‘Midnight’s Children caused earthquake within family’

Salman Rushdie’s cousin in Bengaluru, a teacher and animal rescuer, recalls his ordeals, gentleness and humour

Among Bengalureans who went on social media to condemn the attack on author Salman Rushdie was his cousin, a teacher and animal rescuer living in Bengaluru since the early ’80s.

She spoke to Metrolife, anonymously and over email, saying, “This should be about Salman and what he has been through”.

In her August 13 post on Facebook, she calls Salman her father’s sister’s son and remembers she was five or younger when he stayed briefly in her childhood home in Lucknow.

“I took a risk. But don’t we, when we have to take a stand? Fence-sitting and silence have only helped the perpetrators,” she talked about her decision to publicly speak up for her beleaguered cousin, whose 1988 novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ offended some Muslims for mocking the Quran and forced him to go into hiding.

Her post, she says, was an outpouring of anguish: “Having to live the best years of your life in hiding is unimaginable. Think then of the voices of dissent that have been killed, who have been thrown into prison, and who have been victims of ideology. Salman’s attacker is a victim too.”

Since she is 30 years younger than Salman, she knows him more through anecdotes told by her parents. “He stayed briefly with us after the publication of ‘Midnight’s Children’, which caused a minor earthquake in the family. They felt Salman had based some characters on them and caricatured them and they didn’t take that well.”

Her parents, especially her mother, however, loved the book. “She would tell me stories of Samlan’s bravery, not just in publishing ‘The Satanic Verses’, but other books too.”

How did the Iranian fatwa (religious edict) to kill Salman impact his relatives? “In India, we experienced no threat. My parents were supportive of him, though I do not think he knew that. We did not have a means of communicating and then, with time, as it happens, we lost touch. But I was always his little fangirl.”

As for Salman, she says, “He has lost a lot. This gentle person, filled with a wicked sense of humour, lost the country of his birth and so much of his family.”

As an adult, she met him once at the launch of the 2012 movie adaptation of ‘Midnight’s Children’. She was struck by his intelligence and articulation but also by the sorrow in his eyes.

She hasn’t read ‘The Satanic Verses’ because it is banned in India. “I will if I get a copy. Just as I will any book that’s not poorly written,” she says, adding, “If people read books with a nuanced, critical approach, I doubt we would be burning and getting into a rage over what they have to say.”

The ban prevails over three decades since the book came out and as India enters the 76th year of Independence. “Banning ‘The Satanic Verses’ was more the politically right thing to do. It doesn’t make that decision ethically right,” she signs off.