Amitabha Mukerjee
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A man who sets out to make himself up is taking on the Creator's role, according to one way of seeing things; he's unnatural, a blasphemer, an abomination of abominations. From another angle, you could see pathos in him, heroism in his struggle, in his willingness to risk: not all mutants survive. Or, consider him sociopolitically: most migrants learn, and can become disguises. Our own false descriptions to counter the falsehoods invented about us, concealing for reasons of security our secret lives.
A man who invents himself needs someone to believe in him, to prove he's managed it. ... Love. (p.49)
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The city of Jahilia is built entirely of sand, its structures formed of the desert whence it rises. [Its citizens] have learned the art of transforming the fine white dune-sand of those forsaken parts, - the very stuff of inconstancy, - the quintessence of unsettlement shifting, treachery, lack-of-form, - and have turned it, by alchemy, into the fabric of their newly invented permanence. (p.93)
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What kind of an idea am I? I bend. I sway. I calculate the odds, trim my sails, manipulate, survive. That is why I won't accuse Hind of adultery. (thoughts of Abu Simbel, the Grandee of Jahilia, p.102)
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Mahound comes to me for revelation, asking me to choose between monotheist and henotheist alternatives, and I'm just some idiot actor having a bhaenchud nightmare, what the fuck do I know, yaar, what to tell you, help. Help. (Gibreel, p.109)
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tilk-al-gharaniq al-'ula wa inna shafa'ata-hunna la-turtaja.
These are the exalted females whose intercession is to be desired.
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Khalid the water-carrier hangs back.. Awkwardly, he says: `Messenger, I doubted you. First we said, Mahound will never compromise, and you compromised. Then we said, Mahound has betrayed us, but you were bringing us a deeper trhtuh. You brought us the devil himself, so that we could witness the workings of the Evil One, and his overthrow by the Right. You have enriched our faith. I am sorry for what I thought.'
Mahound moves away from the sunlight falling through the window. `Yes.' Bitterness, cynicism. `It was a wonderful thing I did. Deeper truth. Bringing you the devil. Yes, that sounds like me.' (p.125)
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Any new idea, Mahound, is asked two questions. The first is asked when its weak: WHAT KIND OF AN IDEA ARE YOU? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accommodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of hundred, be) smashed to bits; but, the 100th time, will change the world.
`What's the second question?' Gibreel asked aloud.
Answer the first one first. (p.335)
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Such is the miraculous fate of the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations. (The Imam's dream, p.209)
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The moon is heating up, beginning to bubble like cheese under a grill. Gibreel sees pieces falling off from time to time, moon-drips that hiss and bubble on the sizzling griddle of the sky. (p.212)
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In those years Mahound - or should one say the Archangel Gibreel? - should one say Al-Lah? - became obsessed by the law. Amid the palm trees of the oasis Gibreel appeared to the prophet and found himself sprouting rules, rules, rules, until the faithful could scarcely bear the prospect of any more revelation, Salman said, rules about every damn thing, if a man farts let him turn his face to the wind, a rule about which hand to use for the purpose of cleaning one's behind. It was as if no aspect of human existence was to be left unregulated, free. The revelation - the recitation - told the faithful how much to eat, how deeply they should sleep, and which sexual positions had received divine sanction, so that they learned that sodomy and the missionary position were approved of by the archangel, whereas the forbidden postures included all those in which the female was on top. Gibreel further listed the permitted and forbidden subjects of conversation, and earmarked the parts of the body which could not be scratched no matter how unbearably they may itch. He vetoed the consumption of prawns, those bizarre other-worldly creatures that no member of the faithful had ever seen, and required animals to be killed slowly, by bleeding, so that by experiencing their deaths to the full they might arrive at an understanding of the meaning of their lives.. (364).
... Salman the Persian got the wondering what manner of God this was that sounded so much like a business man .. he recalled that Mahound himself had been a business man, and a damned succesful one at that, a person to whom organization and rules came naturally, so how excessively convenient it was that he should come up with such a very businesslike archangel, who handed down the management decisions of this highly corporate, if non-corporeal, God.
After that Salman began to notice how useful and well-timed the angel's revelations tended to be. (363-4)
[This section is one of the most direct attacks on the religious traditions of Islam. According to some Muslims (Hou Post), Islam forbids sodomy, and no other positions are forbidden; animals must be slaughtered with a sharp knife as quickly as possible so that the animal does not suffer. Time and again, it is clear that Rushdie has used the facts more as an artist than a historian; Muhammad's sojourn to Yathrib is thus twenty-five years instead of the historically correct ten (622-632 A.D., the first ten years of the Hejira), Mecca is the magic city of Jahilia, but the name Yathrib is correct, since the city became known as Medina (city of the Nabi or prophet) only after Muhammad, and was the mostly Jewish oasis of Yathrib previously. The problem for the reader is to discern which is fact and which is not.
