The Satanic Verses has been attacked by many critics as incoherent, as a disorganized mixture of plots, themes, and characters. Even a cursory survey of the preceding notes reveals that Rushdie has sought to knit together the various threads of his novel by introducing a host of cross-references, repeating the names of characters, catch phrases, and images in a complex network of allusions and echoes. Yet these might be viewed as desperate attempts to give a surface appearance of unity to a basically chaotic work.
I am persuaded that The Satanic Verses is indeed unified by a related set of topics, all of them widely acknowledged in earlier criticism, but perhaps not arrayed in the way I do here. This is my personal understanding of what holds the various plots of the novel together in a way that articulates a consistent world view.
Rushdie says that novels do not lay down rules, but ask questions. In fact he claims that by asking questions, good fiction can help to create a changed world. Novels like The Satanic Verses don't settle debates: they articulate the terms of debate and ask hard questions of the opposing sides, thereby helping to usher "newness" into the world. One of the unifying themes of The Satanic Verses is newness, or change. It attacks rigid, self-righteous orthodoxies and celebrates doubt, questioning, disruption, innovation. This much is obvious.
But Rushdie is focussing on a particular set of issues relating to rigidity and change: those identified with what is sometimes called "identity politics." It is unfortunate that this term is primarily associated with the opponents of such politics because it so aptly sums up what feminism, Afrocentrism, gay pride, national liberation movements and a host of other causes have in common.
People who find themselves excluded or suppressed by dominant groups try by various means to find an effective voice and tools for action to create power and authority for themselves. It is these struggles that are the basic underlying matter of Rushdie's novel. The question that is asked throughout this novel is "What kind of an idea are you?" In other words, on what ideas, experiences, and relationships do you base your definition of yourself--your identity?
People who find themselves identified as "foreigners" or "aliens" often find unwelcome hostile identities imposed upon them. The common catch-phrase in literary theory these days is "demonization," and it is this term that Rushdie makes concrete in his novel by turning Saladin, the immigrant who is most determined to identify with the English, literally into a demon. (Of course he is also able to earn his living only by taking on the guise of a space alien.) The other immigrants who assume horns later in the novel express the same satirical view of English bigotry. But this is only the beginning of Rushdie's exploration of the theme of identity.
In the distant past, European observers writing about people in colonized nations often distinguished between "unspoiled natives" who dwelled in childlike, ignorant innocence which was part of their charm, and others who had been "spoiled" by contact with a European civilization they could mimic but never truly master. This formula not only justified the colonial domination of colonized "children" as a form of parental concern, even charity ("the white man's burden"), but rationalized measures taken to prevent inhabitants of the colonies from gaining the education and jobs they would have needed to rule themselves in the modern world.
Less obviously vicious but still prejudicial was a later formula according to which writing about what is now called "postcolonial" literature emphasized the position of writers from the "third world" writing in English as exiles, uprooted and stranded in alien, often hostile cultures far from home, working in a language that may not have been their own. Immigrants were called "exiles" whether they had actually been driven from their homeland or--as was much more common--they had sought increased opportunity by voluntarily moving abroad. "Exile" is a weak image, and Rushdie rejects it. His immigrants are sources of energy and creativity, busily redefining the culture of their adopted homelands.
In a more recent period, the standard formula has referred to the "center" and the "periphery." Europe and the U.S. constitute the center, writers from nations like Nigeria, Jamaica, and India belong to the periphery. Their voices are said to have been "marginalised," thrust from the center, forced into the margins. People using this language do so with more or less irony; but all too often it becomes just another way of saying that we should pay attention to our less fortunate fellows. The challenge of "marginalised" voices is to find the center, or shift it to themselves, seize the podium, and speak their piece.
What Rushdie does in The Satanic Verses is to reverse these terms. He challenges the English/European/white sense of identity. He rejects its claims to centrality. London is changed into an exotic land where people follow strange customs (wiping themselves "with paper only" and eating bony fish). People of traditional Anglo-Saxon stock are almost entirely absent from the London of The Satanic Verses. Instead the city swarms with immigrants: Indians, Bengalis, Pakistanis, Jamaicans, German Jews, etc. He reminds the English that they too were colonized, by the Romans and the Normans.
The only major character with a traditional English heritage is Pamela, who is striving mightily to escape that very heritage and mistakes Saladin for an exotic "alien" who can link her to India, when the main reason he is drawn to her is that she represents escape from the Indianness he is trying to flee. (This same sort of cross-purposes Indian-European relationship is also dealt with in a Raja Rao's remarkable 1960 novel The Serpent and the Rope.) Rosa Diamond is an Englishwoman yearning to become Latin American or to be conquered by invading Normans. The bigots who beat Chamcha in the police van are all--as he notes--no more English in their heritage than he, but his color and identity as a postcolonial immigrant allows them to treat him as a complete alien.
Minor Anglo-Saxon characters are venal (Hal Valance), bigoted (the punks who spit on the food in the Shaandaar Café), tyrannical (Margaret Thatcher), or stupid (Eugene Dumsday). Rushdie has turned the tables on Anglo-Americans. Their travel writers have for generations dwelt on the failings of the benighted natives of far-off lands: it is now their turn to become a set of cartoons, to provide the background for the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the really important characters.
But Rushdie does not engage in this sort of caricature to privilege his immigrants as somehow morally superior. They are all morally flawed as well, though treated in a more complex manner. He is not saying that being from a former colony of Britain grants one any particular virtue; it is only that he is interested in focussing on such people. Of course he is perfectly aware that by doing so he is disorienting his "mainstream" English and American readers, giving them a taste of what it feels like to be bit players in a drama which is not essentially about them.
Further, he is not asking how immigrants can become "English" (in the way that Otto Cone strove to become English); he is instead asking how immigrants can create an identity for themselves in England which is richer, newer, more interesting than the traditional stereotypes associated with the old center of empire.
