As I witnessed the creeping yet hesitant hands of two complete strangers right in front of me, as if they wanted to hold on, but were too scared to begin a vendetta of their love, I knew I had to pull the book off the shelf and get it billed even before I decided onto flip a few pages over to build on a decision. It was bait for every thinker who believes to grow out of a box, and that’s exactly what Nemat Sadat has built in the wonders of his book The Carpet Weaver under the banner of Penguin India.
With that essence of the cover, I found myself flipping through the pages on the way back home and before I could realise, the book turned out to be an unputdownable venture of love, with a twist.
As life took course with Kanishka Nurzada, a son of a leading carpet seller, and his best friend Maihan, a forbidden love amidst the shades of brutality in Afghanistan unfolded itself in my hands, along with goosebumps around the tragic mix of novel and by the time I lost my sleep to the climax and finally put down this book, here’s what I learnt:
1) In the battles of climate, territory and defence, what we’ve lost is the battle of humanity.
While one might be free to love, yet the free comes with a boundary spell of limits. Growing up through the limits of those defined boundaries is fate you can run from and you are supposed to run from unless the shackles of confinement let you go.
2) You can choose who you kill, but you cannot choose who you love.
Amidst the war zones of Afghanistan, the author clearly drew a contrasting statement depicting the reality of today. In today’s time, one may absent-mindedly pull out a gun at anyone’s life, but a kiss of love needs to be thought through with advisory commissions presiding over who we can love and exactly when.
3) Amidst the larger struggle of survival, it’s a battle to survive with who we are.
Survival is an instinct every person is born with, but building on your identity and embracing your sexual orientation is something which often comes with hefty baggage. On this note, the depiction of the LGBTQ community forms the crux of this novel.
4) A true fact!
The behind-the-story segment of the author is an interesting tale of the determination itself where Nemat Sadat has gone on to dissect the shades of reality in our hands, something which makes the book all the more intriguing.
I took away a lot from this master creation of art, blended with reality, culture and the terror of survival. In the end, it taught me how determination is what life seeks; one must never give up and the spirit of the author echoes this, who crafted a spell through his works of fiction.
If you wish to dive into this battlefield, here’s a link to the gist of the book.