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BIOGRAPHY & SUMMARY, by Nora Carranza
British
writer of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947 in Mumbai.
His father
was Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a lawyer who graduated from Cambridge and a
businessman, and Negin Bhatt was his mother, a teacher. He has three sisters.
Rushdie
studied at Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai, Rugby School in
Warwickshire, and King’s College, University of Cambridge, where he graduated
in History.
When
Rushdie was a teenager, his family settled in England.
His first
novel, Grimus, published in 1975, had no repercussions. His next
works were Midnight’s Children (1981), an allegory of modern India, and Shame
(1983). Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize in 1981. He is also the
author of a chronicle of his travels through Nicaragua, The Jaguar Smile
(1987), and in 1990, of a book for children entitled Haroun and the Sea of
Stories published in November 2010 to great critical acclaim.
His memoirs
were published in September 2012, under the title Joseph Anton, a Memoir.
In 2015, he
presented the novel Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights; in
2017 he published The Golden House, a satirical novel, and, in 2019, his
fourteenth novel, Quichotte, inspired by Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Rushdie’s
fifteenth novel, Victory City, was published in February 2023.
In 2024,
his autobiographical book Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,
in which Rushdie writes about the attack and his recovery, was published.
Salman Rushdie was attacked during a performance in upstate New York on August
12, 2022, at a Chautauqua Institution. As a consequence, he lost the sight of
one eye and the use of one hand, but survived the assassination attempt.
Salman
Rushdie is an Honorary Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
His books
are translated into more than 25 languages.
He was
knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 for services to literature.
Salman
Rushdie also became worldwide news in 1988 when he published The Satanic
Verses. It was a very well-received novel in which fantasy was combined
with philosophical reflection and a sense of humour. The work aroused the wrath
of Shiite Muslims, who considered it an insult to the Koran, Muhammad and the
Islamic faith. It was banned in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Egypt and
Saudi Arabia. On February 14, 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini declared the work a
blasphemy against Islam and decreed a fatwa against the writer, putting
a price on his head worth $5,000,000 and offering the reward to whoever
executed him as well as all those involved in the publication of the book. A fatwa
is a religious ruling or opinion issued by an Islamic scholar or mufti. It is
usually in response to a question posed by a Muslim concerning Islamic law or
doctrine and is not legally binding. The word “fatwa” comes from the Arabic
root f-t-y, which means “to decide” or “to give an opinion”. Despite Rushdie’s
public retraction and drafting a statement expressing his adherence to Islam,
the fatwa was not lifted.
Rushdie’s matrimonies: He was married to Clarissa Luard from 1976 to 1987, with
whom he had a son, Zafar, in 1979. His second
wife was the American novelist Marianne Wiggins; they married in 1988 and
divorced in 1993. His third
wife, from 1997 to 2004, was Elizabeth West, with whom he had his son Milan in
1999. In 2004, he
married Padma Lakshmi, an actress, model, and host of the American television
show Top Chef. They divorced in 2007.
Rushdie is
one of the best-selling authors in the English language. Most of his works of
fiction have generated several controversies for their criticism of different
political and social ideologies. His work combines magical realism with
historical fiction and is mainly concerned with the connections and influences
between Eastern and Western civilizations. Much of his fiction takes place in
the Indian subcontinent.
Some of the
authors that Rushdie admired or influenced his literature are Italo Calvino,
Jorge Luis Borges, Mikhail Bulgakov, Lewis Carroll, Günter Grass, Dickens and
Joyce.
Rushdie has
permanently been very active in numerous academic activities, humanitarian
associations, cinema and television
“I grew up
kissing books and bread... Since I kissed a woman, my activities with bread and
books lost interest.”
SUMMARY
This Salman
Rushdie story takes place in Srinagar at the beginning of the 20th century, and
deals with an Indian Muslim family, dangerous thieves, the finding of a holy
relic and the unexpected consequences that the possession of the relic brings
over all those varied people.
The
narrative explains terrible and dramatic facts in such a comical style, that
moves the reader to laugh, besides suffering due to the fast progression of
appalling events.
