“I come from a place very close to Kanyakumari. The beach is only about 10 kilometers away from my home” – Every time I tell someone about this, especially someone who isn’t from the southern part of the country, there is always a smile on their face accompanied by a glee in their eyes. I am very aware that the smile usually means “how amazing it must be to live near Kanyakumari”. Almost always this smile is followed with “Can you see Sri Lanka from Kanyakumari? “. Then it becomes my turn to smile. I had been an unsuspecting audience to a lot of conversations where newly-wed husbands on their honeymoon trip to the Cape Comorin explain to their new wives how the part of the sea behind the rock beside the shore where the water looks green is indeed the Arabian sea, the blue part the Indian ocean and the grey part, the Bay of Bengal. My smile turns into a grin when the Arabian Sea moves to east and Bay of Bengal shifts to the west.
and stayed true to the promise, until a friend, unaware of this promise of mine gifted me Hosseni’s latest bestseller 
. So I made my choice, picked the book to read during a bus journey in the night and here is how beautifully Hosseini opens the book for me.