One traditional strategy of oppressed or marginalised groups is to try to create a sense of identity by dwelling on their shared history. Sometimes this takes the form of referring back to a historical period of suffering, as in the case of African-Americans finding a common ground in their heritage of slavery. This can be a powerful move when one belongs to a minority with a commonly recognized shared past of suffering. But this strategy has some often-noted unfortunate by-products. For one thing, it relies for its effectiveness on the hope that members of the majority group will accept the responsibility for their ancestors' deeds. Even when majorities acknowledge the injustices of the past, guilt is not an emotion that can often motivate action to atone for those injustices. The Hindu miners in the Titlipur story who hark back to their suffering under Islamic rule to justify their attacks on the Muslim pilgrims illustrate the all too common phenomenon of historical grievances being used by one group to justify atrocities against another. Another instance in the novel is the group of Sikh terrorists who blow up the plane at the beginning. During the riot, whites emblazon their apartment houses with references to nineteenth-century wars in South Africa, posing as beleaguered English South African settlers surrounded by hostile Zulus (461). In our time Northern Ireland and the Balkans have provided vivid European examples of the deadly effects of this sort of thing.
The politics of shared grievance also focus attention on the past rather than on the future. Rushdie wants people to remember that Union Carbide's neglect cost the lives and health of thousands of Indians in the Bhopal disaster (and he clearly wants the company held responsible), but he does not want the very identity of India to be defined only by a chain of misfortunes. The most important aspect of the Indian cultural heritage for him is its rich, creative variety. Its history is more than a mere list of the crimes committed against it by others; and he is prepared to add the crimes committed by Indians against each other to its portrait as well.
Another approach to identity politics is to hark back to a positive historical heritage instead of to a time of suffering. Thus the black Caribbean immigrants in the novel seek to emphasize an African heritage which is actually very distant from their lived experience. Chamcha mentally mocks them for singing the "African National Anthem." The black leader originally named "Sylvester Roberts" has chosen the absurd name "Uhuru Simba" in an attempt to "Africanize" his identity. It seems clear that Rushdie shares at least some of Chamcha's reservations about Afrocentrism in the scene of the defense rally for the arrested Dr. Simba (413-416). Choosing Chamcha as his point of view character allows him to critique the limits of such ideas even as he acknowledges the justness of their cause.
In the first chapter of the book, George Miranda and Bhupen Gandhi match Zeeny's proud references to Indian accomplishments and her list of crimes against Indians with their own examples of atrocities committed by Indians (54-57). Bhupen ends his tirade against modern India (56-57) by asking the emblematic question, "Who do we think we [are]?"
Rushdie seems to be trying to say that Indians, like all human beings, are both victims and criminals, both creators and destroyers. He is not proposing a sort of bland homogenized theory of original sin according to which all people are equally guilty and none specifically to blame: clearly he cares passionately that wrongs be righted and criminals identified and punished. Rather he rejects both martyrdom and triumphant nationalism as inadequate foundations for a satisfactory self-identity.
Another common source of identity is, of course, religion. Who would have thought that in the latter part of the twentieth century, so many conflicts would come to be defined in religious terms? Israeli Jews vs. Palestinians, Sikhs vs. Hindus, Hindus vs. Muslims, Serbs vs. Croatians, Irish Catholics vs. Irish Protestants--we seem to be embroiled in a new age of Wars of Religion. For Rushdie, orthodox religion signifies intolerance, repressiveness, rigidity. Dumsday represents the know-nothing Christian right and the Imam fanatical Muslim extremism. The Imam's hatred of the former Shah of Iran and SAVAK is no doubt shared by Rushdie; but his alternative is even more monstrous: a giant insatiable maw devouring the people it claims to save. It is one of the more poignant ironies of "the Rushdie affair" that Khomeni evidently died without ever realizing that the novel he had denounced contained a devastating portrait of him.
If Rushdie had only denounced such fanaticism, few in the Muslim world would have endorsed Khomeni's fatwa. But Rushdie goes on to call into question the credibility and beneficence of orthodox, traditional Islam. Gibreel's dreams challenge the Qur'an's claims to infallibility, accuse Islam of the repression of women, call into question the probity and honesty of the Prophet himself.
Rushdie does not create these dreams out of a simple desire to blaspheme for blasphemy's sake. He is following in the footsteps of the great eighteenth-century Enlightenment critics of religion like Voltaire who sought to undermine the authoritarian power structures of their day by challenging their religious underpinnings. So long as the Church endorsed slavery, the divine right of kings, and censorship, the sort of liberating changes the rationalists yearned for could not come to pass, unless the Church's authority could be called into question. Similarly, Rushdie sees modern societies like Iran and Pakistan as cursed by religious convictions that bring out the worst qualities in their believers. (In The Moor's Last Sigh he challenges Hindu fanaticism as well.)
The entire novel strives to break down absolutes, to blur easy dichotomies, to question traditional assumptions of all kinds. There are to be no simple answers to the query, "What kind of an idea are we?" Demons can behave like angels and vice versa. High ideals can lead people to commit terrible crimes. Love can be mixed with jealous hate. Exalted faith can lead to tragedy. Just as Rushdie strives to destroy the distinction between center and periphery, so he challenges easy distinctions between good and evil.
At the end of the novel, Saladin returns to India, finally to reconcile himself with his father. But this is no simple return to his roots. The father with whom he is reconciled is a changed man. Saladin could not have loved him until he had become the enfeebled, benign shadow of his former self on his deathbed. Part of his heritage--the lamp--proves deadly. His inheritance does not include the home he grew up in. Zeeny, who elsewhere warmly urges his Indian roots on him, has little use for sentimental attachment to Peristan. Let it make way for the new, she says. Saladin seems finally to agree. He is ready to put aside not only the "fairy-tales" of religion but his personal history as well. In the end he opts for newness, for "If the old refused to die, the new could not be born" (547).
