The ordinary, utterly mundane reason behind the massacre makes it somehow more terrible, and far more depressing. The word 'senseless' springs to mind, and Idris thwarts it. It's what people always say. A senseless act of violence. A senseless murder. As if you could commit sensible murder.

I wanted to write about Afghanistan before the Soviet war because that is largely a forgotten period in modern Afghan history.

I think that to fully appreciate baseball, it helps to have been born in the U.S.

In early 1999, I was watching TV, when I came across a story on Afghanistan. It was a story about the Taliban and the restrictions they were imposing on the Afghan people, most notably women. At some point in the story, there was a casual reference to them having banned the game of kite fighting. This detail struck a personal chord with me, as I had grown up in Kabul flying kite with my friends.

How many more people right now feel connected to Mumbai because of Slumdog Millionaire, or suddenly are interested in the plight of orphans on Mumbai after seeing that film? The same thing with the Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of those things. Because history isn't easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing.

she held her breath, and in her head, counted seconds. She pretended that for each second she didn’t breathe, God would grant her another day