On August 12, 2022, novelist Salman Rushdie was stabbed multiple times as he was about to give a public lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, United States. The captioned book is an autobiographical account of the attack and the author’s struggle in its aftermath to come over the physical and mental agony.
Some of the takeaways from Salman’s autobiographical account of this big tragedy in his life are enumerated below:
(1) Author has a superb style of expressing his thoughts by using words and phrases that are reflective of his great command over language.
(2) Salman is not only a great writer, but very well read too, having almost scholarly attributes. He has liberally quoted gems from well known and not so well known classics.
(3) A few passing remarks are reflective of his love for India, especially for Mumbai, where he was born and spent his childhood. But like several others, especially in Western media, he’s not happy with the rise of majoritarianism and insecurity of minorities.
(4) Permanent loss of his one eye is the sore point that he’s finding difficult to come to terms with. His wife Eliza is his source of strength and the high point of his life, being with him through the darkest of the hours of his life.
(5) He’s a confirmed atheist, but is fine with faith remaining a personal matter being practiced privately rather than being flaunted and imposed. The attack has not cowed him down in that sense.
(6) He wants to leave the incident behind and continue what he’s doing best at – writing more and better!
(7) His new inspiration and role model is former India cricket captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, popularly known as Tiger, who lost his one eye in an accident, but showed grit and determination in facing speedsters Halls and Griffin. Readers will remember my recent blog on this theme.
The author lived a protected life under tight security for almost three decades after fatwa issued against him post release of his book , “ The Satanic Verses” that was considered sacrilegious. It was only for the last few years that he thought fatwa to be a thing of the past that no longer posed any risk to his life. But it was not to be as was proven by almost fatal knife attack. He considers himself lucky to be able to be back on his feet and more importantly his writing desk.
Arvind Arya blog 