Clearly, as a lyric novelist, Rushdie can alter the script as he wishes, but Muslims are also correct in claiming that to most ill-informed or partially-informed (non-Islamic) readers, many of the details will appear familiar and tend to reinforce the impression of truth. Historical incidents include the initial scorn of Mecca's populace for Muhammad's disciples, many of them slaves; flight to Yathrib and the triumphal return against a spineless Mecca; the Ka'aba stone that predates Islam; Muhammad's business acumen and his wives Khadija, and, later, Ayesha, and many others; and also correct are many of the rituals of Islam. According to one Islamic reviewer, this section, by weaving in the true with the patently false, constitutes a virulent and "untruthful" attack against Islam and serves to excite the divisive forces. To me, the borderline between truth/fiction in this story remains largely unknown, but it does arouse my interest in determining more about the Islam in general and the Koran in particular, which should be a desirable objective for Islam. For example, I would like to find the section where Moses sends Muhammad back to God so that he can negotiate the number of daily prayers down to five from forty (the current number is indeed five). I would also like to know more about the traditions of animal butchery in Islam, etc].
Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives whom you have granted dowries ... This privilege is yours alone, being granted to no one else. (Koran 33:50) [This is one of the examples from the Koran that Rushdie sites as "convenience driven".]
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[Eventually Salman is captured]. Salman swears renewed loyalty, begs some more, and then, with a gleam of desperate hope, makes an offer. `I can show you where your true enemies are.' This earns hism a few seconds. The Prophet inclines his head... And Salman says a name. Mahound sinks deep into his cushions as memory returns.
`Baal,' he says, and repeats, twice: `Baal, Baal.'
Much to Khalid's disappointment, Salman the Persian is not sentenced to death. Bilal intercedes for him, and the Prophet, his mind elsewhere, concedes: yes,yes, let the wretched fellow live. (375)
[Most of the book is really about other issues. Here, in one of the bitter invectives describing the immigrant's rage against the British authorities.
Club Hot Wax (291-292) where effigies of the day's villains are melted in an oven.. ] the one most selected, if truth be told; at least three times a week. Her permawaved coiffure, her pearls, her suit of blue. Maggie-maggie-maggie, bays the crowd. Burn-burn-burn. The doll, - the guy, - is strapped into the Hot seat. Pinkwalla throws the switch. And O how prettily she melts, from the inside out, crumpling into formlessness. Then she is a puddle, and the crowd sighs its ecstasy: done. Music regains the night. [293] [If anything the attacks against the British - and especially the British immigration system - are more direct and more virulent than those against Islam]
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The death of Dr. Uhuru Simba, formerly Sylvester Roberts, while in custody awaiting trial, was described by the Brickhall constabulary's community liaison officer, a certain Inspector Stephen Kinch, as `a million-to-one-shot'. It appeared that Dr. Simba had been experiencing a nightmare so terrifying that it had caused him to scream piercingly in his sleep, attracting the immediate attention of the two duty officers. These gentlemen, rushing to his cell, arrived in time to see the still-sleeping form of the gigantic man literally lift off its bunk under the malign influence of the dream and plunge to the floor. A loud snap was heard by both officers; it was the sound of Dr. Uhuru Simba's neck breaking. Death had been instantaneous....
Hanif Johnson, as Uhuru Simba's solicitor, added his own clarification, pointing out that his client's alleged fatal plunge had been from the lower of the two bunks in his cell; that in an age of extreme overcrowding in the country's lock-ups it was unusual, to say the least, that the other bunk should have been unoccupied, ensuring that there were no witnesses to the death except for prison officers; and that a nightmare was not the only possible explanation for the screams of a black man in the hands of custodial authorities. (449-50)
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[Pamela Chamcha tries to expose witches in the constabulary. At this point, Pamela was pregnant.] ...when Pamela admitted to being nervous at possessing the only copy of the explosive documents in the plastic briefcase, Jumpy once again insisted on accompanying her to the Brickhall community relations council's offices, where she planned to make photocopies to distribute to a number of trusted friends and colleagues. So it was that at ten-fifteen they were in Pamela's beloved MG, heading east across the city, into the gathering storm. An old, blue Mercedes van followed them ... without being noticed. (453)
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The building occupied by the Brickhall community center ... was not an easy building to enter ... There was also a burglar alarm.
This alarm, it afterwards transpired, had been switched off, probably by the two persons, one male, one female, who had effected an entry with the assistance of a key... The reasons for the crime remained obscure, and as the miscreants had perished in the blaze, it was unlikely that they would ever come to light.
A tragic affair; the dead woman had been heavily pregnant. (464)
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Names, once they are in common use quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being brushed aside like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.
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Amitabha Mukerjee returned to India in 1992 after twelve years in USA. He teaches at IIT Kanpur.