Step Across This Line Part 7

The trouble with the idealized Gandhi is that he's so darned dull, little more than a dispenser of homilies and nostrums ("an eye for an eye will make the whole world go blind") with just the odd flash of wit (asked what he thought of Western civilization, he gave the celebrated reply "I think it would be a good idea"). The real man, if it is still possible to use such a term after the generations of hagiography and reinvention, was infinitely more interesting, one of the most complex and contradictory personalities of the century. His full name, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was memorably-and literally-translated into English by the novelist G. V. Desani as "Action-Slave Fascination-Moon Grocer," and he was as rich and devious a figure as that glorious name suggests.

Entirely unafraid of the British, he was nevertheless scared of the dark and always slept with a light burning by his bedside.

He believed pa.s.sionately in the unity of all the peoples of India, yet his failure to keep the Muslim leader Jinnah within the Congress fold led to the part.i.tion of the country. (His opposition denied Jinnah the presidency of the Congress, which might have kept him from a.s.suming the leaders.h.i.+p of the separatist Muslim League; his withdrawal, under pressure from Nehru and Patel, of a last-ditch offer to Jinnah of the prime ministers.h.i.+p itself ended the last faint chance of avoiding Part.i.tion. And for all his vaunted selflessness and modesty, he made no move to object when Jinnah was attacked during a Congress session for calling him plain Mr. Gandhi, instead of the more wors.h.i.+pful Mahatma.) He was determined to live the life of an ascetic, but as the poet Sarojini Naidu joked, it cost the nation a fortune to keep Gandhi living in poverty. His entire philosophy privileged the village way over that of the city, yet he was always financially dependent on the support of industrial billionaires like Birla. His hunger strikes could stop riots and ma.s.sacres, but he also once went on hunger strike to force his capitalist patron's employees to break their strike against their harsh conditions of employment.

He sought to improve the conditions of India's Untouchables, yet in today's India, these peoples, now calling themselves Dalits, and forming an increasingly well organized and effective political grouping, have rallied round the memory of their own leader, Dr. Ambedkar, an old rival of Gandhi's. As Ambedkar's star has risen among the Dalits, so Gandhi's stature has been reduced.

The creator of the political philosophies of pa.s.sive resistance and constructive non-violence, he spent much of his life far from the political arena, refining his more eccentric theories of vegetarianism, bowel movements, and the beneficial properties of human excrement.

Forever scarred by the knowledge that, as a sixteen-year-old youth, he'd been making love to his wife, Kasturba, at the moment of his father's death, Gandhi forswore s.e.xual relations but went on into his old age with what he called his brahmacharya experiments, during which naked young women, often the wives of friends and colleagues, would be asked to lie with him all night, so that he could prove that he had mastered his physical urges. (He believed that the conservation of his "vital fluids" would deepen his spiritual understanding.) He, and he alone, was responsible for the transformation of the demand for independence into a nationwide ma.s.s movement that mobilized every cla.s.s of society against the imperialist; yet the free India that came into being, divided and committed to a program of modernization and industrialization, was not the India of his dreams. His sometime disciple, Jawaharlal Nehru, was the arch-proponent of modernization, and it is Nehru's vision, not Gandhi's, that was eventually-and perhaps inevitably-preferred.

Gandhi began by believing that the politics of pa.s.sive resistance and non-violence could be effective in any situation, at any time, even against a force as malign as n.a.z.i Germany. Later, he was obliged to revise his opinion, and concluded that while the British had responded to such techniques, because of their own nature, other oppressors might not. This is not so different from the Attenborough movie's position, and it is, of course, wrong.

Gandhian non-violence is widely believed to be the method by which India gained independence. (The view is a.s.siduously fostered inside India as well as outside it.) Yet the Indian revolution did indeed become violent, and this violence so disappointed Gandhi that he stayed away from the Independence celebrations in protest. Moreover, the ruinous economic impact of World War II on the United Kingdom, and-as the British writer Patrick French says in Liberty or Death Liberty or Death-the gradual collapse of the Raj's bureaucratic hold over India from the mid-1930s onward, did as much to bring about freedom as any action of Gandhi's, or indeed of the nationalist movement as a whole. It is probable, in fact, that Gandhian techniques were not the key determinants of India's arrival at freedom. They gave Independence its outward character and were its apparent cause, but darker and deeper historical forces produced the desired effect.

These days, few people pause to consider the complex character of Gandhi's personality, the ambiguous nature of his achievement and legacy, or even the real causes of Indian independence. These are hurried, sloganizing times, and we don't have the time or, worse, the inclination to a.s.similate many-sided truths. The harshest truth of all is that Gandhi is increasingly irrelevant in the country whose "little father"-Bapu-he was. As the a.n.a.lyst Sunil Khilnani has pointed out, India came into being as a secularized state, but Gandhi's vision was essentially religious. However, he "recoiled" from Hindu nationalism. His solution was to forge an Indian ident.i.ty out of the shared body of ancient narratives. "He turned to legends and stories from India's popular religious traditions, preferring their lessons to the supposed ones of history."

It didn't work. The last Gandhian to be effective in Indian politics was J. P. Narayan, who led the movement that deposed Indira Gandhi at the end of her period of Emergency rule (19741977). In today's India, Hindu nationalism is rampant, in the form of the BJP and its thuggish sidekick, the s.h.i.+v Sena. During the present elections, Gandhi and his ideas have scarcely been mentioned. Most of those who are not seduced by sectarian politics are in the thrall of an equally potent, equally anti-Gandhian force: money. And organized crime, too, has moved into the public sphere. In Gandhi's beloved rural heartland, actual gangsters are being elected to office.

Twenty-one years ago, the writer Ved Mehta spoke to one of Gandhi's leading political a.s.sociates, a former governor-general of independent India, C. Rajagopalachari. His verdict on Gandhi's legacy is disenchanted, but in today's India, on the fast track to free-market capitalism, it still rings true: "The glamour of modern technology, money, and power is so seductive that no one-I mean no one-can resist it. The handful of Gandhians who still believe in his philosophy of a simple life in a simple society are mostly cranks."

What, then, is greatness? In what does it reside? If a man's project fails, or survives only in irredeemably tarnished form, can the force of his example still merit the supreme accolade? For Jawaharlal Nehru, the defining image of Gandhi was "as I saw him marching, staff in hand, to Dandi on the Salt March in 1930. Here was the pilgrim on his quest of Truth, quiet, peaceful, determined, and fearless, who would continue that quest and pilgrimage, regardless of consequences." Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, later said: "More than his words, his life was his message." These days, that message is better heeded outside India. Albert Einstein was one of the many to praise Gandhi's achievement; Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, and all the world's peace movements have followed in his footsteps. Gandhi, who gave up cosmopolitanism to gain a country, has become, in his strange afterlife, a citizen of the world. His spirit may yet prove resilient, smart, tough, sneaky, and-yes-ethical enough to avoid a.s.similation by global McCulture (and Mac culture, too). Against this new empire, Gandhian intelligence is a better weapon than Gandhian piety. And pa.s.sive resistance? We'll see.

