In the realm of literature, few authors leave as lasting an impact as Salman Rushdie. Rajiv Sethi shares his journey with Rushdie’s works, revealing the profound connection he felt as a reader not only to the lyrical beauty of the prose but also to the vivid imagery that resonates deeply, especially for those of subcontinental heritage. While literature often teems with universal themes, Sethi emphasizes that novels are inherently tied to specific times and places, reminding us that even the finest writers, like Rushdie, may need to clarify their cultural references. However, some meanings simply resist translation. Take, for example, Euripides’ tragic tale of Medea. I can’t be alone in questioning how a woman could find dignity in such a grievous act as murdering her children.
There exists a plethora of examples of cultural nuances losing their essence for those outside the originating society. With renowned writers such as Shakespeare, diligent educators and reference works strive to shed light on layers of meaning that might elude modern readers. For instance, the words “reason” and “raisin” rhymed before the significant shifts in vowel pronunciation.
One line that stands out for me is:
Golden lads and girls all must
As chimney sweepers
Come to dust.
Here, “Golden lads” referred to dandelions, and “chimney sweepers” denoted dandelions that had gone to seed.
By Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University; External Professor, Santa Fe Institute. Originally published at Imperfect Information
In previous posts, I have reflected on my formative years spent in England, which shaped my teenage life. During that pivotal time, I fell in love with literature. However, it was a love characterized by distance, akin to admiring the stars or watching waves crash against cliffs. Any hidden meanings in the text seemed just out of my reach, perhaps intended for a different cultural background.
This changed dramatically when a friend introduced me to Midnight’s Children, Rushdie’s second novel. Immediately, I recognized that this extraordinary book would captivate readers globally, yet certain nuances would only resonate with those familiar with the author’s cultural and linguistic landscape.
For instance, upon opening the book and scanning the chapter titles, I noticed a chapter called “The Buddha.” Initially, I envisioned the ascetic founder of Buddhism, lost in meditation. However, by the time I reached the chapter—nearly four hundred pages later—I discovered the reference evoked a completely different connotation, one harsher in meaning, serving as a label for an aging man. Here are two contrasting notions, tied together by transliteration but remembering how distinct they are:
O fortunate ambiguity of transliteration! The Urdu word budha, meaning old man, is pronounced with a harder sound, while Buddha, soft on the tongue, refers to the enlightened one under the bodhi tree.
This passage resonates differently with those who have grown up with both words, connected in a way that may seem trivial but means a great deal to me. I eagerly delved into Rushdie’s subsequent works, Shame and The Satanic Verses, each as mesmerizing as the last.
Recently, Salman Rushdie appeared at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, engaging in a talk with Poulomi Saha. He mentioned a new collection of stories, disclosing that the second tale, The Musician of Kahani, was the first he wrote. This novella, about eighty pages long, centers on a girl with extraordinary (and increasingly magical) musical talent, born to two mathematicians. Her mother creates an early search engine, selling it for a hundred million dollars, while her father nearly publishes a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem before a British scholar beats him to it. The narrative is filled with humor, horror, and exquisite craftsmanship that transported me back to my early days of literary exploration.
Here’s an excerpt:
And her concerts! Our people do not hold back when showing appreciation for greatness. “Wah!” we shout. “Wow!” We also exclaim “Kya baat hai!,” or “What a thing!” and we do this in the midst of the performances, not just at the end. Beethoven would not have approved, nor even the playful Mozart as depicted in Forman’s Amadeus. Those composers expected silence while they played, with applause only after their performances. Well, too bad for Ludwig van and Wolfgang A.! You’re in India now. Here, the audience and performer unite, each elevating the other.
This sentiment strikes differently for someone who’s used to responding with “Bahut Khoob!” at recitals during brief pauses between Urdu couplets.
The fatwa and the ensuing years shrouded in fear heavily influenced Rushdie’s writing. How could they not? For me, no work since has reached the heights of his earlier novels. Yet now, The Musician of Kahani stands out as a remarkable achievement. Could it be that the threat his life posed to his fiction has fueled a newfound life in his writing following his survival? It sounds improbable, but it fits well within a Rushdie narrative.
1 I’m currently in the Bay Area for the academic year, working on a book tentatively entitled The Interpretation of Signals. This marks my second visit to the theater; my first was to see Arundhati Roy in conversation with Deepa Fernandes, also a fellow at CASBS. Roy’s latest book, Mother Mary Comes To Me, is on my holiday reading list, alongside a recent biography of James Baldwin that Rushdie recommended during the event.
2 In this discussion, I’ve emphasized linguistic and cultural ties between authors and readers, but it’s worth noting that some of the strongest connections can transcend ethnic and cultural boundaries.
3 The influence of the fatwa also affected his non-fiction in unique ways. One of my preferred Rushdie essays was penned shortly after the fatwa was imposed.
4 Here’s another quote I can’t resist sharing. It describes the path taken by the musician’s father, Raheem Contractor, as he pursued a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem—a journey that eventually leads to him abandoning his family for a religious cult:
Raheem had examined and rejected all attempts to untangle the thorny conundrum, delving into the intricacies of the Yang-Mills equations, the Riemann Hypothesis, the P versus NP problem, the Hodge conjecture, the Navier-Stokes equations, the Poincaré Conjecture, and the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, and found them all wanting. At last, after many long years, he had begun to understand that the answer lay within the Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture, subsequently known as the Modularity Theorem and was on the verge of publishing his proof when he was beaten to the punch by a British scholar, who became famous and was showered with honors and awards, while Raheem Contractor remained anonymous in his university office. He was inconsolable, and his lifelong faith in numbers, and in his ability to use them as the building blocks of a good life began to dissolve. He became vulnerable to other forms of belief.
This kind of is a typical Rushdie detour. While I know little about these complex branches of mathematics, I understand that something called the Taniyama-Shimura-Weil Conjecture implies Fermat’s claim, marking the route Andrew Wiles took in his famous proof.
