A year and a half later, Saladin
flies home to be with his dying father. He has heard that Gibreel is now making
films based on the "dreams" which have alternated with the
present-day plot throughout the novel. On the plane he reads of various
scandals and disasters taking place in India: clearly it is no utopia. Whereas
Saladin resents the former maidservant who has married his father and taken on
his mother's identity, his lover/friend Zeeny Vakil immediately sympathizes
with her. After years of hostility to his father, Saladin finds no support in
those surrounding him for his attitude. As he sits by his father's bedside the
two are finally reconciled. Saladin has inherited his father's estate and is
now rich. Meanwhile a dispute over a film on Indian sectarianism has become the
center of a censorship controversy in a way that ominously forshadows the
treatment which Rushdie's Satanic Verses was to receive upon publication.
Gibreel has also returned to
Bombay, depressed and suicidal. The movie he tries to make is a
"satanic" inversion of the traditional tale from the Ramayana, reflecting his disillusionment with love
after having been rejected by Allie. Ultimately he goes entirely mad, kills
Sisodia and Allie (hurling the latter symbolically from the same skyscraper
from which Rekha Merchant had flung herself). Visiting Saladin, he confesses,
then draws a revolver from the "magic" lamp Saladin had inherited
from his father, and shoots himself. Zeeny Vakil's final words to Saladin,
"Let's get the hell out of here," may be ambiguous: they could mean
only "Let's leave," but she may also be inviting him to leave the the
realm of the Satanic in which he has been living for so long.
Page 509
[523]
A Wonderful Lamp
Alludes to the Arabian Nights
tale, " Aladdin and
the Wonderful Lamp."
Page 511
[525]
GP
General practitioner (doctor).
[526]
Khalistan zealot
Sikh separatist, many of whom have been involved in terrorist acts, including
the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
Page 513
[527]
pooja
See note above on p. 68 [69].
Page 514
[528]
Solan
The ancestral home of Rushdie's family is in Solan, called the "Anees
Villa Estate." When the Rushdies moved to Pakistan, it was declared
"evacuee property" and seized by the state and converted into the
office of the district education officer, then made a magistrate's residence.
After a lengthy legal battle, the family regained title to the house. See J. N. Sadhu, pp. 20-23. (Joel Kuortti)
Page 516
[531]
islands in the stream
The title of a novel by Ernest Hemingway.
Page 517
[531]
Shiva
lingam
The lingam, or
phallic stone associated with Shiva, is one of the most commonly venerated
objects in Hinduism (Sanskrit).
[532]
bride suicide
Murder reported as suicide; see above, p. 250 [258].
Gaffer Hexam
See above, p. 422 [436].
Page 518
massacre of Muslims
In late May of 1987 a number of Muslims were massacred at Meerut, purportedly
by police forces. (David Windsor)
once-popular Chief Minister
Farooq Abdullah. There was a riot against him in Kashmir in 1987 during the Eid
celebrations (which took place on May 29).
Page 519
[533]
HISTORY SHEETERS
Indian English for people with a criminal record.
Juma Masjid in Old Delhi
The largest mosque in India, built in the 17th century, more often spelled
"Jami Masjid."
The walled city of Old Delhi is a Muslim stronghold, as opposed to
Hindu-dominated New Delhi.
Bandh
General strike used as a political protest (Hindi).
member of the mile high . . .
club
According to modern legend, anyone who has successfully performed intercourse
in an airplane in flight.
Page 520
[534]
sugar . . . brown
"Brown sugar" is heroin, but these can also be read as racist slogans
(see above, p. 261 [269]). The phrase was popularized in a song by that title
by the Rolling Stones on their album "Sticky Fingers." "Brown
sugar" can also refer to sex with women of color.
Why do you think Rushdie has
chosen to tell the story of Saladin's father's death in this final chapter? How
does it relate to the rest of the novel? What functions does it serve at the
end of the book?
Page 523
[538]
perhaps in the parallel
universes of quantum theory
Some scientists have speculated that at each and every moment in which one
thing rather than another might have happened, both do in fact happen, reality
forking at that point into separate universes. Many "parallel"
universes would then coexist simultaneously differing more or less from each
other. The idea has been a commonplace in science fiction stories for decades.
Page 525
[539]
this pharmaceutical
Tamburlane
London theater critic Kenneth Tyanan concluded his 1960 review of an Oxford
University Dramatic Society production of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine
the Great (directed by
John Duncan) with this whimsical parody, which he introduced as follows:
"The supporting cast, studded as it is with constantly repeated names like
Usumcasane, Theridamas, Mycetes, Celebinus and Callipine, got blurred in my
mind, rather as if they were a horde of pills and wonder drugs bent on
decimating one another" (Tynan
26).
Page 526
[540] Eek, bhaak, thoo
Noises indicating something distasteful being spit out, also used as an
expression of disgust (Hindi).
Abba
Father (Urdu).
The Devil damn thee black,
thou cream-fac'd loon
A casually racist rebuke uttered by the besieged Macbeth to his servant in Act V, scene
3, line 11.
Page 527
Page 528
[542]
Finnegan's wake
James Joyce's novel, Finnegan's Wake, is based on a popular Irish ballad about a man who loved to
drink so much he refused to stay inert at his own wake.
[541]
achkan jackets
Long formal jacket associated with turn-of-the-century Muslim nobility, now
rapidly disappearing (Urdu, Hindi).
allsorts
Assorted hard candies.
Page 529
[543]
the lamp
See above, p. 509 [523].
Page 530
[545]
Urdu
The language most commonly spoken by Muslim Indians.
the world, somebody wrote, is
the place we prove real by dying in it
The "somebody" is Edward Bond, a
British playwright. The last paragraph of the "Author's Preface" to
his play Lear reads
as follows: "Act One shows a world dominated by myth. Act Two shows the
clash between myth and reality, between superstitious men and the autonomous
world. Act Three shows a resolution of this, in the world we prove real by
dying in it" (p. xiv).
Page 532
[547]
Claridge's Hotel
London's most famous and luxurious hotel.
Page 534 [549]
How has Saladin changed after
his father's death?
Page 536
[550]
Childhood's End
Probably a sly reference to the title of Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction
novel. Clarke has lived for some years in Sri Lanka.
Page 536
[550]
George Miranda
Perhaps alluding to the character in Shakespeare's The Tempest. See above, p. 53
[49].
Dhobi Talao Boozer
A tavern in the Dhobi Talao district of Bombay.
Fundamentalists of both
religions had instantly sought injunctions
Rushdie's earlier novel Shame
was banned in Pakistan, and Midnight's Children condemned in India.
Page 537
[551]
Gateway of India
An impressive arch built near the harbor to commemorate the visit of King
George V and Queen Mary in 1911.
Shiv Sena
See note above, on p. 55.
Page 539
[554]
dadas
Literally "brothers," but here, pimps (Hindi).
Page 542
[556]
All-India Radio
The official government radio network.
"language press"
Newspapers and magazines in the many languages of India other than English.
Page 545
Why do you think the novel
ends with Gibreel's suicide?