In the end, despite the postmodern trappings of Rushdie's narrative, the values of the novel seem remarkably traditional: belief in individual liberty and tolerance, freedom of expression, skepticism about dogma, and belief in the redemptive power of love. Lest we too quickly claim triumphantly that these are distinctively European values, Rushdie reminds us of the remarkably intelligent and innovative Mughal ruler of India, Akbar, who challenged the orthodoxies of his time and brought more than his share of newness into the world (190).
One could derive from the book a sort of existentialist morality: there are no absolutes, but we are responsible for the choices we make, the alliances we forge, the relationships we enter into. Our choices define us. We cannot shift the responsibility for our actions to God or history. "What kind of an idea are you?" is a question addressed not only to immigrants, but to all of us.
____________________________
Source: www.wsu.edu
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Unity of The Satanic Verses
Index for Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses
A+
Abbott, Edwin 261 (Flatland)
Abd'Allah Ibn Abi Sarh [367
Abracadabra 354
Abraham (Ibrahim)
achha 34
Actors' Equity 163
`Ad 320
Adam 99, 336
adda 52
Aethiop 96 (slaves)
afeem (opium) 76, 96
afreet 22, 122
AIDS 284
Akbar, Grand Mughal, the Magnificient 16, 190
Akhtar, Mirza Saeed (character) 216-240
Akhtar, Mishal (character) 218-239
"Aladdin" 36, [48, [63, [69 (Arabian Nights)
albatross 87
alcohol 26, 208, 209, 215
"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" 56, 377 (Arabian Nights)
alien 62, 139 (illegals)
The Aliens 62
"All the President's Men" 265
Allahu Akbar 115
alleluiah 190
Alphaville 4
Amalekites (people) 99
amen 190
America 56, 63, 64 (Las Vegas), 70, 71 (Texas), 75, 150
Amin, Idi 54
amphisbaenae 117
Anatolia 96 (slaves), 98
Angrez 53, 59
Annapurna 82
Apuleius, Lucius 243
Aqabah 103
Arabia Orodifera 95
Arabian Nights (The Tales of Thousand Nights and a Night) 36, [48, [63, [69 ("Aladdin"); [69 ("Sinbad and The Old Man of the Sea"); 56, 377 ("Ali Baba")
Arabian Sea 546
Arafat, Yassir 261
Ariadne [24
Armenia 61
Art Deco 347
Aryan 52
Asians 53
Asimov, Isaac 40 (Foundation)
Asmodeus 76
Assam 56-7, 73
assassins 177 (Russian), 362 (hashashin)
Assyria 117 (sphinx),
Astarte 99
Australia 62
avatars 17, 23 (of Jupiter), 82
ayah 12, 37, 66-8
Ayesha (A'isha) 380
Ayesha (character) The Empress 206-215; the butterfly girl 219-240; and Mahound 387 (in the desert), 393-4 (Mahound's sickness and death); `Ayesha' 388-389
Azazael 321
Azrael (Azraeel) 181, 394
B+
baabu-ré 223
Baal (character) 97-126
Baal (Baalzebub) [97
baba 3, 18, 61, 66
Babel 58 (India's)
Babington, Jorge, Doctor (character) 145
babu 61
Babylon 4, 212
bachcha 333
Bachchan, Amitabh 63, 73, 341
Bacon, Francis 62
bandanna 49
Banerji, Bibhutibhushan 245
Bangladesh [206, 243, 259
banyan tree 45, 224
baprebap 21
Bapsy (character) 183
Baranczak, Stanislaw 297
barfi 184 (pista barfi), 249
baron-samedi 289
Bartica 193
Basra 96
Battle Hill 130
Battuta, Billy (character) 260
Battuta, Ibn [260
Baum, L. Frank [22, [282 (yellowbrick lane) (The Wizard of Oz)
Beaton, Cecil 298
Beckett, Samuel 340
beedi 12
Beelzebub 76, 167
Begin, Menachem 261
begum 65, 244 (sahiba)
beheshti 95
Benares (Varanasi) [74
Benarsi sari 74
Bengal 243
The Berlin Wall 347
Besant, Annie 24
bhaenchud
bhai 65, 83, 223 (bhaijan)
bhangra 284
bhel-puri 341
Bhopal 52
bibi 34, 81, 195
Bible 175 (Psalm 137); 206 (Sodom Gen 19); 236 (the parting of the Red Sea, Ex 14); 278 (mote and beam, Matt 7:3); 296 (In the beginning, Joh 1); 297 (precious pearl, Matt 13:45-6); 299 (gift of tongues, Acts 2:1-15); 321 (sons of God, Gen 6:4); 332 (Fall, Rev 12:9); 349 (John the Baptist, Mark 1:1-4)
big bang 4
Big Ben (London) 38
Big Eid 276