Although this
is a short story, many characters take part in the narrative:
Hashim: a
powerful moneylender, owning a fortune but not moral concern for his
behaviour.
Atta: Hashim's son.
Huma: Hashim's daughter.
Hashim’s
wife: no name.
Sheik Sin:
arrogant, bossy and fearless thief. He has a blind wife and four invalid sons.
The tale
begins when young Atta entered a most dreadful and degraded quarter; there he
asked where he could address to hire a professional thief, but he was
immediately robbed of the significant amount of money he had taken along and
was savagely beaten.
Next
morning, a flower-vendor came across the body of the unfortunate Atta, covered
by the frost, at the edge of a lake, and the vendor could learn the address of
the dying young from his lips and, expecting a good tip, he decided to row Atta
home.
The house
was shown as a large mansion by the lake where his beautiful sister and his
attractive mother, both evidently waiting in despair, received Atta, in that
cold freezing winter morning. Soon Atta fell into a deep coma.
Incredible
but true, that evening, Huma followed the steps of her brother through the
alleys of the wretched, vile, quarter, asking the same question. Although she
was so beautiful, the girl had visible wounds and bruises in her arms and
forehead inflicted by her father. Huma made clear to the inhabitants of
that neighbourhood she carried no money, her father would pay no ransom, and
her uncle, the Commissioner of Police, was informed about her “tour”, just in
case she would not come out of the place. With this introduction Huma got
to be taken through terrific, dark, narrow streets to a hidden house. A blind
old woman directed the girl inside a darker room until Huma heard the voice of
an enormous man sitting on the floor. The courageous girl tried to hide her
fear, collecting enough voice to ask the mountain-like man if he was the thief
she requested.
A curious
conversation followed, as in an employment Office. Hume wanted to hire the most
daring criminal, and the grey haired and scarred mountain-man revealed he was
Sheikh Sin, the “Thief of the Thieves”, the most notorious criminal. They
arrived at an agreement, and brave Huma explained her story, which began 6 days
before.
Hashim, the
money lender, had breakfast with his family, his wife, his son Atta and his
daughter Huma. The atmosphere in the lake side residence was as always one of
courtesy and tranquillity. Hashim felt proud of building a prosperous business
“living honourably in the word” following virtues like prudence, perfect
manners and independence of spirit, virtues that Hashim and his wife taught to
their children. By the way, Hashim asked 71 per cent of interest to those who
needed to borrow him some money.
Later on,
Hashim was about to step inside his shikara, when he noticed a floating
phial with an exquisite silver decoration, containing a single human hair. He
immediately knew this was the holy hair of Prophet Muhammad, that had been
stolen from the shrine, and which the police were furiously searching,
Hashim knew
the relic should be returned to the mosque, but being a maniac collector, he
easily convinced himself that he must keep the Prophet’s Hair.
He only
explained the finding to Atta.
After that
possession, a series of dramatic and unnatural events fell on the Hashim family
and its members.
Hashim
became swollen and spoke awful words, he explained he had a mistress and blamed
his children. Driven by an increasing madness, Hashim obliged his family to
pray five times a day and read the Quran, or he hit Atta and Huma or the
debtors that arrived at the house.
Many other
incredible facts happened, until Atta and Huma, overcome with horror,
understood that the relic had brought disgrace to the family and decided the
relic must be returned, and to get this aim, they should first steal the
terrific hair. They should get rid of it at all costs.
That’s how
Huma arrived at Sheik Sin house, after the failed attempt of her brother, and
made a deal with the king of thieves. The thief should get the relic from
Hashim's bedroom by night and he would get the jewellery owned by Huma and her
mother.
When the
night arrived, Huma opened the house door as arranged, and Sheik Sin entered
Hashim's room. In that exact moment, Atta woke from the coma, crying,
“Thief!!!”, and died. Her desperate mother began to cry loudly waking her
husband in the other room. Hashim immediately grasped his sword and rushed out
to the dark corridor, where he ran over a figure and, in a second, he thrust
his sword into the figure’s heart. Turning up the light, Hashim discovered he
had murdered Huma, and killed himself.
