Nilanjana S Roy: How to make Rushdie happy

SPEAKING VOLUMES

My friend the socialite, who is the only connection I have to the world of Page 3, called in a tizzy. "What does one say to Salman?" she wailed. "I'm meeting him in Calcutta and I have no idea how to converse with a Nobel laureate."

"Well, if you're talking about Salman Rushdie," I said, "you might want to stay off the subject of the Nobel. Naipaul won it; he hasn't got his gong yet, and it might be a sensitive subject."

"Oh, yes," she said distractedly, "He won the Booker of Bookers between wives two and three." I cleared my throat. "I wouldn't bring them up, either," I said. "Ms Lakshmi, who is a very fine model and a foodie, is wife number four. She might not be very happy to be reminded of her predecessors. Er, do you know anything about Rushdie at all?"

"Of course I do," she said. "He shot his translator after the Americans issued a fatwa against him." I sighed. "It wasn't the Americans""though they might issue a fatwa against Arundhati Roy any day, given what she's been saying about US imperialism""it was the Ayatollah.

And he didn't shoot his translator, though other writers have been tempted to do just that with theirs; it was an Iranian follower of the Ayatollah who parcel-bombed the man."

"You're sooo boring," she said. "But I do know he's into porn. Maybe I should ask him what sites he surfs and whether he's into grannies or Bluetoothing." I gripped the receiver rather more tightly. "He isn't," I said with some asperity, "into porn at all; he merely made the argument that a society that bans porn is a repressed society that encourages other forms of sexual oppression."

"Rubbish," she said. "Why, just last week he was promoting Aids! With that South African lady! And John Updike! These writers are all perverts." Sometimes I wonder whether knowing about the inner lives (an oxymoron if there ever was one) of the Page 3 people is worth the effort.

"Nadine Gordimer, John Updike and Salman Rushdie weren't promoting Aids," I explained, "They were releasing a book in support of the battle against Aids. Rushdie is quite an activist, you know, he's fought against censorship, he's been at the helm of PEN, he's written columns slamming America's war against Iraq. Look, isn't there anything related to his work you might want to talk about?"

There was a long pause. "His work?" she said uncertainly. "Well," I said, "he IS one of the greatest writers of our times. And he has several books coming out next year. And Haroun and the Sea of Stories has just been made into a very successful opera in New York."

The pause grew positively acerbic. "You want ME to talk to Rushdie about writing?" she said. "Isn't that what you and the rest are meeting him for?" I asked, puzzled. "To pay tribute to his long and stellar career, his ability to put history on the page and transform it, his wicked, wicked way with sentences and grammar?"

This time, a snort was audible all the way down the line. "What," demanded my friend, "do you take me for? A student? One of those intellectuals? A.a.READER?"

"Well," I said tentatively, "those seem to be the ones who're queueing up to hear him speak in Calcutta, and the ones who're trying to get to meet him in Delhi." She cut me off. "I have met Richard Gere," she said.

"And Goldie Hawn. And that awful Hurley woman and her boyfriend. And that chap who didn't win the Nobel, Naples, Nepal something." I interjected: "Naipaul. He did win the Nobel. Rushdie didn't. I promise you, this is important."

I could practically hear her waving me away. "Now Rushdie is an A-list celebrity," she continued, "so I must meet him. All I need to know is what to say and I must say you're not being helpful in the least."

"You might want to try," I suggested, "reading his books. Well, Midnight's Children at the very least?" I could hear the sharp intake of breath. "Me, read?" she said indignantly. "That would be a good idea, if you're meeting a man whose life consists of writing books," I said meekly.

"You are NO use at all," she said sulkily. "Except for what you said, about his wonderful play Arun and the Tory Party being made into a book."

I thumped my head against the wall. "It's Haroun," I said. "And The Sea of Stories, and it's a book being turned into an opera." But my words fell on deaf ears.

"I," she said, "shall talk to him about The Rolling Stones. I believe they are good friends of his." "Oh no," I said miserably, "that's U2 and they wrote a song for his last book." But I was speaking to thin air; she'd hung up.

All I can say is that if Rushdie is accosted this week by a woman whose accessories run to Bulgari and a polo-playing toyboy, who asks him about granny porn, his Nobel and his wonderful book, The Other Side of Midnight's Children, don't blame me. I did my best.

Remembering Shama Futehally: Shama Futehally, who died last week at the age of 52, was an anachronism. She was a much beloved teacher at the NSD, an IAS officer; in person, she was a warm, generous, affectionate mentor.

She began writing in an era before advances and hype and author interviews on Page 3, part of the generation of women who were struggling to find a voice for themselves, out of the ghetto of gender but imbued with a strong sense of injustice all the same.

Her love for writing came out of a deep and abiding love for literature.

Though she is best remembered for books like Tara Lane and the politically correct Reaching Bombay Central, she also wrote reviews and articles, translations and children's stories. She saw all of this, the stray pieces and the more ambitious work, as part of the same calling.

For me, the real tragedy comes out of something she said during the launch of her last novel; she indicated that she had begun to find a different voice, a kind of freedom and openness hard to reach in her thirties.

She was working on a novel based on the Uphaar cinema tragedy before she fell ill. Her best work might have been yet to come.

What she had to teach this generation of writers sounds old-fashioned, almost: the necessity of kindness, the need to raise your voice, however politely, the importance of values like generosity and affection. That is her true legacy, and it is a valuable one.

nilanjanasroy@gmail.com