Bilal (character) 101-118; (Bilal X) 207-211
Bilal ben Rabah [101
Billimoria, Pimple (character) 12-13
Bilimoria, D. or E. or Fali [12
Binaca smile 53
Birbal 16
birth 3, 8, 10, 11, 17, 84, 87
black holes [61
Black Maria 142
Blake, William 304-5, 318, 338 (Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Blanchflower, Danny 161
blasphemy 49, 66, 69, 102
Blitz 13
Blofeld (character by Ian Fleming) 266-267
the Bloom's 298
Bluto (cartoon) 67
bodhi-tree 16
Bohemia 397
Bokhara rug 7
Bombay 11-31, 35-40, 44-9, 51-75
Bond, James [7 (character by Ian Fleming)
Boniek (character) 348
Bonney, William (Billy the Kid) 263
Bostan 4, 74
Botticelli 61 ("Birth of Venus")
Bradbury, Ray (The Martian Chronicles) 40
Braniff planes
Breach Candy Hospital 28-9, 52
Brecht, Bertold [3
Brick Lane [283
Brickhall 184, 283 (Brickhall Three)
broom 299
Brown, Eustace (character) 27-8
Brunel, Jack (character) 315-6
Bruno, Joe (character) 158
Bruno, Joe [158
Brutus 316
BTCA (Bombay Tiffin Carriers Association) 20
Buddha 20 (buddha-fat), [196 (mantra)
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward [361
Bumper Book of Fairy Tales 197
Burleigh, H.T. [87 ("Joshua")
Burns, Robert [196 ("Tam O'Shanter")
burqa 350
Burton, Richard 36
Busybee 13
butterfly girl 24
Byron, Lord [134 ("The Destruction of Sennacherib")
C+
Cactus Flower [18
Caesar, Julius 245
cannibalism 52 (long pork), 184 (Mailer)
Carmen 397
Carné, Marcel (Les enfants du paradis) [34
Carradine, David 278
Carrol, Lewis [54 (Alice in Wonderland); [58 (Through the Looking-Glass)
Celebrity 16
chaat 248
chai 184 (chaloo), 353 (tcha)
chamcha 54, 83
Chamcha, Saladin (Salahuddin Chamchawala) 3-10, 17, 33-87, 511-547
Chamchawala, Changez (character) 36, 40-9, 63-73, 511-535, 546
Chamchawala, Nasreen (character) 39-40, 42, 44-7
Chamchawala, Nasreen (II) (character) 47-8, 64-, 511
Chanakya 42
Chandela 12 (period), 70 (bronze)
Channel (see English Channel)
Chanukah 298
Charles I 220
Charles II 340
Charulata 342
Château Talbot 182
Chatnapatna 221
Chaudhuri, Nirad 398
Cheshire-Cat 166
Chevalier, Maurice 266
chhatri 26
chhi chhi 13
chimera 299, 301, 370
chin chin 183
Chingiz Khan (Genghiz) [36
Chola Natraj 14
Chomolungma (Mt. Everest) [3, 82
chootia 80
Christ (see Jesus)
Chu Chin Chow [327
Circassian eunuchs 376
Circe 24
circumscision 60
Claudette (character) 147
Cleopatra's Needle (London) 334
Club Hot Wax 291
cobra 78
Coca Cola 52 (Coke), (Coca-Colonization)
cocaine 76
Cochin 76
Cohen, Otto (Cone) 297
coir 355
Colaba 14
Collingwood Expedition 195
Columbus, Cristopher 54
communism, CPI(M) 537,
Cone, Alleluia (character, Alicja, Allie) 8, 30-2, [92, 295; 31, 85, 309 (icewoman, ice queen, frosty berg); 313 (fairy)
Cone, Elena (character, Yelyena)
Cone, Otto (character, Cohen) 295, 297-8
Cone Mountain 92-126
Cowper, William [95
crashpad 306
CRC (Community Relations Council) 286
crore 344
crorepati 64
Cruz, Martin de la (character) 138
Cuba 312
Curran, John Philpot [158
The Curtain (Hijab) 376-389
D+
dabba 18 (stealers), 331
dabbawalla 11 (lunch-runner), 18, 331
dada 56
Daedalus [5
dai 22
The Daily 13
Dajjal 371
Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) 84
dalda (ghee) 54
dark stars 12 (darkened), 61, 349
Darwin, Charles 75, 251 (great Charles, Origin of Species)
death 15, 16,
Defoe, Daniel (epigraph) The History of the Devil, [173 (A Journal of the Plague Years)
Deep Throat 265
Depo-Provera 252
Desh 206-215
Deutero-Isaiah 323
Devi, Phoolan 13, 58, 263
dhaba 56
Dhaka 243
dharma bums 174
Dharraamm 3
Dharwendra 350
Dhaulagiri 82
dhoti 38, 224
Diamond, Henry (Enrique) (character) 138, 143
Diamond, Rosa (character) 129-
Din, Sarpanch Muhammad (character) 225
Disney 195 (Disneyish)
djellabah 81
djinn 22, 48, 117, 122, 275
Doordarshan 14
The Doors [3
dosa 246, 258 (masala)
dreams 22, 32, 392
Dresden 65
Dumsday, Eugene 75-7, 79-81, ?
