The Splendid Sun

Written by:  Saqib Wazir 》 I was having a conversation with my teacher and asked a question, just as an afterthought: “Why didn’t you become a PhD scholar?” He went into a brown study, if thinking about something unusual, then raised his head, saying: “We are teachers, you know, and we needn’t be PhD scholars; we are to produce PhD scholars.” I deliberated over his words and surprisingly found that what we have in our world today are because of their efforts. A scientist, an engineer, and an artist are, in fact, the progenies of these efforts. Thus, he can’t be an inventor but he can produce an inventor. Teachers are not an ordinary lot; rather, they are extraordinary, and believe me beyond that word. Have you ever thought, who was the teacher of Albert Einstein, that giant physicist whom the world consider the father of modern Physics? Likewise, think about the teachers of William Shakespeare, Stephen Hawking, and many others. Their teachers were the people who provided the...

Written by:  Saqib Wazir 》 When you cannot describe something by itself, then comes a simile to play a part. Apart from describing something by comparing that thing with another, they tend to be powerful and emphatic, both in speech and writing, making a strong impression on a reader. Such powerful, strong and emphatic similes are called striking similes. I have collected half a dozen of such striking similes and used them in passages, written by me. Go on and read the similes along with the passages. 1.  A memory like a well-ordered cupboard On my one question, he narrated his story from alpha to omega apart from a few breaks of coughing to clean his throat. He had, I venture say, a memory like a well-ordered cupboard. 2.  Against a sky as clear as sapphire A child in rag, with disheveled hair and a cute dirty face, stood before the river against a sky as clear as sapphire, to finish his life. 3.  Agitated like a storm-tossed ship It could not be a pet...

Written by:  Saqib Wazir 》 Parts of Speech are as difficult to comprehend as simple they seem at first. But until now. In this article, I have tried to define, describe, and depict all of the Parts of Speech and show how they are and what their function s are through a few sentences. Definition s of Parts of Speech : Words are divided into different kinds or classes, called Parts of Speech, according to their use; that is, according to the work they do in a sentence. (English Grammar and Composition by Wren and Martin) The Parts of Speech are different linguistic categories of words sharing syntactic or morphological  behavior and semantic properties. (Wiktionary) ( The bold words in the definition may seem a bit out of the way to beginners like me and you. I will cover them all in a separate article.) Other Phrases used for Parts of Speech lexical categories lexical classes syntactic categories words classes Explanation When I say: I want to become a writer. I...

Written by:  Saqib Wazir 》 Khaled Hosseini had no credentials as a writer, when he put his fingers to the keyboard to write “The Kite Runner”. But as the novel saw the light of the day, it soon became a surprising juggernaut, showing no signs of slowing down. The novel really took off, enjoying terrific word-of-mouth success. The novel has spent more than 120 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and together with Khaled Hosseini ’s  another novel, A Thousand Splendid Sun , it has sold 38 million copies worldwide. Why was there so much welcome to that fledgling novel. I have tried to answer the question, but am not sure if I have hit the nail on the head. Timely Publication The main reason, I think, was its timely publication that took place in 2003. After 9/11 incident, Afghanistan had become the focal point of international media. Moreover, American troops had already landed in Afghanistan by then. Afghanistan had become a hot potato. People were curious...

Written by:  Saqib Wazir 》 About the Book Title: The Kite Runner Author: Khaled Hosseini Publisher: Bloomsbury Year: 2003 Point of View: First Person Genre: Historical Fiction Pages: 324 Introduction Violence was going through the roof in Afghanistan, when Khaled Hosseini’s debut masterpiece The Kite Runner   came along in 2003. Written against the backdrops of communist element’s accession to power in Kabul, the USSR’s full-scale invasion of Afghanistan and Taliban’s first ever stint in power, the novel is a poignant tale of Two Afghan kids, Amir and Hassan. The Kite Runner was a blockbuster novel, amassing popular applause and approval across the globe. Setting of the Novel The Kite Runner is set partly in Afghanistan and the United States, in the last quarter of the twentieth century. In Afghanistan, it is primarily set in Amir’s abode in Wazir Akbar Khan town in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan . In the United States, on the other hand,...

Written by:  Saqib Wazir 》 Definition and Explanation E xact definition of literature is assumed to be difficult, if not profoundly impossible, for several reasons. Some basic reasons include: the expansion of literature, meaning the introduction of new genres into the domain of literature; geographical diversifications that has resulted in the birth of new styles and manners of peculiar natures, limited to a particular region; and the assumption that the readers already know what literature is, because of its multitudinous manifestations, in one way or another, in our daily life. At the same time, it’s been defined in a great many ways by some tremendous literary wizards, and interestingly, all such definitions are rather effective in describing literature. Etymologically, the word ‘literature’ stems from Latin litteratura which means “writing, learning, or grammar”. Irrespective of its literal meaning, the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary considers l...

Written by:  Saqib Wazir 》 The following is the autobiography of a cow that is to be slaughtered on the day of Eid Al-adha, an Islamic festival commemorating the prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail to Allah. My life was enviable to many of my fellow cows. I would receive a substantial amount of food every day. To say nothing of the abundant water for drinking that was always put at my disposal, I was even able to take bath in the nearby canal almost every day. My master was one in a million. He had, indeed, an innately kind disposition. He would pat me on the back, whenever he would milk me. And in reward, he would take me outside to the field to graze me to the capacity of my tummy. But the beautiful days of past have long gone. At this moment, I am standing by a tree, to which I am attached with a strong nylon rope. And to make matter worse, before me is standing a man, with a sharp knife, whose blade made of steel is gleaming with the sunny beams, s...

A SPECIAL Pashtun dish, cooked on the fortieth day of the birth of a male child. It is a boiled mixture of wheat grains and a kind of legumes, locally known as Gingrey . People deem that the cooking of this dish increases the production of male children in a family. Following is the picture of the dish: Pashtun Traditional Dish | Saqib Wazir, The Splendid Sun.                                                                           

Written by:  Saqib Wazir 》 In this article, the writer explores the advantages as well as the disadvantages of technology. Introduction Science is all about gathering information and knowledge, however, technology, on the other hand, is the practical application of it. Scientists research and unearth natural phenomena and gather information about them, and then technologists and engineers use this knowledge to shape machines and technologies for the welfare of humankind. We somewhat know about the positive aspects of technology in our lives, however, we must see the dark side of the image as well, that it devastates our lives in one way or another. Benevolent Technologies Before going into the main subject of this article, let me shade light on technology as a benevolent, first of all. Human life has been improved by the discoveries and inventions made by scientists and technologists with humankind’s welfare in mind. Almost every field of our life has seen these impro...