February 1998

The Taj Mahal

[Written for a National Geographic National Geographic survey of the great marvels of the world survey of the great marvels of the world]

The trouble with the Taj Mahal is that it has become so overlaid with acc.u.mulated meanings as to be almost impossible to see. A billion chocolate-box images and tourist guidebooks order us to "read" the Mughal emperor Shah Jehan's marble mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, known as Taj Bibi, as the World's Greatest Monument to Love. It sits at the top of the West's short list of images of the Exotic (and also Timeless) Orient. Like the Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, like Andy Warhol's screenprinted Elvis, Marilyn, and Mao, ma.s.s reproduction has all but sterilized the Taj. like Andy Warhol's screenprinted Elvis, Marilyn, and Mao, ma.s.s reproduction has all but sterilized the Taj.

Nor is this by any means a simple case of the West's appropriation or "colonization" of an Indian masterwork. In the first place, the Taj, which in the mid-nineteenth century had been all but abandoned, and had fallen into a severe state of disrepair, would probably not be standing today were it not for the diligent conservationist efforts of the colonial British. In the second place, India is perfectly capable of over-merchandising itself.

When you arrive at the outer walls of the gardens in which the Taj is set, it's as if every hustler and hawker in Agra is waiting for you to make the familiarity-breeds-contempt problem worse, peddling imitation Mahals of every size and price. This leads to a certain amount of shoulder-shrugging disenchantment. Recently, a British friend who was about to make his first trip to India told me that he had decided to leave the Taj off his itinerary because of its over-exposure. If I urged him not to, it was because of my own vivid memory of pus.h.i.+ng my way for the first time through the jostling crowd, not only of imitation-vendors but also of prescribed readings, past all the myriad hawkers of meaning and interpretation, and into the presence of the thing-in-itself, thing-in-itself, which utterly overwhelmed me and made all my notions about its devaluation feel totally and completely redundant. which utterly overwhelmed me and made all my notions about its devaluation feel totally and completely redundant.

I had been skeptical about the visit. One of the legends of the Taj is that the hands of the master masons who built it were cut off by the emperor, so that they could never build anything lovelier. Another is that the mausoleum was constructed in secrecy behind high walls, and a man who tried to sneak a preview was blinded for his interest in architecture. My personal imagined Taj was somewhat tarnished by these cruel tales.

The building itself left my skepticism in shreds, however. Announcing itself as itself, insisting with absolute force on its sovereign authority, it simply obliterated the million million counterfeits of it and glowingly filled, once and forever, the place in the mind previously occupied by its simulacra.

And this, finally, is why the Taj Mahal must be seen: to remind us that the world is real, that the sound is truer than the echo, the original more forceful than its image in a mirror. The beauty of beautiful things is still able, in these image-saturated times, to transcend imitations. And the Taj Mahal is, beyond the power of words to say it, a lovely thing, perhaps the loveliest of things.

June 1999

The Baburnama

Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur (14831530), the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, is best remembered for three things: the story of his death, the controversy over his mosque, and the extraordinary reputation of The Baburnama, The Baburnama, his book. his book.

I first heard the legend of Babur's death when I was still a boy. His son and heir Humayun was ill, the story went. His fever rose and the court's doctors despaired of saving him. Then Babur, after consulting a mystic, walked three times around Humayun's bed and offered himself to G.o.d in his son's place. Whereupon Humayun strengthened and recovered, and Babur weakened and-on December 21, 1530-died. This story struck me with an almost mythic force. I remember being horrified by Abraham's unnatural readiness to sacrifice his allegedly beloved son-Isaac according to the Old Testament, but Ismail in the Muslim version. Was that what the love of G.o.d made fathers willing to do? It was enough to make one regard one's own parent with a somewhat worried eye. Babur's story served as an antidote. Here the love of G.o.d was used to make possible the opposite and somehow more "natural" sacrifice: the father dying that the child might live. Babur and Humayun's story lodged deep within me as the paradigmatic tale of fatherly love.

These days, Babur's name is still a.s.sociated with legends, but of a different and more controversial kind. The Babri Masjid, the mosque he built in Ayodhya, a city in what was once the kingdom of Awadh (Oudh) and is now the heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, was demolished in 1992 by Hindu extremists who believed that it had been built on the ruins of a Hindu temple sacred to the mythic hero of the Ramayana, Lord Ram (or Rama) himself; a temple, moreover, which had been constructed to mark the site of the Ramjanmabhoomi-the actual birthplace of the hero-G.o.d.

Ayodhya was indeed the name of Ram's city, whence he set forth to rescue his beloved Sita from her abductor, Lord Ravan. But there's little reason to believe that modern-day Ayodhya stands on the same site as the Ramayana's fabled realm. And, at the risk of rousing the ire of militant Hindus, there is no real proof that the mythological Lord Ram, an incarnation of the great G.o.d Vishnu, was a historical personage at all. Even the simplest facts remain in doubt; archaeologists disagree about the site, and as to it being the "real" Ramjanmabhoomi, that's about as likely as Christ being born in modern Bethlehem's Manger Square. (It is also pointed out that many Hindu temples in India are built over the ruins of Buddhist shrines.) All these doubts and caveats are swept aside by the zealots' wrath. Babur, the bloodthirsty slayer of infidels, the devoted destroyer of temples, is in their eyes guilty as charged, and all India's Muslims are indirectly tainted by his crime. (There's a Hindu nationalist view that India is a country of many peoples: Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Buddhists, Jains, Christians-and Mughals.) They claim, moreover, that the Babri Masjid is only the first of the mosques on their hit list. In Mathura, they allege, another mosque stands on the demolished birthplace of another divinity-another incarnation of Vishnu, actually-Lord Krishna, he of the milkmaids and the l.u.s.trous blue skin.

The autobiography that is Babur's third and most enduring claim to fame is inconveniently silent-or, in the opinion of his more strident critics, conveniently so-on the time Babur spent in and around the Ayodhya region. In all surviving ma.n.u.scripts there's a five-month gap between April and September 1528, the period during which Babur was in Oudh, and during which the Babri Masjid was built. Thus there's no proof that anything at all was demolished to build the mosque, or, alternatively, that it wasn't. In our paranoid age it's perhaps necessary to point out that there's nothing suspicious about this gap. Four hundred and seventy-plus years is a long time. Things get lost in four and a half centuries, sometimes the things (Thomas Kyd's Hamlet, Hamlet, for example) that we most want to find. for example) that we most want to find.