Durga Khote 73
Dynasty 265
E+
Eclogues (Virgil) 248
Egypt 103
ekdumjaldi 12
electric shock treatment (EST) [338 (plug him in)
elephant joke 300
The Elephant Man [275
Eliot, T.S. [287 ("The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")
Elizabeth I, Queen 280 (Gloriana), [332 (fairy-queen)
England 4-5, 8-10, 31, 37-48
English Channel 3, 9, Sleeve (La Manche) 5
Eros 174
Essequibo (river) 193
Evans, Cadwallader (character) 152
Everest Vilas 13
F+
Faiz, Faiz Ahmed 334
Falkland Road 52
Falklands War 175
falling, 3 (Gibreel & Saladin), 4 (stars), 5 (angelicdevilish), 8 (birth), 14-5 (Rekha and children, suicide), 133 (matter of tumbles), 181 (Pamela's parents, suicide), 298 (Otto Cone, suicide) 332 (Tumble of Woman and Man, Qur'an/Bible)
Family Planning Doll 224, 475
Fanon, Franz 353 [The Wretched of the Earth]
farangis 93
Farishta, Gibreel (character) 3-33, 17 (Ismail Najmuddin), 63, 75-87, 91-126 (first dream section), 130-156, 189-202, 205-240 (second dream section), 294, 295-356, 359-394 (third dream section), 473-507 (fourth dream section),
farishta 17
Fate 99
fauntleroy 45
Fawkes, Guy [291, [293
fedora 177
felo de se 324
Femina, Jerry della 266
Filmmela 350
Fitzgerald, Edward 397
flame of the forest 45
Fleming, Ian (see Bond, James)
Flight AI-420 4
Flintstones 42
forbidden foods 29, 31
Frazer, James [398
Frederick (character in the film by Carné) 34
funtoosh 81, 344
G+
Gagari 536
Gama, Vasco da 76
Gandhi, Bhupen (character) 53-8
Gandhi, Indira [28
Gandhi, Rajiv 56
Gandhi, Sanjay [28
Ganesh (Ganpati Baba) 24
Ganpati Baba (Ganesh) 24
Garbo, Greta 26
gargoyle 64
Garrick Club 163
gazal (ghazal) 3, 9, 334
Gautama, Siddharta (Buddha) 16
Gehenna 254
Genghiz Khan (Chingiz) [36
Geographer's London 156
ghee (dalda) 54, [166
ghost 22, 58, 61, 66
Gibreel, Archangel 123, 239, 315 (Angel of the Recitation)
Ginsberg, Allen [312 (Howl)
Gitanjali (Tagore) 248
Glass Bertha 169
glass skin 33-4; 30, 131 (skin of ice); 169 (Glass Bertha)
Glenn (character, dog) 176
Gloriana (Elizabeth I, Queen) 280, 306 (virgin queen)
Goa 398
god 21, 30; 41, 48 (father); 75 (guard); 92 (allgood allahgod); 99 (Allah); 111 (Allah Ishvar God); 182, 289 (I am); 216; 393-394
Godard, Jean-Luc [4
The Golden Bough (Frazer) 398
gopi 16
Gothenburg 26
Grahame, Kenneth [54 (The Wind in the Willows)
Gramsci, Antonio [15, 84-5
Granger 147
Granny Ripper 287
Grant, Ulysses S. [283
Grant Road 37
Gremlins 182
Griffith, D. W. [11
gryphon 117
"Guantanamera" 312
Gujranwala 159
gulab jaman (jamum) 248
Gulistan [4, [245
Gurdjijeff, Georgy S. 299
Guyana [193
Gwalior 342
H+
Hafsah [382
Hafsah (character) 382
Hagar 91, 95, 99
haj 236, 243
Halévy, Ludovic 397
Hamlet (Shakespeare)
Hamza (character) 104-125
Hamza, Amir [69, [104
Hamza-nama cloths 69-70, 292
Handel, Georg Friedrich 194 (Messiah)
Hanuman 24
haramzada 27
Haram Sharif (Kaaba) 235
haramzadi 250
Hare Krishna 174
harpy 92
Harrods 137
hashashin (assassin) 362
hashish 76, 96
Harold Arroweye 130
Hastings 130
Hauer, Rutger 268 (Blade Runner)
Hawn, Goldie 18 [Cactus Flower
Headroom, Max [63
Heinz 286
Henley, William Ernest [256 ("Invictus")
Henty, G.A. 229
Herbert, Zbigniew 297
Hesse, Herman 252 (Der Steppenwolf)
Heston, Charlton 132
Higham, Henry 182
hijab [376
Hijaz 93
hijra (eunuch) 54 (Amazonic), 80,
hijra (hegira) 125
the Himalayas 4
Hind (character) 96-125, 392-393
Hind 70, [96
Hindustan 54
Hindustani 58
hippogriff 120
Hira Mountain [92
Hit 99
Hitler, Adolf [316 (Hawful Hadolf)
Ho Chi Minh 177
Hocus Pocus 354
Hoffman, Dustin 341
Holbrook, Hal (character) 265
homosexuality 22, 23, 25, [122
Hong Kong 24
Hopkins, Matthew 1182
Horace [326 (Odes)
Hosanna 190
houri 117
The House of the Black Stone 94, 97, 98, 99, 100-124, 235 (Haram Sharif), 359
Hubal (Abel) 99, 373 (colossus)
hubshee 255
Hughes, Thomas [267 (Tom Brown's School Days)
Hurlingham 147
Huxley, Aldous [40 (Brave New World)
hybrid 6, 7
I+
Iago (character of William Shakespeare) 315
Iblis 327
Ibrahim 17, 95, 99, [276 (Big Eid)
Ibrahim (character) 377 (the butcher)
Icarus [5
ice queen (-> Alleluia Cone)
The Illustrated Weekly 16
The Imam (character) 205-215
immigration 4
insomnia 24, 32, 82-3
Isa (Jesus) 118 (Qur'an)
Isis 244
islam (Submission) 125, 289
Ismail 17 (Gibreel), 95, [276 (Big Eid)
Ismailis 209
Ithuriel 324
J+
jacaranda 45
jackfruit 17, 45
