Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?
Answer: Princess Diana’s death.
Question: How come?
Answer: An English princess
with an Egyptian boyfriend
crashes in a French tunnel,
driving a German car
with a Dutch engine,
driven by a Belgian who was drunk
on Scottish whisky,
followed closely by Italian Paparazzi,
on Japanese motorcycles;
treated by an American doctor,
using Brazilian medicines.
You’re probably reading this on your computer,
that use Taiwanese chips,
and a Korean monitor,
assembled by Bangladeshi workers
in a Singapore plant,
transported by Pakistan lorry-drivers,
hijacked by Indonesians,
unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen,
and trucked to you by Mexican illegals…..
That is Globalization!
courtesy: Bharath/Author unknown.
THE SEARCH FOR A BANNED BOOK
Ever wondered what it feels to be hunted? Ever had that sneaking suspicion that someone’s watching you; has you in their sights; that you’re being looked at through the sniper’s scope? Have you ever been in danger of losing your sanity, mind and your very life? I didn’t think so. Well, let me share what happened to me over the past two weeks – the very fact that you’re reading this fills me with a hope of renewed optimism, renewed life, because I have narrowly escaped the clutches of madmen, the claws of death had almost cocooned me in its vice-like grip. But I’m alive – alive enough to tell you the story. Ok, I’m kidding. My life was never in any danger. Gotcha, didn’t I?
I first heard about The Satanic Verses when I was in my first year Pre-University. I was, by then, a pretty deep bookworm and already my personal stash of books had crossed sixty. Oh, I was proud of it! The first time I heard of Salman Rushdie was when one of my friends mentioned something called the Booker Of Bookers. Well, I was intrigued, naturally. One of my lifelong ambitions was to create a piece of literature worthy of the coveted Booker Prize. And here was something I had never heard before – the Booker Of Bookers. Every quarter of a century, all the books that have won the Booker are considered for this award, and the best among them is awarded the Booker Of Bookers. So, the first time I heard of Salman Rushdie, it was with an open mouth. The book, Midnight’s Children – was something of a crown everyone wanted to wear. Suddenly, my book collection seemed incomplete without Rushdie. That was when I started some background search on the author. And that was when I came across the terms The Satanic Verses and fatwa.
When Khomeni issued the fatwa, Salman Rushdie orbited to fame around the world. He became known as the Verbal Pyrotechnician – the man who could make the written word speak. And that’s when he became my idol. That’s when I started to search for the book. I realized that my collection would have all his books, starting with Verses, and not any other. I wanted the book – it became an obsession.
The first thing I did when I started my professional course was to hunt each and every well-known and quaint bookstore in town and harass the shopkeeper for the book. I visited at least ten places every month – yeah, I know it’s a bit less, but give me a break, I was studying! – in vain. No one had a copy of the book. “Sorry, sir. It’s banned,†greeted me everywhere I went.
Well, my search was intermittent and stretched over four years. For four years, my collection bulged to well over one hundred and fifty books, but every time I looked at it, I could feel that gut-wrenching feeling of incompleteness. Then, when I thought everything was lost, that I had no hope of finding it in this country or another – I had asked my friend to hunt in bookstores in Ahmedabad and another friend to do the same in Dubai, with no results!!! – life played its cards and I was presented with a wonderful window of opportunity. A friend of mine – she’s as crazy as me, but not so much about books – knew someone in the United States and incidentally, that person was about to return to India for a short time. Well, the lines of communication opened up and word got passed to the person in the States to pick up a couple of copies of Verses. He did so, and came to India. I had to drive twenty kilometers to meet my friend who had collected the books from her friend (the guy from USA; pronouns can be confusing, can’t they?) and the moment I held my hands on the book, something happened to me.
I could hear Satan’s verses; I felt the world go blur around me. My friend said something about our upcoming exams, but I was deaf – deaf and mute for a whole minute. I just looked at the deceptively heavy book, nestled cozily in my arms, like a lover who needed caressing, like a lover who had teased me for four years, now smiling coyly up to me, saying, “Please forgive me. Here I am, at last. I am yours.†I looked at the beautiful book, and said, “I love you.†No one heard me say it, of course; else I’d be rotting in a mental institution by now. People aren’t really open to the idea of bookworms talking to books! I mean, we bookworms are weird enough already, without talking to the damn books.
The power of literature became ever so clear to me. How could a book – something that is considered to be non-living (not by me; for me, a book is full of life) create so much tension in the world, so much chaos that has driven people mad; mad with rage? The pen is truly mightier than the sword. An interesting statistic reads that more people have died through the direct effect of books than the sword or the gun or the bomb. The Holy Bible sparked off the seven Crusades which killed people by the millions; the Arabian Nights was a classic, whose original manuscript people have killed to acquire; Arundathi Roy’s writings have sparked off communal riots in India, killing innocence; oh, I could go on and on. It just re-iterates the power of the written word.
My collection is now complete – The Satanic Verses gives it the much-needed cloak against the psychological nudity that was haunting it for four years. I have now dedicated myself to the task of acquiring the other novels of Rushdie.
I can only conclude by saying hats off to a great author.