A man's character can get blurred by the pa.s.sage of time. Where facts are insufficient, what fills the s.p.a.ce is interpretation. Take two recent depictions of a single scene from the emperor's life: the temporary capture in the Punjab of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, by Babur's conquering army. The critic N. S. Rajaram, a deconstructionist of Indian "secularist myths," an apologist for the destruction of the Babri Masjid, and in general no fan of Babur's, writes that "in his Babur Vani, Babur Vani, Nanak denounced him in no uncertain terms, giving a vivid account of Babur's vandalism in Aimanabad." Against this, Amitav Ghosh tells us in a recent essay that Sikhs Nanak denounced him in no uncertain terms, giving a vivid account of Babur's vandalism in Aimanabad." Against this, Amitav Ghosh tells us in a recent essay that Sikhs have long cherished a story, preserved in their scriptural tradition, about an encounter between Babur and the founder of their faith, Guru Nanak. . . . Learning of a miracle performed by the Guru, Babur visited him in prison. Such was the presence of the Guru that Babur is said to have fallen at his feet, with the cry: "On the face of this faqir one sees G.o.d himself."

Ghosh concedes that Sikhs became "dedicated adversaries of the Mughal state in the seventeenth century" but argues powerfully that the flowering of Hinduism, including the Vaishnavite development of the theology and sacred geography of Krishna-wors.h.i.+p, which took place in northern India under Babur and his successors, would have been impossible in a climate of persecution. "Hinduism would scarcely be recognizable today," Ghosh writes, if Vaishnavism had been actively suppressed in the sixteenth century: other devotional forms may have taken its place, but we cannot know what those would have been. It is a simple fact that contemporary Hinduism as a living practice would not be what it is if it were not for the devotional practices initiated under Mughal rule. The sad irony of the a.s.sault on the Babri mosque is that the Hindu fanatics who attacked it destroyed a symbol of the very accommodations that made their own beliefs possible.

Rajaram argues back, with almost equal force, that Babur was more than ordinarily ruthless. He pursued to the limit the concept of Jihad-a total war for the annihilation of his adversaries as prescribed by Islam of which he was a pract.i.tioner. He was a product of his age and his environment, and that is exactly how we must see him. Whitewas.h.i.+ng his blood-soaked record to turn him into a figure of chivalry and prince charming is an exercise in juvenile fantasy. Babur saw ruthlessness as a virtue, and terror as a useful tactical tool. In this he was a true descendant of Timur and Chengiz Khan-both of whom were his ancestors. Guru Nanak's eyewitness account gives a better picture of Babur and his methods than almost any modern history book. The same holds true for The Baburnama The Baburnama: it is a primary source of great importance that goes to demolish romantic tales about him.

(Somewhat coa.r.s.ely, Rajaram reminds us that the phrase Babur ki aulad, Babur ki aulad, "offspring of Babur," is a common term of abuse leveled at Indian Muslims.) "offspring of Babur," is a common term of abuse leveled at Indian Muslims.) How contemporary this dispute sounds! Today, once again, we are tossed between Islam's apologists and detractors. In part because of these modern disagreements, those who would defend India's Muslims against the accusations of Hindu nationalists naturally stress the civilization and tolerance of Mughal Islam. As many writers have said, the dynasty Babur founded-his true aulad aulad-was noted for its polytheistic inclusiveness. At the height of the Mughal Empire, Babur's grandson Akbar went so far as to invent a new creed-the Din-i-Illahi-that sought to be a fusion of all that was best in Indian spirituality. Against this, however, it's argued that the last of the so-called Grand Mughals, Aurangzeb, did his iconoclastic best to undo his predecessors' good work, rampaging across the country destroying temples. (Some of India's most precious antiquities, such as the temple complex at Khajuraho, survive only because in Aurangzeb's time these extraordinary edifices with their famous erotic carvings had faded from prominence and weren't marked on his maps.) Who, then, was Babur-scholar or barbarian, nature-loving poet or terror-inspiring warlord? The answer is to be found in The Baburnama, The Baburnama, and it's an uncomfortable one: he was both. It could be said that the struggle taking place within Islam in our own era, the struggle which has, I believe, been a feature of the history of Islam from its beginnings to the present day-between conservatism and progressivism, between Islam's male-dominated, aggressive, ruthless aspect and its gentler, deeply sophisticated culture of books, philosophers, musicians, and artists, that same contradictory doubleness which modern commentators have found so hard to understand-was, in the case of Babur, an internal conflict. Both Baburs are real, and perhaps the strangest thing about and it's an uncomfortable one: he was both. It could be said that the struggle taking place within Islam in our own era, the struggle which has, I believe, been a feature of the history of Islam from its beginnings to the present day-between conservatism and progressivism, between Islam's male-dominated, aggressive, ruthless aspect and its gentler, deeply sophisticated culture of books, philosophers, musicians, and artists, that same contradictory doubleness which modern commentators have found so hard to understand-was, in the case of Babur, an internal conflict. Both Baburs are real, and perhaps the strangest thing about The Baburnama The Baburnama is that they do not seem to be at odds with one another. When the book's author looks inward and reflects, he is often melancholy, but the dark clouds that gather over him do not seem to be the product of a storm within. Mostly, they have to do with his sense of loss. The first Mughal emperor of India was also an exile and a homesick man. His soul pined for what we would now call Afghanistan. is that they do not seem to be at odds with one another. When the book's author looks inward and reflects, he is often melancholy, but the dark clouds that gather over him do not seem to be the product of a storm within. Mostly, they have to do with his sense of loss. The first Mughal emperor of India was also an exile and a homesick man. His soul pined for what we would now call Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's new significance in the world after September 11, 2001, changes the way we now read The Baburnama. The Baburnama. Hitherto, the book's Indian section has been of most interest, with its firsthand account of the birth of an empire that lasted two hundred years, until the British supplanted it. But suddenly it is the work's "Afghan" beginnings that fascinate us. Place names from Kunduz to Kabul, made newly familiar by the bulletins of a modern war, leap out at us. The ancient treacheries of the region's warlords seem to have things to teach us about the power struggles of today. Babur is fascinatingly frank about all of this. (It's plain that in his time the best response to the death of a parent was to dive for cover and plot your siblings' death, knowing that those siblings would be filled with similarly loving thoughts about you.) Hitherto, the book's Indian section has been of most interest, with its firsthand account of the birth of an empire that lasted two hundred years, until the British supplanted it. But suddenly it is the work's "Afghan" beginnings that fascinate us. Place names from Kunduz to Kabul, made newly familiar by the bulletins of a modern war, leap out at us. The ancient treacheries of the region's warlords seem to have things to teach us about the power struggles of today. Babur is fascinatingly frank about all of this. (It's plain that in his time the best response to the death of a parent was to dive for cover and plot your siblings' death, knowing that those siblings would be filled with similarly loving thoughts about you.) Yet this treacherous land was the place Babur loved. Read him on Kabul, "a petty little province," and vivid detail enlivens his simple declaratory sentences. "At the end of the ca.n.a.l is an area called Gulkana, a secluded, cozy spot where much debauchery is indulged in." The Baburnama, The Baburnama, not unattractively, finds s.e.x and booze wherever it goes. "Kabul wine is intoxicating. The wine from the slopes of Khwaja Khawand Sa'id mountain is known for being strong." Tropical and cold-weather fruits are eulogized, melons are disparaged, meadows are praised for being free of flies while others are flyblown and to be avoided. Mountain roads and pa.s.ses, which became the subjects of nightly a.n.a.lyses on the world's media during the recent battles against the Taliban and Al-Qaida forces, are here meticulously described. Muskrats scuttle and partridges rise. A world leaps into view. not unattractively, finds s.e.x and booze wherever it goes. "Kabul wine is intoxicating. The wine from the slopes of Khwaja Khawand Sa'id mountain is known for being strong." Tropical and cold-weather fruits are eulogized, melons are disparaged, meadows are praised for being free of flies while others are flyblown and to be avoided. Mountain roads and pa.s.ses, which became the subjects of nightly a.n.a.lyses on the world's media during the recent battles against the Taliban and Al-Qaida forces, are here meticulously described. Muskrats scuttle and partridges rise. A world leaps into view.

