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Publisher’s
write-up:
‘Just before dawn one winter’s
morning, a hijacked aeroplane blows apart high above the English Channel and
two figures tumble, clutched in an embrace, towards the sea: Gibreel Farishta,
India’s legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand
voices.
Washed up, alive, on an
English beach, their survival is a miracle. But there is a price to pay.
Gibreel and Saladin have been chosen as opponents in the eternal wrestling
match between Good and Evil. But chosen by whom? And which is which? And what
will be the outcome of their final confrontation?’
The title of the book is known to
all, considering the controversy it generated in the late 1980s following its
release in the UK. The summary of the events that followed is that a bounty of
$1 million was placed on the author’s head by the then Supreme Leader of Iran;
and the author had to go into hiding for several years at his residence in the
UK. Salman Rushdie is one of my favourite writers regardless of the
controversy; of course, I got to know of him because of it considering I was
born much after the fatwa from Iran. It took a while to get my hands on
this book and it was a book that I searched quite frantically (and wanted to
own a physical copy to make a statement).
To introduce the plot; a plane
gets hijacked while flying over the English Channel and eventually explodes,
presumed to have no survivors. Miraculously, two of the survivors end up in a
beach in England, Gibreel Farishta, a popular movie star in India and Saladin
Chamcha, a London based radio performer who is blessed with a thousand
different voices. But this is where problems begin, while Gibreel reunited with
his English girlfriend, he was troubled by hallucinations with a result of him
taking up the personality of the archangel Gabriel. Saladin on the other hand,
had a troubled past, a present that he is seemingly happy with about to take a
turn for the worse. He begins to exhibit personalities of the devil, both
in appearance and behaviour. Following a betrayal, Saladin gets arrested for
being an ‘illegal immigrant’ as nobody believed his story of survival;
and he gets desperate for revenge on those who put him in this state.
The primary theme of this book
was one of identity – the two lead characters were of Indian Muslim heritage;
with Gibreel known for playing roles in films with religious themes (across all
religions) and Saladin craving for moving out of India and completely embracing
an English identity. This identity crisis caused problems for them in their
relationships, and in Saladin’s case – a lack of acceptance in both India and
UK, making him quite the interesting character in the book.
There were also underlying
political themes – some of Gibreel’s hallucinations were allusions to then
political events, being the Islamic Revolution in Iran (incidentally, there was
a fatwa issued later by the very person whom he alluded to). All of the
hallucinations were accompanied by Rushdie’s usual writing style and much as it
seems a contradiction in terms, ‘subtle yet direct’ – that is, those who
are used to reading his works know exactly what he is referring to in each of
these events.
The other hallucinations of
Gibreel included were on religion and what blind faith does to people. There
was a story of an Indian village where a woman with a serious ailment with
nothing to lose makes the enter village follow her to a dangerous pilgrimage
(of course, the others had everything to lose). The hallucinations also covered
how religion was used by those in power only to further their political or
business interests.
Considering the complexity of the
book, it felt like reading two different books (not entirely disconnected) –
one, that is Gibreel’s hallucinations (rather, where he eventually felt they
might be revelations) and on the other side, the story in the real world – of
Gibreel and Saladin, the one of strained old relationships, stories of love and
jealousy and confused identity. The satire involving the cat and mouse chase
between evil and good (being Saladin and Gibreel) was well placed and written
within the book. If Midnight’s Children was a complex story, this was a plot
that I felt was thrice the complexity of his earlier book and is neither a
simple read nor a kind of book that lets you give it up after a point.
Rushdie has always admitted to
drawing inspiration from Gabriel García Márquez and I saw some parallels to One
Hundred Years of Solitude in the book – the political themes (including the
conservative – liberal battle), complex family relationships and multiple characters
with the same name! There were three characters named Ayesha in this book and I
enjoyed each of the characters in their respective parts of the story.
Coming to the controversy as
such, I have read several accounts where some have claimed that it was
absolutely offensive and others have said there was nothing to take offense to
and things were blown out of proportion. In this book, with Rushdie’s subtle
yet direct approach, the attack on Islam was apparent and anyone with a
broad knowledge of the religion and its practices (which you are likely to have
if you have at least one Muslim friend in your circles) would figure out what
he is referring to in his allusions. With that said, he never took the name of
Islam even though, the name he chose in the made it pitifully obvious – which
was a translation of the word from Arabic to English. Thus, I can fully imagine
why an even semi-devout Muslim might be offended by this book; but my personal
view on this topic has always been that people have rights, the ideologies
that they hold do not. And religion is just another ideology and can be
criticised like how political ideologies like mocking or making a satire on
communism or nationalism. There is every reason why people can feel offended
about the book, write bad reviews and urge everyone to boycott the book if the
content offends them but the rights stop there; nobody has the right to issue
threats or impose bans on a book for mocking an ideology or religion (my
opinion differs only if a book / speech urges violent threats against a said
group). Much as Rushdie is still alive and writing, unfortunately, many of his
translators were not as lucky as he was and that is unfortunate, but I admire
Rushdie for not backing down.
To conclude, this was a book
where I was overworked in terms of marking interesting paragraphs or quotes for
future reading. As aforementioned, this is not a book meant for a binge reading
session of eight hours, you are meant to take it slowly and sometimes read it
slowly and is probably better enjoyed when read for a second time. I should
plan a second reading myself in some time. It was a complex work of fiction but
one of the best I have read in recent times, on that note, I would award the
book a rating of nine on ten.
Rating – 9/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
