Name : Mubashir Ali Meerni

Roll no : En – 0117-61
Class : BS 4 Literature (Morning)

Assignment : Favorite Drama

“And the Mountain ecoed by Khalid

The novel is broken into nine chapters, each told from the perspective of a different
character. In the first chapter, told from the perspective of the Afghan laborer Saboor,
Saboor tells his two children, Abdullah and Pari, a fairy tale before they go to sleep. In
the fairy tale, a farmer named Baba Ayub is forced to sacrifice his favorite son, Qais, to
an evil spirit called the div. Ayub, furious with himself for giving up his own child,
decides to hunt down the div. Eventually, he traces the div to a beautiful palace, in
which he finds Qais playing happily with his friends. The div explains to Baba Ayub that
it has provided Qais with a wonderful home and a good education. It gives Ayub two
options: take Qais home, or allow him to stay. Reluctantly, Baba Ayub decides to let
Qais stay. Before Ayub leaves, the div, sympathetic to Ayub’s guilt, gives him
a bottle of liquid that makes him forget that he ever had a son named Qais. Now an old
man, Ayub returns to his home. Although he’s forgotten about Qais almost entirely, he
sometimes hears the sounds of his son—sounds that he has no way of understanding
anymore.

The second chapter is set in the late 1940s and told from the perspective of Saboor’s
young son, Abdullah. Abdullah and his sister, Pari, travel with Saboor to the city of
Kabul. Saboor has told his children that he’s been summoned to do construction work
on a mansion in the city, where his brother-in-law, Nabi, has been working as a servant.
It takes Saboor, Pari, and Abdullah almost an entire day to travel to Kabul from their tiny
village, Shadbagh. When they arrive, Nabi leads them to the mansion where he lives
and works. Nabi introduces his family to Mr. Suleiman Wahdati and Mrs. Nila Wahdati,
the owners of the mansion. During their visit, Mrs. Wahdati separates Abdullah and
Pari, and then tells Abdullah that “it’s for the best.” It becomes clear that the Wahdatis
have adopted Pari as their own child—and it seems that Abdullah, now returned to
Shadbagh along with his father, will never see his beloved sister again. Nevertheless,
Abdullah continues to love Pari more than anyone else. One day, he finds a
small yellow feather, of the kind that Pari was once fond of collecting. Instead of
throwing the feather away, he keeps it for himself, vowing to give it to Pari himself one
day.

The third chapter is told from the perspective of Parwana, Saboor’s second wife, and
Abdullah and Pari’s stepmother. Parwana—as the chapter begins, a single woman, not
yet married to Saboor—takes care of her beautiful twin sister, Masooma, who has
recently had a horrible accident, and can no longer walk. While they were growing up,
Parwana and Masooma were competitive with one another, and Parwana in particular
resented Masooma for being prettier and more popular than she. Parwana developed a
crush on Saboor, then a young, handsome man. Because Parwana was shy and
cautious, Masooma was able to “swoop in” and claim Saboor for herself. Masooma and
Saboor became a serious couple, and a few years later, they announced their
engagement. Parwana was so jealous that she caused Masooma to fall from a tall tree,
causing the injury that left her a paraplegic. For the next few years, Parwana, overcome
with guilt, took care of Masooma at all times. Meanwhile, Saboor married another
woman, who died while giving birth to Pari. As the chapter comes “full circle,” Parwana
learns that Saboor is interested in remarrying, and wants to court her. Masooma, who
senses that Parwana and Saboor may become a couple, tells Parwana to leave her. At
first, Parwana is reluctant to abandon her sister. Eventually, however, she decides to
marry Saboor. She leaves Masooma, and never sees her again.

The fourth chapter consists of a letter, written by Nabi, the brother of Masooma and
Parwana. Nabi, an old man as the chapter begins, describes his career working for the
Wahdati family. As a young man, Nabi works as a cook and chauffeur for Mr. Suleiman
Wahdati, a quiet, shy man. Shortly after he begins his job, Mr. Wahdati marries Mrs.
Nila Wahdati, a beautiful, mysterious woman with whom Nabi is fascinated. As the
years go on, Nabi becomes increasingly close with Nila, and is ultimately the one to
suggest that Nila and Suleiman adopt Pari as their own child. While Saboor agrees, he
comes to hate Nabi for his role in breaking up Saboor’s family.