Jackson, Jessie [192
Jackson, Mahalia 298
Jacob [122-4
Jahannum 254
Jahilia 93-126, 215
Jahweh 323
Jaipur 342
Jaisalmer 26, 70
Jalandri 82
jalebi 184, 248
James, Henry 397
Jamme Masjid 285
Janab 323
Japan 135 (Japonaiserie)
Jarry, Alfred 297 (Ubu Roi)
Jayapradha 350
Jean of Arc 186
Jefferson, Thomas [162
Jerry 138
Jerusalem 110, 212
Jesus [23, 84 (Christ), [118
Jews 31 (yahudan), 60-1, 96, 297-8
ji 12
"Jingle Bells" 131
jodhpur 141
St. John the Divine 245
Johnson, Hanif 185
Jones, Grace 292
Joshi, Jamshed `Jumpy' 172-188, 243
Joyce, James [5, [188, [283 (Ulysses); 260 (Finnegans Wake);
juggernaut 254
Julia, Juan (character) 149
Jupiter (god) 23, 84
Jurhum 91
Juwairiyah [382
Juwairiyah (character) 382
K+
K2 82
ka 322
Kaaba [94, [97, 235 (Haram Sharif)
kabaddi 58
kachori
kahin 234
Kain 99
Kali 26
Kan ma kan... 143
Kanchenjunga 82
Kannada 70
Kanya Kumari (Kanyakumari, Cape Comorin) 27
Kapoor, Raj [5
Karim, Abdul (The Munshi) 292
Karnataka 37
Kashmir [45, 65, 342
Kasturba 37, 45, 66
Katha-Sarit-Sagar (The Ocean of the Streams of Story) 342
kathputli 311
Keats, John [62 ("Ode to a Nightingale")
Kelly, Grace 26
Kelly, Ned 263
Kennedy Onassis, Jacqueline 179
Kenya [140
Kenyatta, Jomo [140
Kerala 26, 70, 76
Kermit the Frog 62, 140
Kerouac, Jack [174 (Dharma Bums)
Khadija (character) 225 (Din),
Khadija 22, [225
khali-pili kalaas 46
Khalid (character) 95-125 (M), 210 (I), 381 (I, General)
Khalid ibn al-Walid [95
Khan, Aga 26, 209
Khanna, Vinod 262, 350
khattam-shud 122
Khayyam, Omar [172 (Rubayat), 397
khir 341
Khote, Durga 73
Kim (Kipling) [158
Kimi 350
Kipling, Rudyard [158-159 (Kim), [176 (The Jungle Book),
kipper 44, 46
Kiss of the Spiderwoman [24
klims and kleens 14
Kraft cheese 41
kreplach 297
Kung Fu 278
Kureishi, Hanif [185, [228
Kuri, Yoji 317
Kurla 14
kurta 174
Kurus 283 (Mahabharata)
L+
Laburnum 299
lafanga 27
lala 15
Lalique chrystal 14 [René Lalique]
Lamarck, Jean Baptiste-Pierre Antoine de 5, 251
Lambrakis, Gregory 271
lassi 341
Lat (Al-Lat, Lato, Ilat) 8, 91, 100-126, 392, 394
lathi-charges 28, 75
Le Fay, Morgan 144
Lee, Bruce 244
Lee, Robert E. [283
Lee, Ulysses E. (character) 283
Legree, Simon (character by Stowe) 292, 294
Levantine 326
Lime, Frank (character)
"Little Black Sambo" 294
"Little Red Riding Hood" [136
locus classicus 314
London 3, 4, 18, 31, 33, 35, 37 (eelowen deeowen), 38-43, 156
Long, Edward 292
lote-tree (Qur'an 53:14) 91, 235
Love Story (Segal) 64
Lovelace, Pamela 49-51, 53, 59, 85
LSD [306 (sugar-lump)
Lucifer 76, 131
Lucretius 276
"La lutte continue" 264
Luzhin (character of Vladimir Nabokov) 311
M+
MacCool, Finn 179
Machzikel HaDath synagogue 285
MacMurray 307
MacSween 152
Madaura (Morocco) 243
Madonna 245
The Magnificient Seven 64
Mahabharata 283
Mahagonny 4
maharaj 12
Mahavilayet 283
Mahmood, singer (character) 207
Mahound (character) 92-125, 379 (Nib), 393-4 (sickness and death)
Mailer, Norman [184 (Cannibals and Christians)
Maimunah [382
Maimunah (character) 382
Makalu 82
Malabar Hill 13
mala'ikah/malak 336
Malory, Sir Thomas [144 (Morte d'Athur)
Mamoulian, Mimi 60-3
Manaf 99
Manaslu 82
Manat 91, 99-126
Manet, Edouard 61 ("Olympia")
Marine Drive 13
Maudsley Hospital 339
manticore 102, 115-8, 167, 361 (manticorps)
mantra 196 (om mani padmè hum)
Mao Tse Tung (Chedong) 296
Marinetti, Filippo Tommasso 311
Mohican 326
Martello tower 147
Marwah 95
Mary the Copt [382
Mary the Copt (character) 382
Maryam (Mary) 118
masala dosa 258
masala movie 319
Maslama, John (character) 190
Matilda 62
Matthau, Walter 18 [Cactus Flower]
Mau Mau [140
McCoy 250
Mecca 24, 48, 70, 235 (Mecca Sharif), 239
Meerut 537, soldiers 230
Mehta, Jatinder Singh 284
Meilhac, Henri 397
"Mera joota hai japani" (O, my shoes are Japanese) 5
Merchant, Ismail [7
Merchant, Rekha (character) 7-9, 14, 25-32, 319, 350
Merlin 144
The Message (film) 272 (Al-Risala, Mohammed, the Messenger of God)
Mesopotamia 103
metamorphosis 5, 7, 23, 30
Mhatre, Babasaheb (character) 19-23, 25
Michelin 60, 271
Midian 103
Milosz, Czeslaw 297
Milton, John 324 (Paradise Lost)
Miranda [53 (The Tempest) (Shakespeare)
Miranda, George (character) 53-57
Miss Piggy 62
Mistry, Dr. (character) 197
Mistry, Rohinton [197
Mithun 350
mongoose 78
Monophysite 96
Monroe, Marilyn 61
Moscow Road 299
Moseley, Uriah 328
Moses 110
Mosley 292
mosque 120
Mount Everest (Chomonglungma) 3, [82, 85
