“Life is a journey that must be travelled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.” – Oliver Goldsmith

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Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić will remain one of my favourite reads. A subject close to my heart, what adults’ obsession with wars do to the children of this world! And how every time we are failing them, the children, supposedly God’s best gift.

 

As the story evolves we see how the lives of Sara and Leila, childhood best friends, get intertwined with the complexities of a war torn world. The focus in this book was not on war, instead it was on what such complex political situations can do to relationships. The story avoids telling vivid details of the gory, bloody situations, which was a relief. Instead there were only very subtle mentions, rest is for you to interpret. Very similar like the movie, Life is a Miracle by Emir Kusturica, where a lot is said without saying anything.

 

The lives of two little girls, Sara (a Serb) and Leila (a Bosniak), are torn apart by the seeds of animosity sown in a society that once lived together peacefully. They continue to ignore this hatred for quite some time till bodies start floating in their town’s river and Armin, Leila’s older teenager brother, goes missing. But his body never floats up, and hence hope never dies.

 

Armin was the thread that binds them together for some time, Sara’s first crush and Leila’s brother. Sara was just discovering those new found feelings when on one fine day Armin doesn’t return home.

 

What stayed with me was how hatred can poison the society, not sparing even the innocent minds of the children. If it wasn’t for the egoistic adults, children would never learn how to differentiate and discriminate, to shun or bully another child, only because the child is different in some way, or in honest words, worships another God!

 

As the war intensifies, the crazy free bird Leila becomes Lela, and slowly starts moving away from Sara. They walk different paths and stay separated for years in different countries till suddenly one day Leila calls up Sara about Armin.

 

And hence begin their journey, to find Armin. We see the narrative going to and fro between the present and the past. Their conversation is highly enjoyable, including Leila’s craziness. Two friends who have fallen apart for some reason, start walking the same path again for the sake of that one thread that bound them together once, Armin. I almost felt their joy when they both started their journey in search of Armin.

 

But the story ends abruptly, leaving an excruciating pain inside me. When we lose a loved one suddenly, the void they leave in our lives is forever. Life goes on but the pain never goes. What wars and violence do to families; when homes are broken, lives are lost, souls go missing.

 

Easy to write or talk about it but the pain of those who suffered the loss is unbearable and the loss is irreversible. The closure never comes actually. They are alive because they are stuck with being alive, they have no choice but to go on living their lives with that permanent void in their hearts and homes.

 

 

To all those souls who have lost, are losing and will lose their loved ones someday because of mankind’s desperate obsession with killing and destruction.