As Pari grows up in the 60s and 70s, she loses all memory of Saboor and Abdullah, and
comes to think of Nabi as her servant, rather than her uncle. Nila, meanwhile, becomes
more alienated from her husband. While Pari is still young, Nila leaves her husband and
takes Pari to live in Paris, never to return. Mr. Wahdati suffers a stroke that leaves him
incapable of walking, and as a result, Nabi spends more and more time taking care of
his employer, eventually becoming his only companion. Nabi and Wahdati grow old
together. One day, when they’re both elderly, Wahdati reveals that he’s always been in
love with Nabi. Nabi isn’t sure how to respond, but he continues to work as Wahdati’s
loyal servant. In the early 2000s, Wahdati dies, leaving all his property to Nabi. Around
this time, the Taliban invade Kabul, throwing the city into chaos. Nabi invites a group of
European doctors and surgeons to stay in his home for free. One of these, Dr. Markos
Varvaris, is the recipient of Nabi’s letter from the fourth chapter. In closing, Nabi tells
Markos that he must track down Pari and tell her that she has a brother named
Abdullah.

In Chapter Five, two cousins, Timur Bashiri and Idris Bashiri, arrive in Afghanistan
from the United States in the mid-2000s. Timur is a loud, arrogant used car dealer,
while Idris is a shy, reserved doctor who resents Timur greatly. They’ve come to
investigate what became of their family’s property in Kabul. During their stay in the city,
they make the acquaintance of a Bosnian doctor, Dr. Amra Ademovic. Amra befriends
Idris, and introduces him to a beautiful young girl named Roshana, who was nearly
murdered by the Taliban. Idris is so moved by Roshana that he promises to find a way
to pay for the surgeries she needs to make a full recovery. Back in the United States,
Idris immediately finds himself engulfed with responsibilities at his hospital and home,
and can’t find the time to research Roshana’s operation. Eventually he forgets about the
entire situation.

Years later, Roshana has made a full recovery, thanks to the generosity of Idris’s
cousin, Timur. Roshana, now a young woman, has written a book about her life. The
book is dedicated to Timur and Amra. Idris—terrified that Roshana has written about his
negligence and callousness—goes to a book signing event for Roshana’s book. When
it’s his turn to have his book signed, Roshana barely acknowledges him. In his copy,
she writes, “Don’t worry. You’re not in it.”

Chapter Six concerns Pari’s relationship with Nila Wahdati, the woman she’s come to
think of as her mother. At the chapter begins, Nila—now a middle-aged woman—has a
poor relationship with her adopted daughter. She’s been a neglectful parent, despite
building up a successful career as a poet. When Pari was a young teenager, Nila began
seeing a man named Julien, for whom Pari had feelings, too. Julien and Nila’s
relationship lasted only a few months. Several years later, while Pari was studying
mathematics at the Sorbonne, she encountered Julien once again, and they began an
affair of their own. When Pari worked up the courage to tell Nila about the affair, Nila
laughed and told Pari that they were no longer mother and daughter.

The chapter is intercut with portions of an interview that Nila gives for a poetry
magazine. In the interview, Nila explains that she never had a romantic relationship with
Mr. Wahdati, since he was “in love with the chauffeur.” She also talks about her father, a
cruel man who often beat her. Shortly after giving the interview, Nila kills herself by
slitting her wrists.

Pari is devastated by her mother’s suicide, and feels guilty for not spending more time
with her. Nevertheless, she proceeds with her studies of mathematics, and eventually
earns a Ph.D. As a young woman, she marries a man named Eric Lacombe, with
whom she has three children. As she grows older, Pari comes to feel a stronger
connection with Nila than she ever did when Nila was alive: she recognizes how difficult
it can be to be a parent. Years later, when Pari is an elderly woman and barely able to
walk, she receives a call from Marko Varvaris, who tells her that she has a brother
named Abdullah. As she processes this news, she feels a strange sense of connection
with her sibling—a sense that she’s forgotten about for decades.

