Weepy books, movies and more

The earliest memory I have of crying for some onscreen avatar is for some oooold telugu movie -- the hero (shoban babu - all the gult readers should know him :) ) marries the heroine much against her parents' wishes, and apparently it is her ghost he marries, cos when they go over to her parents' place ; the camera zooms over to the lifeless prostrate form of the heroine, and suddenly the heroine vanishes!
I know this is pretty vague, but that was all my 6/7 year old brain could process, I'm sure I did not understand the concept of love or loss then, but nothing could stop tears from trickling down and I had to run to the bedroom to control them!
The next distinct memory is watching Kuch Kuch Hota Hai for the first time :) (yes, I've watched it may be 10-15 times till now). It was almost an year since the movie released, so I did know the story and how Shah Rukh does end up with Kajol by snatching her away from Salman Khan in the Shaadi Ka Mandap (which was soon to become his trademark style of wooing his heroines :p ) . I did know what was going to happen, but nothing would stop the flow of tears in the theatre ! I've never been comfortable weeping out for everyone to see, and I really don't know how I managed to dam the multitude of tears just streaming away!
I again cried after watching the movie a second, and a third time, and it was only at take 4 that the tears finally stopped :). (wow! never knew I was such a cry baby! )

If you're a girl, and if you like reading, it is almost a given that you must've read Love Story . I was first introduced to the book in B-Tech. Bhavana and I read the first sentence together " What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died ? " . Bhavana's eyes immediately welled up. I was influenced for sure, but no tears really came out. When I eventually read the book (then) too, it was sad for sure , but again nothing more.
I bought a copy sometime in December '06 in India, and on my way back (to Stan) got it for some light reading on the plane. I had to board a plane at Portland to eventually reach SF, and I decided to read the book then. I had the window seat, so I just leaned my head against the window, and began reading.
Read the first statement , 'twas okay. Sad, but okay. And then I (re)read the sentence - "Love means never having to say you're sorry " . And that was It. I used up the tissues handed out just in trying to stem the flow. This was really weird cos I'd read the story earlier. The timing was such I guess ? well, atleast I'd like to think so!

And recently I read A Thousand Splendid Suns : the reason for this post. One thing you notice about most authors is their signature. Every author has probably one (in some cases a few, and in others , quite a few) piece(s) of work that really stands out , that becomes his/her hallmark, and all other written work merely becomes an extension or in some cases just a shadow of 'the' work. I read the Kite Runner, it was a really good piece of writing, it had the power to pull your thought towards Afghanistan in all its turbulence.
Frankly , I'd bought A Thousand Splendid Suns purely on an impulse , even the cover looked similar to the Kite Runner, and from a disillusioning experience with Paulo Coelho's other books (apart from the alchemist ofcourse), I was sort of sure that this would pretty much endorse the same things as the Kite Runner. One similarity I found was the frivolity of the titles :). They are probably the weakest link in both books. A more in-depth (or even a second sitting) study of both books might make the same signature very obvious, but one thing that really stood out in this book was the female protagonists. The Kite Runner had male protagonists, and that in itself probably makes both books fundamentally different.
Protagonist #2 Laila comes across as a feisty, intelligent person. She dares, and also shows a LOT of spunk when it is demanded of her. The treatment of females is extremely crummy ( no other description fit it so well) and the spirit she shows is really remarkable. That she has the guts to escape her husband with another ally (husband's biwi no:1 Mariam : protagonist #1 ) is really great. The planning, the saving and the lying that goes into it is truly awesome. Any normal person's mental process would have just blocked by then.
Whats more - they are caught in their attempt, she is brutally beaten, is almost strangled, but her courage is intact.
As most books go, this does have a happy ending, but at the cost of Mariam's life, and Laila's health, and her children's happiness. To cut a long story short, any one would be compelled to feel extremely bad at the collosal waste of precious lives. quite a few people also seem to have endorsed this!

Happy Tears !! This should definitely be The Alchemist :) . I just love the book, and I've 'forced' a LOT of people into reading it. Santiago's courage is really awesome. It is like the time when we were children, and wanted to change the entire world. We moderate it more and more, and by the time we reach adulthood, our dreams usually end up becoming as insignificant as us :) . Santiago on the other hand dreams, and dreams big, and does not let go of his dream (though he does come perilously close to it a couple of times).
The last few pages are really gripping, when he realizes that the treasure he was seeking was in his own backyard, and it was for this treasure that he had to travel halfway across the world. That is what it is mostly about, your destination/ destiny is so near you that you can't see it and yet when all paths converge to it and you realize you've journeyed a long way just to reach some place so close, the journey itself would have been worth it :) .