In India, which he so famously disliked, Babur's powers of description grow, if anything, stronger. Sometimes he succ.u.mbs to fantasy. "It is said that . . . there are elephants ten yards tall." Usually, however, he confines his remarks to what he has seen with his own eyes. "[Rhinoceroses] wield their horns in an amazing way. . . . During one hunt a page named Maqsud had his horse thrown a spear length by one. Thereafter he was nicknamed Rhinoceros Maqsud." He describes the cows, the monkeys, the birds, the fruits of India; but in spite of his evident respect for the "excellent" system of numbering and the "wonderful" systems of weights and measures, he can't resist going on to the attack. "Hindustan is a place of little charm. There is no beauty in its people . . . the arts and crafts have no harmony or symmetry. . . . There is no ice. . . . There are no baths." He likes the monsoon, but not the humidity. He likes the winter, but not the dust. The summer isn't as hot as it is in Balkh and Kandahar, and that's a plus. He admires the "craftsmen and pract.i.tioners of every trade." But what he likes most is the wealth. "The one nice aspect of Hindustan is that it is a large country with lots of gold and money."

The contradictions in Babur's personality are well ill.u.s.trated by his account of the conquest of Chanderi in 1528. First comes a bloodthirsty description of the killing of many "infidels" and the apparent ma.s.s suicide of two or three hundred more. ("They killed each other almost to the last by having one man hold a sword while the others willingly bent their necks. . . . A tower of infidels' skulls was erected on the hill on the northwest side of Chanderi." Then, just three sentences later, we get this: "Chanderi is a superb place. All around the area are many flowing streams. . . . The lake . . . is renowned throughout Hindustan for its good, sweet water. It is truly a nice little lake."

The Western thinker whom Babur most resembles is his contemporary the Florentine Niccol Machiavelli. In both men, a cold appreciation of the necessities of power, of what would today be called realpolitik, is combined with a deeply cultured and literary nature, not to mention the love, often to excess, of wine and women. Of course, Babur actually was a prince, not simply the author of The Prince, The Prince, and could practice what he preached; while Machiavelli, the natural republican, the survivor of torture, was by far the more troubled spirit of the pair. Yet both these unwilling exiles were, as writers, blessed, or perhaps cursed, with a clear-sightedness that looks amoral, as truth so often does. and could practice what he preached; while Machiavelli, the natural republican, the survivor of torture, was by far the more troubled spirit of the pair. Yet both these unwilling exiles were, as writers, blessed, or perhaps cursed, with a clear-sightedness that looks amoral, as truth so often does.

The Baburnama, the first autobiography in Islamic literature, was originally written in Chaghatay Turkish, the language of Babur's ancestor Temur-i-Lang, "lame Temur," better known in the West as Tamerlane. Wheeler M. Thackston's translation replaces the inadequate Beveridge version, and is so fluently readable, and so thoroughly backed up by the detailed scholars.h.i.+p of Thackston's many annotations, as to feel definitive. From Thackston's footnotes we learn about much that Babur leaves unsaid-about, for example, Persian verse forms such as the qasida and the ghazal; or peaked Mongolian caps; or the place in the heavens of the star Canopus. He is not afraid to argue with Babur. When Babur speculates that the name of a province, Lamghan, is derived from the Islamic version of the name of Noah, "Lamkan," Thackston ripostes: "He is quite mistaken in this, for the -ghan and -qan endings on so many toponyms in the area are of Iranian origin." Babur should feel well pleased to have so unsubmissive a translator and editor. A great translation can unveil-can, literally, dis-cover-a great book; and in Thackston's translation, one of the cla.s.sic works of world literature arrives in English like a marvelous discovery. the first autobiography in Islamic literature, was originally written in Chaghatay Turkish, the language of Babur's ancestor Temur-i-Lang, "lame Temur," better known in the West as Tamerlane. Wheeler M. Thackston's translation replaces the inadequate Beveridge version, and is so fluently readable, and so thoroughly backed up by the detailed scholars.h.i.+p of Thackston's many annotations, as to feel definitive. From Thackston's footnotes we learn about much that Babur leaves unsaid-about, for example, Persian verse forms such as the qasida and the ghazal; or peaked Mongolian caps; or the place in the heavens of the star Canopus. He is not afraid to argue with Babur. When Babur speculates that the name of a province, Lamghan, is derived from the Islamic version of the name of Noah, "Lamkan," Thackston ripostes: "He is quite mistaken in this, for the -ghan and -qan endings on so many toponyms in the area are of Iranian origin." Babur should feel well pleased to have so unsubmissive a translator and editor. A great translation can unveil-can, literally, dis-cover-a great book; and in Thackston's translation, one of the cla.s.sic works of world literature arrives in English like a marvelous discovery.

January 2002

A Dream of Glorious Return

THURSDAY, APRIL 6.