The seventh chapter concerns a boy named Adel who lives in Shadbagh in 2009. His
father, Commander Sahib, is a powerful military leader, whom Adel loves and worships.
One day, while his father is out of the city, Adel meets a boy named Gholam. Gholam
develops a friendship with Adel, and they spend the afternoons playing soccer together.
One day, Gholam reveals that he’s the son of Iqbal—Saboor and Parwana’s child.
Gholam and Iqbal had been forced to live on a refugee camp in Pakistan following the
invasion of the Taliban in the early 2000s. Now Gholam and Iqbal have returned to
Afghanistan, only to find that their land has been stolen by Adel’s father. At first, Adel
refuses to believe that Gholam is telling the truth. Several days later, however, he’s
sitting with his father in their house when an old man—Iqbal—throws a rock through a
window. Commander Sahib orders Adel to go upstairs while he “deals with” the man.
Adel wonders what will become of the man, and imagines that he might even be shot.
The next day, Adel sees a story in the newspaper about how Commander Sahib
survived an “assassination attempt.” As he reads the story—which never says what
became of the old man—Adel senses that he’ll never again be able to love or trust his
father.

In Chapter Eight, narrated by Markos Varvaris, we see Markos at many points in his life,
beginning with his childhood on the Greek island of Tinos. Markos has a conflicted
relationship with his stern mother, Odelia, who takes good care of him but doesn’t show
him any affection. One day, Odelia announces that she’ll be hosting a visit from her old
friend, Madaline, and Madaline’s daughter, Thalia. When Markos meets Thalia, he
notices that she has a hideous wound on her face—a wound which came from a dog
bite, and which has taken away most of her lower jaw. As time goes on, Markos strikes
up a friendship with Thalia. He learns that she’s intelligent and quick-witted. She also
encourages him to take up photography as a hobby. Eventually, Madaline abandons
Thalia, leaving her to live with Odelia and Markos—Madaline has selfishly accepted
work as an actress in a film, and no longer has any interest in her daughter.

The chapter cuts ahead to Markos’s early adulthood. He travels the world, using money
that Thalia has inherited from her father, who’s recently passed away. Markos
photographs buildings and natural landmarks across the world, keeping up his close
friendship with Thalia the entire time. He decides to become a doctor after nearly dying
in an Indian hospital and being unable to save a young boy. Although he goes on to
become a plastic surgeon, and often offers Thalia the chance to repair her face, Thalia
always refuses.

One day, when Markos is a middle-aged man and Odelia is old and suffering from Lou
Gehrig’s disease, he goes to visit her in Tinos. She tells him that she’s proud of him.
Markos is overjoyed to hear these words—he’s been waiting for decades to hear his
mother say them to him. Nevertheless, he’s saddened that he and his mother have
always felt alienated from one another, and he wishes they could have been closer.

In the final chapter of the book, Abdullah’s daughter, Pari II, explains how her father
reunited with Pari, her aunt and namesake. Pari II is a good, devoted daughter who’s
given up art school to take care of her mother, who dies of cancer, and later her ailing
father, who’s beginning to suffer from dementia. Pari II receives a call from Pari, and
arranges for Pari to come to California, where Abdullah has settled. When Pari and
Abdullah reunite, Abdullah is at first skeptical that Pari is who she claims to be. He
realizes the truth when Pari sings him the song Abdullah used to sing her when they
were both children. This happy reunion doesn’t last long, however, as Abdullah begins
to lose his memory. One day he screams at Pari, accusing her of being a thief and a
liar.

Pari II and Pari decide to take a trip to Paris together. While Pari II is packing, she
comes across a small box that belongs to her father. Inside, she finds the yellow feather
he kept decades ago. Next to the feather, she finds a note, dated shortly after Abdullah
learned he was losing his memory, explaining that he’s spent his entire life waiting to
see Pari again. In Paris, Pari II has a vivid dream in which Abdullah and Pari reunite as
children, and embrace tenderly.