The only
surviving member of the family from that dreadful night was the wife and
mother, who became mad. Her brother, the Commissioner, had to take her to the
asylum.
Sheik Sin
got to leave the lake house with the phial but had to vanish to protect
himself.
When the
Commissioner knew about Huma’s death, opened the letter his niece had written
and immediately organised the search for the thief. That enraged policeman shot
the bullet into Sheik Sin’s stomach, and the phial with silver filigree rolled
out from the pocket of the dead old ruined thief.
The
Prophet’s hair was given back to the Hazratbal mosque, where it was guarded
closer than any other place on earth to Paradise.
There were
even more miraculous facts about that time, because the four crippled sons of
Sheik Sin recuperated normal legs, but they got completely angry since they
couldn’t beg any more, and so their earnings were reduced by 75 per cent.
The only
person who felt grateful at the end of this story was the blind thief’s widow
who got light in her eyes enjoying the beauties of the valley at the end of her
miserable life.
In my
opinion this short narrative, sometimes funny, sometimes dark, always fast and
captivating, displays many themes that might be frequent in the author’s
literature like fanaticism and the power of religion, superstition, hypocrisy,
women domination, money, ambition and poverty, all that concerns Indian
society.
 |
Srinagar is a city in
Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir region and it’s its largest city. It lies
in the Kashmir Valley along the banks of the Jhelum River, and the shores of
Dal Lake and Anchar Lakes. The city is known for its natural environment,
various gardens, waterfronts and houseboats. It is also known for its traditional
Kashmiri handicrafts like the Kashmir shawl (made of pashmina and cashmere
wool), papier-mâché, wood carving, carpet weaving, and jewel making, as well as
for dried fruits. It is the second-largest metropolitan area in the
Himalayas (after Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal). Srinagar too has a distinctive blend of cultural
heritage. Holy places in and around the city depict the historical cultural and
religious diversity of the city as well as the Kashmir valley. |
 |
The story has its origin in an actual theft of the relic from its
location at the Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir in the early 1960s. The relic was
subsequently recovered and restored to the shrine after authentication by the
Muslim priests. |
Prophet Muhammad was a religious, political, and military leader from
Mecca who unified Arabia into a single religious polity under Islam. He is
believed by Muslims to be a messenger and prophet of God. Muhammad is almost
universally considered by Muslims as the last prophet sent by God for mankind,
while non-Muslims regard Muhammad to have been only the founder of Islam. Born in about 570 CE in the Arabian city of Mecca,
Muhammad was orphaned at an early age and brought up under the care of his
uncle Abu Talib. He later worked mostly as a merchant, as well as a shepherd,
and was first married at the age of 25. Being in the habit of periodically
retreating to a cave in the surrounding mountains for several nights of
seclusion and prayer, at the age of 40 he reported that it was there that he
received his first revelation from God. Three years after this event, Muhammad
started preaching these revelations publicly, proclaiming that “God is One”,
that complete “surrender” to Him is the only way acceptable to God, and that he
himself was a prophet and messenger of God, in the same vein as other Islamic
prophets.
QUESTIONS
-Do you think relics can be of any help in spiritual
matters?
-Think about stories where someone hires a thief or a
murder and tell us about them.
-What is blasphemy? In your opinion, Salman Rushdie
story can be blasphemous for a Muslim?
-What do you have to do if you find lost property?
-“There are American millionaires who buy stolen
paintings and hide them away.” Why would you buy or have a work of art?
-For you, what can be the goal of a collector?
-Do you think some objects can be a curse for someone?
-Are religions dangerous for the human being or is the
human being dangerous per se?
VOCABULARY
shikara, moored, hawker, gullies, welts, crook, application,
lavish, bogymen, ayah, goblins, backings-out, shikara, phial, hue and cry, ooze,
gush, dope, raga, thugs, cracked, desecrated, djinn, crippling, bulbul, brain, charpoy,
hatch