I have left India many times. The first time was when I was thirteen and a half and went to boarding school in Rugby, England. My mother didn't want me to go, but I said I did. I flew west excitedly in January 1961, not really knowing that I was taking a step that would change my life forever. A few years later, my father, without telling me, suddenly sold Windsor Villa, our family home in Bombay. The day I heard this, I felt an abyss open beneath my feet. I think that I never forgave my father for selling that house, and I'm sure that if he hadn't I would still be living in it. Since then my characters have frequently flown west from India, but in novel after novel their author's imagination has returned to it. This, perhaps, is what it means to love a country: that its shape is also yours, the shape of the way you think and feel and dream. That you can never really leave.

Before the Part.i.tion Ma.s.sacres of 1947, my parents left Delhi and moved south, correctly calculating that there would be less trouble in secular, cosmopolitan Bombay. As a result I grew up in that tolerant, broad-minded city, whose particular quality-call it freedom-I've been trying to capture and celebrate ever since. Midnight's Children Midnight's Children (1981) was my first attempt at such literary land reclamation. Living in London, I wanted to get India back; and the delight with which Indian readers clasped the book to themselves, the pa.s.sion with which they, in turn, claimed me, remains the most precious memory of my writing life. (1981) was my first attempt at such literary land reclamation. Living in London, I wanted to get India back; and the delight with which Indian readers clasped the book to themselves, the pa.s.sion with which they, in turn, claimed me, remains the most precious memory of my writing life.

In 1988, I was planning to buy myself an Indian base with the advances I'd received for my new novel. But that novel was The Satanic Verses, The Satanic Verses, and after it was published the world changed for me, and I was no longer able to set foot in the country that has been my primary source of artistic inspiration. Whenever I made inquiries about getting a visa, the word invariably came back that I would not be granted one. Nothing about my plague years, the dark decade that followed the Khomeini fatwa, has hurt more than this rift. I felt like a jilted lover left alone with his unrequited, unbearable love. You can measure love by the size of the hole it leaves behind. and after it was published the world changed for me, and I was no longer able to set foot in the country that has been my primary source of artistic inspiration. Whenever I made inquiries about getting a visa, the word invariably came back that I would not be granted one. Nothing about my plague years, the dark decade that followed the Khomeini fatwa, has hurt more than this rift. I felt like a jilted lover left alone with his unrequited, unbearable love. You can measure love by the size of the hole it leaves behind.

It has been a deep rift, let's admit that. India was the first country to ban The Satanic Verses The Satanic Verses-which was proscribed without following India's own stipulated due process in such matters, banned before it entered the country by a weak Congress government led by Rajiv Gandhi, in a desperate, unsuccessful bid for Muslim votes. After that, it sometimes seemed as if the Indian authorities were determined to rub salt in the wound. When The Moor's Last Sigh The Moor's Last Sigh was published in the fall of 1995, the Indian government, in an attempt to appease Bal Thackeray's brutal s.h.i.+v Sena in Bombay (which has done much to damage the city's old free-spirited openness, and which I therefore satirized in the novel), blocked the book's import through customs but backed down quickly when challenged in the courts. Then BBC Television's efforts to make a prestigious five-hour dramatization of was published in the fall of 1995, the Indian government, in an attempt to appease Bal Thackeray's brutal s.h.i.+v Sena in Bombay (which has done much to damage the city's old free-spirited openness, and which I therefore satirized in the novel), blocked the book's import through customs but backed down quickly when challenged in the courts. Then BBC Television's efforts to make a prestigious five-hour dramatization of Midnight's Children, Midnight's Children, with a screenplay I myself adapted from the novel, were thwarted when India refused permission to film. That with a screenplay I myself adapted from the novel, were thwarted when India refused permission to film. That Midnight's Children Midnight's Children was deemed unfit to be filmed in its own country, the country which had so recently celebrated its publication with so much recognition and joy, was a bad and miserable shock. was deemed unfit to be filmed in its own country, the country which had so recently celebrated its publication with so much recognition and joy, was a bad and miserable shock.

There were smaller but still wounding slights. For years I was declared persona non grata by the Indian High Commission in London's cultural arm, the Nehru Centre. And at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of Indian independence, I was similarly barred from the Indian consulate's celebrations in New York.

Meanwhile, in some Indian literary quarters, it has become fas.h.i.+onable to denigrate my work. And the ban on The Satanic Verses The Satanic Verses is, of course, still in place. is, of course, still in place.

After the September 24, 1998, agreement between the British and Iranian governments that effectively set aside the Khomeini fatwa, things began to change for me in India too. India granted me a five-year visa just over a year ago. But at once there were threats from Muslim hard-liners like Imam Bukhari of the Delhi Juma Masjid. More worryingly, some commentators told me not to visit India because if I did so I might look like a p.a.w.n of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government. I have never been a BJP man, but that wouldn't stop them using me for their own sectarian ends.

"Exile," it says somewhere in The Satanic Verses, The Satanic Verses, "is a dream of glorious return." But the dream fades, the imagined return stops feeling glorious. The dreamer awakes. I almost gave up on India, almost believed the love affair was over for good. "is a dream of glorious return." But the dream fades, the imagined return stops feeling glorious. The dreamer awakes. I almost gave up on India, almost believed the love affair was over for good.

But, as it turns out, not so. As it turns out, I'm about to leave for Delhi after a gap of twelve and a half years. My son Zafar, twenty, is coming with me. He hasn't been to India since he was three, and is very excited. Compared to me, however, he's the very picture of coolness and calm.

FRIDAY, APRIL 7.

The telephone rings. The Delhi police are extremely nervous about my impending arrival. Can I please avoid being spotted on the plane? My bald head is very recognizable; will I please wear a hat? My eyes are also easily identified; will I please wear sungla.s.ses? Oh, and my beard, too, is a real giveaway; will I wear a scarf around that? The temperature in India is close to 100F, I point out: a scarf might prove a little warm. Oh, but there are cotton scarves . . .

These requests are relayed to me in a don't-shoot-the-messenger voice by my usually unflappable Indian attorney, Vijay Shankarda.s.s. How about, I suggest hotly, if I just spend the entire journey with my head in a paper bag? "Salman," says Vijay, carefully, "there's a lot of tension out here. I'm feeling fairly anxious myself."

The organizers of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, at whose invitation I am traveling to Delhi, are sending mixed messages. Mr. Pavan Varma, a civil servant who is also in charge of media relations for the event, ignores all requests for discretion and holds a press conference to say that I'll probably be at the prize banquet. Contrariwise, Colin Ball, head of the Commonwealth Foundation, whose prize it is, tells Vijay that if police protection is not extended to all the twenty or so foreign visitors arriving at Claridge's Hotel for the ceremony, he may have to withdraw my invitation, even though I won't be staying at Claridge's, and n.o.body has ever threatened the delegates, who are not deemed by the Indian authorities to be in any danger. The only threats around right now are Mr. Ball's.

