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Salman Rushdie
by Ranga
 LONDON
and New York-based Indian novelist Salman Rushdie’s book Satanic
Verses was banned by the Indian Government in 1988 following
protests by a section of the Muslim community that it contained certain
allusions to the life and the mission of Prophet Mohammed which the
Muslims felt were offensive.
Salman studied Islamic
history in Cambridge University, became the author of several books and
won awards for his work Midnight’s Children, The Jaguar Smile and
Grimus and Shame. Salman visited Delhi in 1984 and visited again
after a decade and half. It was during his visit to Delhi in 1984 that I
was able to meet him and sketch him. It was a successful meeting. He
autographed his sketch at a Press meet. But later I failed to meet him
as his whereabouts were kept secret due to threats to his life from some
fundamentalist organisations.
However a good friend of
his, a barrister in London, offered to take the sketch I had made when
Salman appeared on a television network, to him. It reached him but it
was after nearly two years that I got it back with his signature.
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