movies 11-7, 108 (techniques),
Mughal 26, 52, 70
"Mughal-e-Azam" 334
Muhammad (The Prophet) 22, 24, 63, 70, [92, [93 (Mahomet, MoeHammered), 184 (Sufyan); [321
mullah 276
Mumba Devi [17
Mumbai (Bombay) 17
mummyji 17
The Munsters 62
muqaddam 19
Musa (character) 378 (the grocer)
Musaylima the Liar [190
"Music of the Spheres" 190
Muspellheim 254
mutation 5
Muttalib 92
N+
na 59
Nabatean 96, 99
Nabokov, Vladimir [269 (nymphet, Lolita); 211 (The Defense)
al-Nafzawi, Sheikh [245 The Perfumed Garden (Gulistan)
Najmuddin, Ismail (->Farishta, Gibreel)
Najmuddin, Naima (character) 17-9, 22
Najmuddin, Senior (character) 19
Nakruh 99
namaqool 7
Namche Bazar 303
Nandi bulls 71
Nanga Parbat 82
Narcissus [24
narrator (the authorial voice, 'I') 10, 25, 93, 133, 251, 256, [318-319, 397, 408-409, 424-425
National Front 283
natyam 74
nawab (nabob) 59
Neechayvala 318-319
Nelson's Column (London) 38
Never-Never 55
Nib (The Prophet) 379
Nicholson, Jack [353
Nietzsche, Friedrich 216
Nigel (character) 346
Nightingale, Florence [292
Nightmare on Elm Street [252
nikah ceremony 58
Notting Hill 59, 278
Novak, Kim (character) 158-164
Novak, Kim [158
Nubia 96 (slaves)
O+
obeah 280, 293, 330
"The Ocean of the Streams of Story" (Katha-Sarit-Sagar) 342
Ogilvy, David
Olympians 15
The Omen [252
Ooparvala 318-319
Op Art 39
opobalsam trees 93
Osman 221-240
Ovid [6, 276 (Metamorphoses)
Oz [22, 55, [75
P+
paan 229
pachy (pachyderm) 299
Packy 157, 163
padyatra 73, 488
Pagal Khana 341, 346
Pahlevi, Reza 14
Pakistan 45 (war), 56, 243
Pali Hill 64
Palmyra 103
panchayat 222, 235
Pandavas 283 (Mahabharata)
Pandemonium 352
Pandora 217 (imps)
pani nani 209
panjandrum 45
Paradise 393
Parsi 38 (style),
Partido Socialista 173
patchouli 174
Pathfinder pilot 181
Pavarotti, Luciano 341
Pemba, Sherpa 198
The Perfumed Garden (Gulistan)245
Peristan 55, 217
Perón, Juan 147
Perownistan 230
Persepolis 14
Persia 103
Persian Gulf 33
Petra 103
Phillips, Hyacinth (character) 164
Phillips, Orphia 328
Phillips, Wendell [158
phoenix 84
phutt 21
physic 21
Picabia 295
pice 185
Pinkwalla (character Sewsunker Ram) 291, 293
pir 185, 234
pista barfi 184
pooja 68
Popey (cartoon) 66
Powell, Enoch 186, 292
The Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi) 28
The Prince of Darkness 290
The Prophet (-> Muhammad)
Prospero Players [The Tempest (Shakespeare)] 49, 74, 79
protean 201
Puig, Manuel [24
pukka 326
Punch 316
Pune (Poona) 17
punkah 231
punkah-walla 231
purana 24
The Pure Hell of St Trinians 42
Pygmalien [62 (Pygmalion)
Pynchon, Thomas [3
Q+
qalmah (qualmah) 105, 106, 239, 335, 373-4, 392
qasidah 97
Qatar 34
Quant hairstyle 52 [Mary Quant]
Qur'an [91 (lote-tree, 53:14); 110, 212, [336 (Night Journey 17:1); 118 (Isa 2:87); [91, 124 ("The Star" 53:); 125 (al-qur'an), Quran-Sharif 245; 323 (O Children of Adam, 7:27); 332 (Fall, 38:78); 336 (Quran clearly states, 18:50, 2:34, 17:61); 336 (Wilt thou place, 2:30); 354 (Tree of Immortality, 7:20)
Qureishi, Mrs. (character) 228-239
R+
Rabanne, Paco 305
Rabanus Maurus [95 (De rerum naturis)
radio 210
`rail roko' demonstration 75
raita 341
rajah 40
rajaz verses 97
Rajneesh, Bhagwan Sri (Osho) 17
Rama, D. W. (character) 11, 12 (studios), 23
Ramachandran, M.G. (MGR) 73
Ramayana 24
Ramlah [382
Ramlah (character) 382
Rao, N.T. Rama 28, 73
Red Fort (Lal Qual'ah) [64
Redgrave, Vanessa 341
Reeve, Christopher 341
Rehana the Jew [382
Rehana the Jew (character) 382
Renata (character) 207
revelation 5
Richalmus, Monk 321
Ridley (character) 62-3
Rig-Veda 245
rishi 185
Ripper, Granny (character) 183,
Ripper, Jack the [183
Roberts, Sylvester (character, Uhuru Simba) 285
roc 117
The Rolling Stones [286 ("Sympathy for the Devil")
Rotary Club 76
"Rule, Britannia!" 6
Rushdie, Salman [101
S+
Sadi [4
Safa 95
Safia [382
Safia (character) 382
Safwan [387
Safwan (character) 387
sahib 35, 66, 244
Saladin, Sultan 175
salah 27, 57
Salman Farsi (character) 101-118 (M), 210 (I), 360-
Salman al-Farisi [101
Salomon 103
salwar 275
Samant, Datta 55
samosa 184
Santacruz airport 39
sari 7, 15, 40, 66; sari-pallu 22
Sartre, Jean-Paul 72
satanic verses 6 (verses of his own), 8 (verses in a language he did not understand), 91 (his soft seductive verses), 97 (the poetry competition), 123 (herons or swans) (satanic ... foul verses), 124 (abrogation of the verses), 340 (These are exalted), 373 (Exalted birds)