I'm going to India because things are better now and I judge that it's time to go. I'm going because if I don't go I'll never know if it's okay to go or not. I'm going because in spite of everything that has happened between India and myself, in spite of the bruises on my heart, the hook of love is in too deeply to pull out. Most of all, I'm going because Zafar asked to come with me. High time he was reintroduced to his other country.

But the truth is I don't know what to expect. Will I feel welcomed or spurned? I don't know if I'm going back to say h.e.l.lo or good-bye. I don't know if I'm going back to say h.e.l.lo or good-bye. Oh, stop being so melodramatic, Salman. Don't meet trouble halfway. Just get on the plane and go. Oh, stop being so melodramatic, Salman. Don't meet trouble halfway. Just get on the plane and go.

So: I fly to Delhi, and n.o.body sees me do it. Here's the invisible man in his business cla.s.s seat. Here he is, watching the new Pedro Almodovar movie on a little pop-up screen, while the plane flies over, er, Iran. Here's the invisible man sleep-masked and snoring.

And here I am at journey's end, stepping out into the heat of Delhi's international airport with Zafar at my side, and only Vijay Shankarda.s.s can see us. Abracadabra! Abracadabra! Magic realism rules. Don't ask me how it's done. The shrewd conjurer never explains the trick. Magic realism rules. Don't ask me how it's done. The shrewd conjurer never explains the trick.

I feel an urge to kiss the ground or, rather, the blue rug in the airport "finger," but am embarra.s.sed to do so beneath the watchful eyes of a small army of security guards. Leaving the rug unkissed, I move out of the terminal into the blazing, bone-dry Delhi heat, so different from the wet-towel humidity of my native Bombay. The hot day enfolds us like an embrace. A road unrolls before us like a carpet. We climb into a cramped, white Hindustan Amba.s.sador, a car that is itself a blast from the past, the British Morris Oxford, long defunct in Britain but alive and well here in this Indian translation. The Amba.s.sador's air-conditioning system isn't working.

I'm back.

SAt.u.r.dAY, APRIL 8.

India doesn't stand on ceremony, and rushes in from every direction, thrusting me into the middle of its unending argument, clamoring for my total attention as it always did. Buy Chilly c.o.c.kroach traps! Drink h.e.l.lo mineral water! Speed Thrills But Kills! Buy Chilly c.o.c.kroach traps! Drink h.e.l.lo mineral water! Speed Thrills But Kills! shout the billboards. There are new kinds of messages, too. shout the billboards. There are new kinds of messages, too. Enroll for Oracle 81. Graduate with Java as well. Enroll for Oracle 81. Graduate with Java as well. And, as proof that the long protectionist years are over, Coca-Cola is back with a vengeance. When I was last here it was banned, leaving the field clear for the disgusting local imitations, Campa-Cola and Thums Up. Now there's a red c.o.ke ad every hundred yards or so. c.o.ke's slogan of the moment is written in Hindi transliterated into Roman script: And, as proof that the long protectionist years are over, Coca-Cola is back with a vengeance. When I was last here it was banned, leaving the field clear for the disgusting local imitations, Campa-Cola and Thums Up. Now there's a red c.o.ke ad every hundred yards or so. c.o.ke's slogan of the moment is written in Hindi transliterated into Roman script: Jo Chaho Ho Jaaye. Jo Chaho Ho Jaaye. Which could be translated, literally, as "whatever you desire, let it come to pa.s.s." Which could be translated, literally, as "whatever you desire, let it come to pa.s.s."

I choose to think of this as a blessing.

HORN PLEASE, demand the signs on the backs of the one million trucks blocking the road. All the other trucks, cars, bikes, motor-scooters, taxis, and phut-phut phut-phut autorickshaws enthusiastically respond, welcoming Zafar and me to town with an energetic rendition of the traditional symphony of the Indian street. autorickshaws enthusiastically respond, welcoming Zafar and me to town with an energetic rendition of the traditional symphony of the Indian street.

Wait for Side! Sorry-Bye-Bye! Fatta Boy!

The news is just as cacophonous. Between India and Pakistan, as usual, acrimony reigns. Pakistan's exPrime Minister Nawaz Sharif has just been sentenced to life imprisonment after what looked very like a show trial stage-managed by the latest military strongman to seize power, General Pervez Musharraf. India's army of vociferous commentators, linking this story to the unveiling by Pakistan of a new missile, the Shaheen-II, warn darkly of the worsening relations between the two countries. A politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuses Imam Bukhari of "seditious utterances" for some allegedly pro-Pakistani, anti-Indian statements. Plus ca change. Plus ca change. Tempers, as ever, run high. Tempers, as ever, run high.

Inevitably, Bill Clinton, on his recent visit to the subcontinent, was drawn into these old antagonisms. From an Indian point of view, he said most of the right things. In particular, his toughness toward Pakistan, its dictators.h.i.+p, its nuclear bomb, its illiberalism, won him many friends, and this after many years during which Indians were convinced that the basis of American foreign policy in the region was, in Dr. Kissinger's phrase, to "tilt toward Pakistan."

India is, on the whole, basking in the afterglow of the Clinton visit when I arrive. The roseate old charmer has done it again. Bombay's movie world is agog. "Hindustani hearts," reports a s...o...b..z magazine in the city's inimitable prose style, "went bonkers over the Grand daddy of Uncle Sam." A starlet, Suman Ranganathan, variously described as a "s.e.xy babe" and "apni sizzling mirchi," that is, "our very own sizzling hot chili," is much taken by Big Bill, who is, she declares, "amazing, approachable, and someone who knows the pulse of the people."

In India, as my friend the distinguished art critic Geeta Kapur reminds me, people have very rarely been bothered by politicians' private lives. One very senior BJP leader is known to have kept a mistress for years without it affecting his career in the slightest. Indians, therefore, view the Lewinsky scandal with bemused puzzlement. If various hot chilis choose to sizzle at the world's most powerful man, who could be surprised?

I've been back only for an instant, and already everyone I talk to-Vijay Shankarda.s.s, friends I'm eagerly ringing up to announce my arrival, even policemen-is regaling me with opinions on the new shape of Indian politics. If Bombay is India's New York-glamorous, glitzy, vulgar-chic, a merchant city, a movie city, a slum city, incredibly rich, hideously poor-then Delhi is like Was.h.i.+ngton. Politics is the only game in town. n.o.body talks about anything else for very long.

Once, India's minorities looked for protection to the left-leaning Congress, then the country's only organized political machine. Now the disarray of the Congress Party, and its drift to the right, is everywhere apparent. Under the leaders.h.i.+p of Sonia Gandhi, the once mighty machine languishes and rusts.

