Should a book be cancelled because of allegations about the behaviour of the author? But it feels like moral censorship. Wherever there has been censorship, the first people to suffer from it are underprivileged minorities. These days Rushdie is a writer-in-residence at the journalism school of New York University — do his students ever defend cancel culture to him? Rushdie, who had been president of PEN American Center from to , and who grew up in a liberal Muslim family and is now an atheist, was scathing.
Six Authors in Search of a bit of Character. I want to know where the enemy is. Of course, the giant pachyderm in the room while we are discussing all this is the fatwa. I understand why Rushdie wishes everyone I would get off this subject. But unfortunately for him, ahead of our interview, I reread Joseph Anton , his fascinating memoir about his time in hiding, which evokes so sharply the disruption and fear he endured, that I put it down bewildered as to how the man emerged with his marbles, let alone his career.
And despite telling me off for bringing up the fatwa, Rushdie repeatedly brings it up himself. He hates to have it thrust in his face, but that experience has, inevitably, left its mark. Bookshops in the US and UK were bombed. Fifty-nine more people were killed at protests against the book, and hundreds more injured.
He was advised by the police against speaking out in self-defence, but every time he stayed silent he regretted it, which must partly explain his determination to keep speaking out now.
Some tartly questioned whether he was affected at all by the chaos around him. Rushdie is silent for a few moments, thinking about his relationship with India.
My imaginative being is still there. He went on to talk about the use of fingernails to enhance sexual desire as taught in the chapter four of the classic love guide.
Rushdie is back at it again, his latest crush is year-old stage actress Pia Glenn. The 6ft tall Glenn brushes off the year age gap and the completely mismatched heights as insignificant, describing her relationship with Rushdie as a 'meeting of minds'. Let's see how long Pia remains this happy, may be, till the time some hot chic catches the fancy of the flamboyant author.
Ladies, beware! By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. You can find out more by clicking this link. News Blogs. Shivangi Singh What makes women flock to Salman Rushdie?
Comments - Join the Discussion. Rushdie received his knighthood last month, but friends say he is very raw at being thrown over by Padman. More prosaically, perhaps, he issued a 'come-and-get-me-girls' invitation in the New York Times last month, when he announced: 'I'm totally eligible, single and available.
That dramatic gesture aside, it would not take a literary detective to work out that the reason for his youthful reinvention - with its distinct whiff of desperation - can be found in the much younger shape of a member of the fairer sex. Step forward Riya Sen, a year-old Bollywood actress and model, who last week was described as the Indian equivalent of ubiquitous British glamour girl Jordan. The couple are said to have hit it off after meeting in a Mumbai nightclub, and sources in India told the Mail this week that Rushdie has since 'assiduously hunted her down'.
His glamorous prey has, it seems, not been making too serious an attempt to escape his clutches, and has arranged to stay with Sir Salman at his Manhattan home. On the face of it, at least, it is not a romantic coupling that would routinely emerge if you ran the couple's details through a dating website.
After all, Rushdie is 5ft 7in tall in his new Nike trainers and, at 61, nearing eligibility for his free bus pass. He is significantly lacking in the hair department and suffers from a rare inherited condition called ptosis, which gives him the droopy-eyed look of a man fighting a losing battle with sleep.
She, on the other hand, is a babe. A full 34 years his junior, the sultry Miss Sen has appeared in a string of raunchy films by conservative Indian standards at least and is regularly to be found semi-naked on the subcontinent's version of the Pirelli Calendar. His shapely paramour, who lists belly dancing and kickboxing among her hobbies and revels in her own publicity in her native Mumbai, has been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about their new-found friendship.
Indeed, her only public utterance so far has been to say: 'I think when you are Salman Rushdie, you must get bored with people who always want to talk to you about literature. So what exactly does the huge-brained Rushdie, whose acclaimed novel, Midnight's Children, was last week voted the greatest Booker Prize winner of them all, see in the frothy Miss Sen?
The answer to that question is not quite as obvious as you might think. Yes, she is desirable. But perhaps the motive for Rushdie's overtures is revenge. Rushdie, his friends told me this week, is far from over the breakup from wife number four, beautiful former Vogue model Padma Lakshmi, who dumped him a year ago.
They say Salman is still obsessed with Padma and is absolutely desperate to make her jealous by being seen with this beautiful girl. He really crumbled after she left him, and I think he now wants to let her know that he doesn't need her any more,' said someone at the heart of the publishing scene, who has known Rushdie for 25 years.
Whatever he tells himself, he is still very raw at being thrown over by Padma. Nor are friends surprised by the timing of the news of his dates with Miss Sen; nor his parading of the string of other beautiful women who have escorted him recently.
They coincide with reports that the stunning Miss Lakshmi - a former bikini-wearing hostess on Italian game shows - is being linked to year-old Wall Street tycoon Teddy Forstmann. Hardly surprisingly, perhaps, the year-old Miss Lakshmi's relationship with ladies' man Forstmann, who once had a dalliance with Elizabeth Hurley, as well as a much-publicised flirtation with Princess Diana, has not been at all well-received by Rushdie.
But his attempts to get his ex-wife's attention have so far, at least, been annoyingly fruitless. As well as his dates with Miss Sen, Rushdie has also recently squired American paralympic athlete-turnedmodel Aimee Mullins to a series of parties in New York, where he keeps an apartment on the trendy Upper West Side. The beautiful Miss Mullins, 32, who was born without shin bones and had both legs removed below the knees when she was one year old, is one of several young women he has turned to for company since the end of his marriage.
Two months ago, he was photographed with year-old actress Olivia Wilde, who appears in U. And a month earlier, he was to be seen nuzzling the neck of actress Scarlett Johansson and whispering in her ear as he made a somewhat unlikely appearance in the video for her debut pop single, Falling Down.
He is said to have told partygoers last month that he finds the year-old blonde Miss Johansson 'very, very hot'. Yesterday, the author was to be found at a polo event at Cowdray Park in Sussex squiring a stunning young model named Aita Ighodaro. Conway Hall was an appropriate venue. They challenged the British government to discard its deep-rooted paternalism, under which it allowed the keepers of various faith usually men to decide how women should be controlled.
SBS has defended black and minority women from all religious and ethnic backgrounds in the face of racism, fundamentalism, and inequality.
SBS was founded by remarkable women who had experienced racism and wanted to take it head-on. One of them was Patel, who spoke last week at Conway Hall. She was part of the second wave of Indian feminists, active after the Emergency. I was quite critical of black identity politics and wanted to develop a feminist organization which brought together women on a common basis of opposing all religious fundamentalism," says Sahgal.
Often it has been assumed that the views of local community leaders are our views, and their demands are our demands. We reject this absolutely We will take up our right to determine our own destinies, not limited by religion, culture, or nationality. We call upon the government to abolish the outdated blasphemy law and to defend without reservation, freedom of speech. On 27 May , there was a massive march of orthodox Muslims demanding a ban on The Satanic Verses near the Parliament, and some 40 women stood at Parliament Square opposing the marchers as well as the right-wing National Front, which was out there making racist attacks on Muslims in Britain.
The Muslim marchers were calling for the blasphemy law to be extended to protect Islam too. As the long queue of angry Muslim men marched, the women countered them, shouting slogans. Fariborz Pooya, who was distributing leaflets defending Rushdie, recalled that the march was reminiscent of Teheran in Others who supported them included the cultural activist and poet John La Rose and the humanist Barbara Smoker. Now 95, she spoke at the Conway Hall event last week.
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