as Amir’s savior. He also vindicates his father Hassan against the same person who had caused the harrowing experience that Hassan endured from his youth; thereby freeing his new spirit from the shackles of the nightmare that he had carried with him all his earthly life.

Amir’s passion, death and resurrection

Amir’s passion and suffering are more mental than physical. He suffers mostly from inflictions he has brought upon himself. It is clear that he is suffering from anger and hatred. He is angry at his father for silently blaming him for the death of his mother and for giving undue attention to Hasan and Ali. He also secretly hates Hassan for being too upright and courageous, especially after he witnesses Hassan being raped while he watches in fear. This anger and hatred, in turn, leads him to execute his evil plot to finally get rid of Hassan. Amir carries the burden of guilt in his heart for so long until later as an adult, he decides to get rid of them and to die to his old self.

The events of Amir’s paschal death begins when he decides to finally follow Rahim’s advice to find a way to be good again. He goes on a healing journey back to Kabul, the place of his sins and takes Sohrab with him back to the United States and finally stands up for him against his bigoted father-in-law. It is only then that cleansing and letting go happens releasing Amir from his chains of many years. His resurrection where he receives a new life and a new spirit then ensues.

Finally, back in the United States with a new life and spirit as an accomplished author, a happily married man to a wonderful woman, and foster father to Sohrab, Amir’s resurrection is symbolized by his flying a kite once again, this time with Sohrab in place of his dear friend Hassan.

A personal paschal challenge to each one of us.

We all have our own little passion, death and resurrection. Fr. Rolheiser, however, poses what he calls “a personal paschal challenge” to all of us in this manner:

• Name your deaths;
• Claim your births;
• Grieve what you have lost and adjust to the new reality;
• Do not cling to the old, rather let it ascend and give you its blessing;
• Finally, accept the spirit of life that you are in fact now living.

“Christ spoke of many deaths, of daily deaths, and of many rising and various pentecosts. The Paschal mystery is the secret to life. Ultimately, our happiness depends upon properly undergoing it.”

A BLESSED EASTER TO ALL!

The Kite Runner: of fathers and sons

Being a father of four children (three daughters and one son), it comes natural for me to be interested in parenting issues, especially fatherhood issues.

Thus, in the inspiring story of The Kite Runner (both the book by Khaled Hosseini and the movie recently shown in theaters), the theme of fatherhood as depicted by the principal characters Baba, Rahim, and Ali as the fathers; Amir, Hassan, and Sohrab as the sons, jumps out right away at me.

Baba is the main father figure in the story. He is father to Amir, the main character and from whose point of view the story is told.

Baba is a good person but a hard, discouraging father at the beginning of the story. He is a single parent whose wife died while she was giving birth to Amir – a circumstance to which Amir attributes Baba’s aloofness and seeming indifference to him. Baba raises Amir alone and in Amir’s words, “molded me to his own liking, in the same way that he molded the world to his own liking seeing the world as black and white and deciding too what was white and what was black”. Baba wants Amir to be like him who hunts and plays football, but Amir would rather stay home or play with his friend Hassan, recite poetry, read a book or write stories. Baba’s cold attitude as a parent makes Amir unable to love his father and in the process sort of “fear him too and hate him a little”. As a result Amir quietly defies his father and decides he will not succumb to his father’s “molding” ways.

The silent animosity between father and son ends when Amir joins and wins a kite-flying contest and ties his own father’s record in the number of kites he cut down. Later, the relationship between the two strengthens as they flee from war-torn Afghanistan and in the process Baba shows Amir how he stood up even to the point of risking even his own life in order to save an unknown woman from a Russian soldier’s vile intentions. As immigrants in the United States Baba once again shows Amir how he can make personal sacrifices for his son’s sake. Forced to live in a foreign country, Baba dies broken hearted but fully resigned to what Amir had made of himself – a writer happily married to a wonderful woman.

Rahim is Baba’s best friend and business partner and personifies the father figure that Amir longed for. Not having a family of his own, Rahim loves Amir like his own son and encourages him to do what he is best at – writing. Rahim becomes Amir’s mentor, reads Amir’s writings and gives him the affirmations that Amir desperately seeks from his own father. He also utters a memorable line to Abba about parenting: “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.” Towards the end of the story and with Baba already dead, he plays a father’s role as he advises Amir to do what needs to be done: “There is a way to be good again.” And this paves the way to Amir’s complete healing in the end.

Ali is the devout and loyal servant of Baba. He is Hassan’s father. Like Baba, he is a single parent as his wife abandoned him and Hassan a week after Hassan’s birth. He himself grew up with Baba just as the boys Amir and Hassan grew up together.

Not much is said of Ali in the book and in the movie except that he raised Hassan by himself and loved his son very much. For me, that is enough to speak of him as a great father. If a father can raise a son by himself and the son grows up to be a boy and later a man who is as loyal, courageous and upright as his father, then I salute that father.

Hassan is Ali’s son who would do things “a thousand times over” for Amir, his friend and master. He helps Amir win the kite flying contest but in the process becomes the helpless victim of Amir’s enemies even as Amir simply watches from afar. Hassan proves his love and loyalty when he stands his ground and lays down his life and his future for Amir’s sake. Hassan himself would become a father later to Sohrab who also would exemplify his grandfather Ali’s and his father Hassan’s values of loyalty and courage.

Amir, our main protagonist and storyteller is initially the weakling son and friend who can’t fend for himself against his bully playmates. He later commits a grave sin against his friend Hassan. As an adult towards the end, he makes up for it all, finds “a way to be good again”, and finally stands his ground not only for himself but also for Sohrab, Hassan’s son, who by now has become his own adopted son.

I can see some lessons here for both fathers and sons. For us who are sons, I guess we must try to understand where our fathers are coming from in the way they have reared us. We have to realize that our fathers could not have given what they did not have and that they could only be a father to us in the same manner that their own father had been to them.

Although we may not admit it, I guess there is a Baba in all of us fathers even as we want to become like Rahim and Hassan. We somehow want our children, especially our sons, to be like us, to follow in our footsteps. We don’t seem to realize at first that our children are their own persons, that we cannot act like God who can make our children in our own image and likeness, and that they are not just coloring books where we can paint our own colors. But in the end, we should realize that we are simply God’s stewards for our children in this earth. It is our obligation to see to it that they grow up and fulfill their respective roles given to them by God. We can only give them roots to keep them firm and grounded on strong values, then give them wings while they search for their own place under the sun.