Headline Oct 6, 2012/

''FLYING A STUDENT KITE FOR KABUL!'': 

THE PEARL OF CENTRAL ASIA'

Mention Afghanistan to anyone in the West and you can guarantee that the cultural reference points will be the same: the Taliban, burqas, bombs, suicide attacks, and Kalashnikovs.

''That's about it,'' accepts Khalid Abdalla, the British born actor who stars in the Kite Runner, the moving Film adaption of Khaled Hosseini's best selling debut novel about two boys growing up in pre-Soviet invasion Kabul. ''There's nothing positive on the list.''

Until now. perhaps. While its lofty position on the news agenda is due to the British Army's soaring casualty rate in the ongoing fight with the Taliban, a fresh perspective arrives on Afghanistan arrives courtesy of this remarkable Film from Director Marc Forster, starring multinational cast of little known and first time actors speaking Dari, the prevalent dialect in Kabul.

''It's the first film in the history of Hollywood that provides a human context for that part of the world.'' says Abdalla, who spent time in the country studiously learning the language, a form of Persian, before filming began in 2006.

Authenticity was the password in bringing such a universally admired novel to life, and Forster and and screen writer David Benioff worked closely with the Kite Runner's Afghan born author, to ensure that they stayed true to narrative sweep as epic the mountains of the neighbouring Hindu Kush.

Vindication arrived in the form of Hosseini 's approval and again at an early preview screening for an audience of Afghan emigres in Los Angeles.

''One lady got up at the end addressed us and the audience.'' recalls Abdalla. ''She said.'Thank you, I feel represented. I feel you shared the Kabul I grew up in. that I understand, that I know and that I am proud to share with the world. I hope that people will now see it. and us, in a different way.'

''It was a beautiful thing for everyone involved in the film to hear.''

The central theme of the novel and film --a childhood friendship tragically ruined by betrayal, guilt and ultimately, redemption, --unfold against the backdrop of vibrant Kabul before it was reduced to rubble and ruin by occupation, civil war and the Allied Bombing.

And McCurry sums up poignantly and brilliantly in his foreword a wisdom that we all must heed: ''Afghanistan never really changes. it has absorbed blows for millennia, but always continues on as before, defiantly outside of time as we know it. And yet without even trying to, Afghanistan changes everyone who spends time there.''

This Post is dedicated to all the great students of Afghanistan who overcame all difficulties to share, join up and support ''Student Angel Mother''  right from the very abstraction.

Good Night and God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless