Salman Rushdie as an Essayist - Imaginary Homelands

Name :- Zala Krutikadevi. D

Paper :- 11 ( The Post colonial Literature )

Sem :- 3

Roll no:- 15

Topic :- Salman Rushdie as an essayist. 

Submitted to :- Smt. S.B. Gardi

                       Department of English

                       M.K. Bhavnagar University.

Sir Salman Rushdie is a British novelist and essayist. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for his second novel – “ Midnight’s children” (1981). Salma Rushdie’s much of fiction is set on the Indian Subcontinent. He was born in Bombay, the son of Anis Ahmad Rushdie who studied in university of Cambridge educated lawyer than turned businessman . They are from Muslim  family of Kashmir descent.  Following partition of British India , his family later migrated to Karachi, Pakistan.Salman Rushdie’s name “ Rushdie “ is adopted by his father from in honor of  “Averroes”. He has three sisters. He was educated at Cathedral and John Cannon school in Mumbai, then in Warwickshire and finally King’s Collage , University of Cambridge. He got knowledge of history at University of Cambridge.As a basic of career, Rushdie was a copywriter. Then he wrote his first novel – “Grimus” in 1975, which is a part science fiction. It ignored by the public and literary critics. Then his next novel “ Midnight’s Children” wrote in 1981 catapulted him to literary notability.Rushdie also published many books, short stories and essay also. In 2012 Rushdie became one of the first major authors to embrace book track, when he published his short story “ In the south “ on the platform. Rushdie is also successful writer of novels but he says that he would have become an actor if his writing career had not been successful. From his childhood he liked to appear in Hollywood movies. Rushdie includes fictional television and movie characters in some of his writings.

INTRODUCTION OF “ IMAGINARY HOMELANDS “ :-

 “Sometimes we feel we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools.”
-         Salman Rushdie , Imaginary Homelands

 Imaginary Homelands is a collection of Salman Rushdie’s essays. These essays also a different collection of various articles, seminar papers, reviews published over a decade of his literary lifetime during 1981-1991.Imaginary Homelands is incisive, intellectual, probing, eloquent and lively. From this essay one can take issue with its wide scope. Salman Rushdie selects different subjects like political, social, and literary topics in this essay with various deals and critical approaches. After reading this book, the reaction to such book can only be personal and subjective and it is not a story that can be discussed with some degree of detachment. Imaginary Homelands is a personal conversation by Rushdie. From his writing we can see a power of Rushdie over media and he is that kind of a writer.Every reader has different view about this book. It is depend on our individual mindset. Rushdie’s literary style is full of innovation because of being a migrant and an author. It’s base on reality and Rushdie feels a kinship with the writers who writes their books with fantasy and reality.

IMAGINARY HOMELANDS:-

In the first essay – Imaginary Homelands, there is a description about “past” and “present” memories of Salman Rushdie. As per his writing, the part of Imaginary Homelands starts from a memory of an old photograph. He said that, “ the past is a foreign country but the photograph tells me to invert this idea, it reminds me that it’s my present that is foreign, and the past is home- a lost city “ Bombay “.Salman Rushdie shows his experiences about Bombay where he was born. Now he revisited there and when he saw and opened the telephone dictionary he found his father’s name and address as per past before migration. Then salman said about his perspective of “ My India “. He said that, my India may only have been one to which I was, let us say, willing to admit I belonged. Rushdie found himself in his past during that time- clothes of people ,old film songs like :

“ Mera joota hai JapaniYe patloon InglistaniSir pe lal topi RusiPhir bhi dil hai Hindustani………

After giving an example of India, some point about “ In Midnight’s children” , Rushdie said that-

“ The illusion itself is reality “

The movement towards the cinema screen is a metaphorfor the narrative’s movement through time towards the present, and the book itself, as it nears contemporary events, quite deliberately loses deep perspective, becomes more “ Partial”.This essay ends with the last point of question about Indian and Indian Writers. Rushdie asked that –What does it mean to be “ Indian “ outside India ?He said a little about the relationship between the Indian writer and the majority of white culture in whose with he lives. Rushdie also said that-“ The struggle of man against power”- After giving an example of Mrs. Gandhi in a BBC interviews. He said tha literature can, and must give the lie to official facts.Rushdie also said that literature is itself validating. Literature is not a business of copyrighting , it is imaginary work which can change world from one author’s  mind and real risks. There are many struggles in life but one author should take risk to prove his work in society.

COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE DOES NOT EXIT:-

In the second essay “ Commonwealth Literature Does Not Exit “ there is a matter of English studies are taken to include commonwealth literature. Rushdie also gave many examples of an importance and an ignorance of commonwealth literature.Commonwealth literature appears, it is that body of writing created. Now days commonwealth literature was sounding very unlikeable indeed. Not only was it a ghetto ,but it was actually an exclusive ghetto. Rushdie says that as now days commonwealth literature has a lack of interest by people, on another side English is by now the world language. It achieved this status partly as a result of the physical colonization of a quarter of the globe by the British.But in India English is not so important language even in schools, collages. The children of independent India seem not to think of English as a part of their communication in routine life style. They use their Indian languages as one of the tools they have to hand.Rushdie here says that critically , In India specially the capital , Delhi is located “ Hindi “ as a future national language but in South India which is at present suffering from the attempts of central government to impose this national language on it, the resentment of Hindi is far greater than English in India.Rushdie says that English is very important for every field and also in communication.  

 example 

Jyoti Basu said that “ My son won’t learn English so that we will send him abroad to learn English”. Why Indians have to send their children to abroad to learn English , why it’s not happen in India ?
Literature is an expression of nationality , Rushdie asked whether he is British or Indian ? The formulation Indian born British writer.

 THE NEW EMPIRE WITHIN BRITAIN :-

“ The New Empire Within Britain “ , this essay based on “ Power of British empire” on black people. Here Salman Rushdie shows his different experiences of white and black in Britain. He also gives information about real roots of Britain.He says that “ Britain isn’t Nazi Germany. The British Empire isn’t the Third Reich, but in Germany after the fall of Hitler heroic attempts were made by many people to purity German thought and the German language of the pollution of Nazism. The Britain is under going a critical pose of its past colonial period, and this crisis is not simply economics or political. It is a crisis of the whole culture , of the society’s entire sense of itself.Second thing is happens in there is the numbers of “ Immigration “. The main fact of white immigration as well as black , that the annual number of emigrants leaving these shores is now larger than the numbers of immigrates coming in and of the black communities over 40 percent are not immigrants but black Britons born and bred, speaking in the many voices and accents of Britain , and with no homeland but this one.Now Salman Rushdie widely describes the characteristics of “ New Empire “-In the streets of the New Empire, black women are abused and black children are beaten up their way home from school. In the running down housing estates of the New Empire, black communities have their windows broken and their are afraid to go outside after dark. Human and animal arrives from letter boxes. Even the police offer threats instead of protection and the court offer small hope of redress.Britain is divided by the color of person’s skin , white and black. Britain can judge the people as per their color of skin and it’s getting wider. But in the past for nine centuries any child born on British soil was British.

 HOBSON – JOBSON :

Hobson –Jobson is the short title of Hobson –Jobson : A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases and of kindred terms , etymological , a historical ,geographical dictionary of Anglo – Indian words and terms from Indian languages which came into use during the British rule of India.Hobson – Jobson is written by Henry Yule and Arthur C. Burnell . It published in 1886.

Examples :-

'chapati'  as 'chowpatty'

the Indian plant 'kawanch' became 'cowage';

the fish 'kapap' became 'cock-up';

'basi khana,' stale food or yesterday's dinner

warmed up, became 'brass-knocker';

 'bringal'--aubergine--became 'brown jolly' a

 'cholera morbus' in Anglo-Indian became 'Corporal Forbes.'

Hobson Jobson takes new words that English captured in India. An alphabetical sampling could read :

'amok,' 'ashram,' 'avatar,' 'bandanna,' 'bangle,' 'caddy,' 'calico,' 'candy,' 'cashmere,' 'cheetah,' 'coolie,' 'cowrie,' 'cushy,' 'dinghy,' 'doolally,' 'guru,' 'Himalayan,' 'juggernaut,' 'jungle,' 'karma,' 'khaki,' 'lilac,' 'mantra,' 'mongoose,' 'panda,' 'pariah,' 'purdah,' 'rattan,' 'sacred cow,' 'seersucker,' 'Sherpa,' 'Tantra,' 'thug,' 'yoga.'"

 ATTENBOROUGH’S GANDHI :-

Last essay of Salman Rushdie focuses on the view of “Attenborough’s Gandhi “- a film based on biography of Mahatma Karamchand Gandhi. This is the best film of 1983 in film industry.Salman Rushdie says God help the film industry after making this type of film. He critically shows his ideas on that film. He says that , why film is about only Gandhi ? why no Subhas Bose?Why no Tagore ? In the film there are many scenes of violence happened before 1947.In this essay Salman Rushdie says about the scene of Amritsar Massacre and the scene of killing Gandhi by Nathuram. He also says another fact of Gandhi’s “ Brahmacharya “.Nehru was not Gandhi’s disciple. They were equals and they argued fiercely in a matter of freedom movement. After all the things the form of the film, opulent, lavish , overpowers and finally crushes the man at its centre.

CONCLUSION :-

His way Salman Rushdie gives his critical ideas on different subject. From these subjects he has shown some facts of India, Britain and Gandhi also. He shows his power of critical analysis throughout  “ Imaginary Homelands “.

Thank You :----