Hello Readers,
Welcome to my blog. This blog is about famous British Indian author writer Salman Rushdie.
Here I am talking about selected essays from the book "Imaginary Homelands". These essays are the collection of various types of essays and critical reviews or criticism in the time period between 1981 to 1892. It was an interesting collection of essays. Personally I would like to read Salman Rushdie because of his writing style he was writing in an interesting way. He was writing to the point and explaining facts.
There are many essays in the book but here are five essays which I would like to discuss with you. The essays are :
I would like to discuss one by one. So let's begin it.
✍️ Imaginary Homelands :
"An old photograph in a cheap frame hangs on a wall of
the room was a picture dating from l946 of a house into which, at the time of its taking, I had not yet been born."
The essay starts with these lines. In a way these lines through we can understand that here Salman Rushdie who was talking about the city Bombay where he was lived at a time. He was recalling his memories. But he was writing that when he was visiting the house and city, that changed totally. Even the new city also changed. Here we can connect current politics policy to changing and giving names to particular streets ,roads or any city.
Bombay is a city built by foreigners upon reclaimed land; I, who had been away so long that I almost qualified for the title, was gripped by the conviction that I, too, had a city and a history to reclaim.
Here we can say that he was suffering for his true identity. As his father belongs to Pakistan and he lived in India and at present time he was in foreign. So what was the real identity, that is the question of him and this essay through he was trying to say. Like he was constantly asking what is home for us ? The image of Bombay is a constant reminder of his lost city, time and home.
…..so that my India was just that:
'my' India, a version and no more than one version of all the
hundreds of millions of possible versions. I tried to make it
as imaginatively true as I could,.....
Here he was talking about his novel's perspective. The novel is Midnight's Children. He made a clear statement that this is my way of looking at India. It is not the only way to see India in this way. But he mentioned that there are hundreds of million possible ways. And also we find that in Midnight's Children he was creating a kind of imaginary place. Which he recalls all the time.
'Suppose yourself in a large cinema, sitting at
first in the back row, and gradually moving up,... until your
the nose is almost pressed against the screen.'
In Midnight's Children Saleem who was the narrator and
Rushdie realizes that because emigrant writers lose touch with the physical reality of the places in which they grew up, they necessarily create fictionalized versions of them: that is, imaginary homelands. Here we also say that Rushdie, He argues that fragmentary memories are not only inevitable; in fact, they may actually be a virtue in a writer, as “fragmentation made trivial things seem like symbols, and the mundane acquired numinous qualities.” This fragmentary perception is also a reflection of the human condition.
Let me put here several interesting lines from the essay :
Literature is not in the business of copywriting certain themes for certain groups.
He also discussed how to be an Indian he has to face many day to day problems. The problem of definition. What does it mean to be ' Indian' outside India?l
✍️'COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE'
DOES NOT EXIST' :
In this essay he was discussing how commonwealth literature is not a good thing.
' I admitted that I had begun to find this strange toe term, 'Commonwealth literature', unhelpful and even a little distasteful. '
In a way the commonwealth literature is a good platform for writers. It might be thought. But here we are not thinking but Salman Rushdie is there who said a strange term, unhelpful and a little distasteful. How we understand this comment of Rushdie. Here Rushdie makes comments in a significant way, that why all works of English language including at one platform that is English literature ?
Commonwealth Literature that is called something 'second' one. They aren't considered as English writers but 'commonwealth to'. There is so
I became quite sure that our differences were so much more significant than our similarities, that it was impossible to say what 'Commonweaitrniterature'
In which we find that in the group of commonwealth literature they don't have similarities in various aspects. In this essay we find that he was talking about many authors and their views about commonwealth literature.
I recently met the distinguished Gujarati novelist, Suresh Joshi. He told me that he could write in Hindi but felt obliged to write in Gujarati because it was a language under threat. Not from English, or the West: from Hindi.
Here in these sentences we find that it is Salman Rushdie who argues against the language. Even I cannot think in this way before it was an interesting topic to think about. As we know in India various languages are spoken by people. So one language is under threat of another language. Mostly the Hindi language is dangerous for other languages. So here he makes a point that the English language is not a threat to other languages.
He also mentioned various authors' perspectives and their thoughts about this group of 'Commonwealth literature'. He also said at the end that ' I think that if all English literature could be studied together, a shape would emerge which would truly reflect the new shape of the language in the world, and we could see that English literature.
✍️ Attenborough's Gandhi :
This was another interesting essay by Salman Rushdie. It can be called the best movie review with clear cut expression. The movie is "Gandhi" by Richard Attenborough.
( Image courtesy: BBC, Wikipedia, IMDB, Frank Connor )
The film Gandhi won lots of awards. It was also a good film. I think no one don't find any argument against the film. No one speaks against film. That way the film builds in such a ground. But how Rushdie looks at film is one of the Interesting ways. He has his logic in his argument.
' Deification is an Indian disease, and in India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, great soul, little father, has been raised higher than anyone in the pantheon of latter-day gods. '
The beginning of the essay is the most attractive. The words used here are to come up with lots of things and speak a lot of things. He questioned the father of the nation.
Here he pointed out how English people create their own Gandhi within Gandhi itself. Here he was also talking about what is left out in his film, which is the most important part of Gandhi's life. Portrayal of Nehru that is faulty , because Nehari was not a mere follower of Gandhi but he was the opponent of Gandhi. Much of the debate about the film has concerned omissions: why no Subhas Bose? Why no Tagore? The film's makers answer that it would have been impossible to include everything.
Here in this essay we can see that Rushdie makes a point that Attenborough's Gandhi is different from real Gandhi. The way he portrayed few situations that conclusion doesn't match with reality. Here I would like to add that even Rushdie also forgot to talk about Bhimrao Ambedkar. But I'm way that is the excellent review by Rushdie.
✍️New Empire Within Britain :
Here in this essay we find that Rushdie makes an argument that Imperialism has not vanished but that it exists at some point in Britain. As in the beginning of the essay Rushdie Said that :
' Britain isn't South Africa. I am reliably informed of this. Nor is it Nazi Germany.'
It's not Germany, but a kind of racism is there in society. The New Empire Within Britain “ , this essay based on “ Power of British empire” on black people and other immigrants. Here Salman Rushdie shows his different experiences of white and black in Britain.
Here, Rushdie is making a claim that a people's society and culture can be linked to their language. Language is a vital part of a society because it is the main source of communication between people, however, the problem arises when people speak different languages in the same place. Consequently, this
leads to a barrier in the communication. Rushdie confronts this issue because it plays a big role in the reason why immigrants, as well black britains were discriminated against. With white Britains' dominance over social, economic, and political life.
What He is trying to explain is that in societies, there are many different cultures that have their own values and beliefs, but just because one does not believe in that certain culture does not necessarily need to impose violence just because of different attitudes towards it. Racial harmony must exist throughout the world, if not, people will suffer.
So in this essay we can say that imperialism exists in Britain. The English people have the notion of superior as a white people.
References :
Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands, Essays in Criticism 1981-91. Penguine Books. 1992.
Thank you…..
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