People who have known Sonia for years urge me not to swallow the line that she was never interested in politics and allowed herself to be drafted into the leaders.h.i.+p only because of her concern for the party. A portrait is painted of a woman completely seduced by power but unable to wield it, lacking the skill, charm, vision, indeed everything except the hunger for power itself. Around her fawn the sycophantic courtiers of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, working to prevent the emergence of new leaders-P. S. Chidambaram, Madhavrao Scindia, Rajesh Pilot-who just might have the freshness and will to revive the party's fortunes, but who cannot be permitted to usurp the leaders.h.i.+p role that, in the Sonia clique's view, belongs to her and her children alone.

I was last in India in August 1987, making a television doc.u.mentary about the fortieth anniversary of Independence. I have never forgotten being at the Red Fort listening to Rajiv Gandhi delivering a stunningly tedious oration in broken schoolboy Hindi, while the audience simply and crus.h.i.+ngly walked away. Now, here on television is his widow, her Hindi even more broken than his, a woman convinced of her right to rule but convincing almost n.o.body except herself.

I remember another widow. In that 1987 doc.u.mentary we included an interview with a Sikh woman, Ravel Kaur, who had seen her husband and sons murdered before her eyes by gangs known to be led and organized by Congress people. Indira Gandhi had recently been a.s.sa.s.sinated by her Sikh bodyguards, and the whole Sikh community of Delhi was paying the price. The Rajiv Gandhi government prosecuted n.o.body for these murders, in spite of much hard evidence identifying many of the killers.

For Vijay Shankarda.s.s, who had known Rajiv for years, those were disillusioning days. He and his wife hid their Sikh neighbors in their own home to keep them safe. He went to see Rajiv to demand that something be done to stop the killings, and was deeply shocked by Rajiv's seeming indifference. "Salman, he was so calm. calm." One of Rajiv's close aides, Arjun Das, was less placid. "Saalon ko phoonk do," "Saalon ko phoonk do," he snarled. "Blow the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds away." Later, he too was killed. he snarled. "Blow the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds away." Later, he too was killed.

Through the Indian High Commission in London (my friend and namesake, Salman Haidar, then the deputy high commissioner, was pressed into censorious service), the Rajiv government did its level best to prevent our film from being shown, because of the interview with the Sikh widow. Even though she was no Sikh terrorist but a victim of anti-Sikh terrorism; even though she remained opposed to radical Sikh demands for a state of their own, and asked no more than justice for the dead, India sought to stifle her voice. And, I'm pleased to say, failed.

So many widows. In Midnight's Children, Midnight's Children, I satirized the first widow to take power in India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, for her abuse of that power during the quasi-dictatorial Emergency years in the mid-seventies. I could not have foreseen how resonant-by turns tragic and bathetic-the trope of the widow would continue to be. I satirized the first widow to take power in India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, for her abuse of that power during the quasi-dictatorial Emergency years in the mid-seventies. I could not have foreseen how resonant-by turns tragic and bathetic-the trope of the widow would continue to be.

Widows also feature prominently in the Indian Canadian film director Deepa Mehta's unfinished film Water, Water, which is partly set in a widows' hostel in the holy city of Benares, where bereaved women come to pray and mourn by the banks of the sacred Ganges. Threats of violence from extremist Hindu groups stopped the filming. Mehta has abandoned her efforts to complete the picture and returned to Canada in despair. which is partly set in a widows' hostel in the holy city of Benares, where bereaved women come to pray and mourn by the banks of the sacred Ganges. Threats of violence from extremist Hindu groups stopped the filming. Mehta has abandoned her efforts to complete the picture and returned to Canada in despair.

Years ago, the climactic scenes of Midnight's Children Midnight's Children were also set in a Benares widows' hostel. This, of course, is pure coincidence, but another writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay of Bengal, is making serious allegations against Deepa Mehta. He accuses her of plagiarism, claiming that substantial pa.s.sages of his novel were also set in a Benares widows' hostel. This, of course, is pure coincidence, but another writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay of Bengal, is making serious allegations against Deepa Mehta. He accuses her of plagiarism, claiming that substantial pa.s.sages of his novel Those Days Those Days have been "lifted" and incorporated in Ms. Mehta's screenplay. She accepts that she was "inspired" by Gangopadhyay's book but denies the charge of plagiarism. The author's translator, Aruna Chakravati, retorts that Mehta's screenplay is far inferior to Gangopadhyay's epic historical novel: not "enlightened" but "stagnant." have been "lifted" and incorporated in Ms. Mehta's screenplay. She accepts that she was "inspired" by Gangopadhyay's book but denies the charge of plagiarism. The author's translator, Aruna Chakravati, retorts that Mehta's screenplay is far inferior to Gangopadhyay's epic historical novel: not "enlightened" but "stagnant."

The plagiarism charge is one reason why much of the Indian cultural elite has given Deepa Mehta only halfhearted support against her bully-boy opponents. People say she shouldn't have sought to ingratiate herself with the BJP's information minister, Arun Jaitley, who, like the BJP in general, is abhorred by much of the arts community. Also that she did herself and her movie no favors by making so many outspoken public statements, which hardened her opponents' att.i.tudes and made it less likely that the film would ever be completed. She should have got her film made first and screamed later, people say.

The painter Vivan Sundaram argues that the episode shows us with great clarity the two faces of the BJP: the "moderate" stance of Atul Behari Vajpayee's government, which initially gave the filmmaker permission to film, and the "hard-line" position of the party's rank and file, whose gangs threw part of the film set into the Ganges and threatened Mehta's life, until the BJP leaders.h.i.+p was forced to stop the filming.

Congress has strange bedfellows these days. Its decay can perhaps best be measured by the poor quality of its allies. In the state of Bihar, the bizarre political double-act of Laloo Prasad Yadav and his wife, Rabri Devi-on whom the wholly fict.i.tious, and wildly corrupt, Bombay politicians Piloo and Golmatol Doodhwala in The Ground Beneath Her Feet The Ground Beneath Her Feet were very loosely modeled-is once again taking center stage. Some years ago, Laloo, then Bihar's chief minister, was implicated in the Fodder Scam, a swindle in which large amounts of public livestock subsidies were claimed for the maintenance of cows that didn't actually exist. (In my novel, Piloo, India's "Scambaba Deluxe," runs a similar scheme involving non-existent goats.) Laloo was jailed but managed to secure the chief ministers.h.i.+p for Rabri, and blithely went on running the state, by proxy, from his prison cell. were very loosely modeled-is once again taking center stage. Some years ago, Laloo, then Bihar's chief minister, was implicated in the Fodder Scam, a swindle in which large amounts of public livestock subsidies were claimed for the maintenance of cows that didn't actually exist. (In my novel, Piloo, India's "Scambaba Deluxe," runs a similar scheme involving non-existent goats.) Laloo was jailed but managed to secure the chief ministers.h.i.+p for Rabri, and blithely went on running the state, by proxy, from his prison cell.

Since then he has been in and out of the clink. At present he's inside, and Rabri is at least technically in the driving seat, and another juicy corruption scandal is emerging. The tax authorities want to know how Laloo and Rabri manage to live in such high style (they have a particularly grand house) on the relatively humble salaries that even senior ministers in India pull down. Rabri has been "chargesheeted"-indicted-but refuses to resign; or rather, Laloo, from jail, announces that there is no question of his wife the chief minister vacating her post.

As a writer with satirical inclinations, I'm delighted by the Yadav saga, the barefaced skulduggery of it, the shameless wholeheartedness, the glee with which Laloo and Rabri just go on being their appalling selves. But their survival is also a sign of the growing corruption of Indian political culture. This is a country in which known gangsters have been elected to the national parliament, and where a man who runs a state from his prison cell can receive the vocal support of no less a figure than the Congress Party leader, Sonia Gandhi herself.

SUNDAY, APRIL 9.

Zafar at twenty is a big, gentle young man who, unlike his father, keeps his emotions concealed. But he is a deeply feeling fellow and is engaging with India seriously, attentively, beginning the process of making his own portrait of it, which may unlock in him an as yet unknown other self.

At first he notices what first-time visitors notice: the terrible poverty of the families living by the railway tracks in what look like trash cans and bin liners, the men holding hands in the street, the "terrible" quality of Indian MTV and the "awful" Bollywood movies. We pa.s.s through the sprawling Army cantonment and he asks if the armed forces are as much of a political factor here as they are in neighboring Pakistan, and looks impressed when I tell him that soldiers in India have never sought political power.

I can't tempt him into Indian national dress. I myself put on a cool, loose kurta-pajama outfit the moment I arrive, but Zafar is mutinous. "It's just not my style," he insists, preferring to stay in his young Londoner's uniform of T-s.h.i.+rt, cargo pants, and sneakers. (By the end of the trip he is wearing the white pajamas, but not the kurtas; still, progress of a kind has been made.) Zafar has never read more than the first three chapters of Midnight's Children Midnight's Children in spite of its dedication ("For Zafar Rushdie who, contrary to all expectations, was born in the afternoon"). In fact, apart from in spite of its dedication ("For Zafar Rushdie who, contrary to all expectations, was born in the afternoon"). In fact, apart from Haroun and the Sea of Stories Haroun and the Sea of Stories and and East, West, East, West, he hasn't finished any of my books. The children of writers are often this way. They need their parents to be parents, not novelists. Zafar has always had a complete set of my books proudly on display in his room, but he reads Alex Garland and Bill Bryson and I pretend not to care. he hasn't finished any of my books. The children of writers are often this way. They need their parents to be parents, not novelists. Zafar has always had a complete set of my books proudly on display in his room, but he reads Alex Garland and Bill Bryson and I pretend not to care.

Now, poor fellow, he's getting a crash course in my work as well as my life. In the Red Fort after Part.i.tion, my aunt and uncle, like many Muslims, had to be protected by the Army from the violence raging outside; a version of this appears in my novel Shame. Shame. And here, off Chandni Chowk, the bustling main street of Old Delhi, are the lanes winding into the old Muslim And here, off Chandni Chowk, the bustling main street of Old Delhi, are the lanes winding into the old Muslim mohallas mohallas or neighborhoods in one of which, Ballimaran, my parents lived before they moved to Bombay; and it's also where Ahmed and Amina Sinai, the parents of the narrator of or neighborhoods in one of which, Ballimaran, my parents lived before they moved to Bombay; and it's also where Ahmed and Amina Sinai, the parents of the narrator of Midnight's Children, Midnight's Children, faced the gathering pre-Independence storm. faced the gathering pre-Independence storm.

Zafar takes all this literary tourism in good part. Look, here at Purana Qila, the Old Fort supposedly built on the site of the legendary city of Indraprastha, is where Ahmed Sinai left a sack of money to appease a gang of arsonist blackmailers. Look, there are the monkeys who ripped up the sack and threw the money away. Look, here at the National Gallery of Modern Art are the paintings of Amrita Sher-Gil, the half-Indian, half-Hungarian artist who inspired the character of Aurora Zogoiby in The Moor's Last Sigh The Moor's Last Sigh . . . Okay, enough, Dad, he plainly thinks but is too nice to say. Okay, I'll read them, this time I really will. (He probably won't.) . . . Okay, enough, Dad, he plainly thinks but is too nice to say. Okay, I'll read them, this time I really will. (He probably won't.) There are signs at the Red Fort advertising an evening son et lumiere son et lumiere show. "If Mum was here," he says suddenly, "she'd insist on coming to that." Zafar's bright, beautiful mother, my first wife, Clarissa Luard, the British Arts Council's highly esteemed literature officer, guardian angel of young writers and little magazines, died of a recurrence of breast cancer last November, aged just fifty. Zafar and I had spent most of her final hours by her bedside. He was her only child. show. "If Mum was here," he says suddenly, "she'd insist on coming to that." Zafar's bright, beautiful mother, my first wife, Clarissa Luard, the British Arts Council's highly esteemed literature officer, guardian angel of young writers and little magazines, died of a recurrence of breast cancer last November, aged just fifty. Zafar and I had spent most of her final hours by her bedside. He was her only child.

"Well," I say, "she was here, you know." In 1974, Clarissa and I spent more than four months traveling around India, roughing it in cheap hotels and long-distance buses, using the advance I'd received for my first novel, Grimus, Grimus, to finance the trip, and trying to stretch the money as far as it would go. Now, I begin to make a point of telling Zafar what his mother thought of this or that-how much she liked the serenity of this spot, or the hubbub over there. What began as a little father-and-son expedition acquires an extra dimension. to finance the trip, and trying to stretch the money as far as it would go. Now, I begin to make a point of telling Zafar what his mother thought of this or that-how much she liked the serenity of this spot, or the hubbub over there. What began as a little father-and-son expedition acquires an extra dimension.

I've always known that, after everything that has happened, this first visit would be the trickiest. Don't overreach yourself, I thought. If it goes well, things should ease. The second visit? "Rushdie returns again" isn't much of a news story. And the third-"Oh, here he is once more"-barely sounds like news at all. In the long slog back to "normality," habituation, even boredom, has been a useful weapon. "I intend," I start telling people in India, "to bore India into submission."