Saturnine 13
satyr 244
Sawdah [382
Sawdah (character) 382
sayonara 313
Scandal Point 13, 35, 55, 64-65, 546
Schwarzenegger, Arnold 268
science-fiction [40
Scott, Ridley [62
Seacole, Mary 292
Searle, Ronald [42
Segal, Erich [64 (Love Story)
Sellers, Peter 51
Semjaza 321
Sesame Street 62
seven-tiles 58
Severus, Septimus 38, 292
Sewsunker, Ram 291, 293
Shaandaar 184-7
Shah 353
Shaitan (Satan) 48, 91-124, 210, 315
Shakespeare, William 109; [49 (The Tempest); [133 (King Lear); [172, 248, 315, 398 (Othello); 228, 262 (Hamlet); 316 (Julius Caesar); [370 (Romeo and Juliet)
Shangri-La 295
shareef 156 (London), 235 (Mecca) (Haram), 250
Shark (Quraysh) 95, 103
Shatchacha 353
Shaw, George Bernard 49, 62, 71 (The Millionairess); (Pygmalion)
Shaw, Run Run 342
Sheba (Saba) 103, 103 (Queen)
Shelley, Mary [348 (Frankenstein)
Sher Khan 176
Shiv Sena 55, 537
shiksa 268
The Shining [252, [353
Shree 420 (Mr. 420) 5
Shufflebotham, Dora (character) 134
sickness 7, 11, 15, 25-9
Sikh 79
Simba, Uhuru (character, Sylvester Roberts) 267, 285
Simbel, Karim Abu, the Grandee (character) 96-125, 392-393
simurgh (simurg) 120
Singer, Isaac Bashevis 301 (Satan in Goray)
Singer, Israel Joseph 301 (The Family Carnovsky)
Singh (characters) 78-87 (Dara, Buta, Man); 54 (Khalida/Kerleeda)
Singh, Buta [78
Singh, Dara [78
Singh, Man [78
Sirdarji 86 (cut-sird)
sivayyan 341
Skinner, B. F. 397
skol 183
Skorpios, island of 179
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" 195
Society 16
Sodom 206
Soho (London) 322
Sol, Aurora del (character) 147
Solomon 380 (horses)
Southall [283
Spurs (Tottenham Hotspurs FC) 161
Sridevi 262, 341, 350
Srinivas Sri S. 224
A Star Is Born [344
Star Wars 62
Stein, Jock (character) 158-
Stein, Jock [158
Stevenson, Robert Louis [340 (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
St.Lucia 346
Stowe, Harriet Beecher [267, [292, [294 (Uncle Tom's Cabin)
St. Paul's Carthedral (London) 39, [327
Struwelpeter 274 (Aileen)
Submission (Islam)
Sufyan, Abu [184
Sufyan, Anahita (character) 186
Sufyan, Mishal (character) 186
Sufyan, Muhammad (character) 184, 243-
Suleiman the Wise 361
supernova 16
sushi 274
swadeshi 229
Swatilekha 536-537
Sweden 26
T+
tabla 253
Tagore, Rabindranath 228 (Ghare-Baire); 245; Gitanjali 248
Taif 378, 392
takht 374
The Tales of a Thousand Nights and a Night (-> Arabian Nights)
tamasha 334
Tantric 12
Tavleen 74, 78-87
The Tempest (Shakespeare) [49, Miranda [53
Tennyson, Alfred Lord 136 [Enoch Arden]
Thamoud 320
tharaap 15
Thatcher, Margaret [266, [293
theosophy [24
Thomson, James 6
"Three Little Words" 334
Thums Up Cola 56, 66
tiffin [11 ('tiffin-carriers', lunch-runners of Bombay); 18, 29
time 34, 41, 211 (calendars), 214-215
Tini bénché achén! 271
tinka 39
Tinkerbell (Peter Pan) 49
Titian "Venus of Urbino" [61
Titlipur 217
Toady 54
Toff 316
tola 246
Torture, Mrs. (character) 266, 293 (Maggie)
Trafalgar Square (London) 37
Trojan horse 56
Trotskyist 49
true name 192
Truffaur Francois 302 (L'Argent du Poche)
tsimmi 298
Turin Shroud 346
Turner, Lana 298
Turpin, Dick 263
Tyburn tree 41
U+
Uganda [54, 140 (ugando-kenyattas)
Uhud 70
Umar 389
Umm Salamah the Makhzumite [382
Umm Salamah the Makhzumite (character) 382
umra 236, 239
unified field theory 24, 81
Union Carbide [52
The United Nations 60
Urdu love-poetry 232
uttapam 246
Uzza (al-Uzza) 91, 99-126
V+
Vadodara (Badora) 17
Vakil, Zeenat (Zeeny) 51-74, 83, 532-547
Valance, Hal (character) 264
Vallabh (Vallabhai) 45, 65-
Van Heusen shirts 42
Vanessa (Redgrave) 341
Varma, Ravi 70
Vassilikos, Vassilis [271 (Z)
VCR (video) 83, 243
Vespucci, Americo 150
Victoria, Queen [297 (Widow of Windsor)
Vikings [144
Vilayet 4, 31, 35, 37, 283 (Mahavilayet)
Vinci, Leonardo da [167 ("Mona Lisa")
Virgil 248 (Eclogues)
virgo intacta 306
Vishnu 17, 84
voice 9, 112, 123, 173 (Voice), 181, 211 [Voice of America]
W+
wahi 321
walnut-tree 45, 48, 65, 69, 72
Warden Road 28
water 26, 94, 209-215
Watkins, Rochelle 330
Weaver, Sigourney 62-3
Wembley Stadium 398
Weill, Kurt [3
Wells, Mary 266
Wells, Orson 266
Wesley, John [10
West, Mae 60
Whittington Turn-again 186
wilderness 23, (Wildernesse) 327
William the Conqueror (Willie-the-Conq) 44, 129-130
Willingdon Club 12
Wilson, Harold 177
Wilson, Maurice (character) 196
Wing Chun 244
Witchfinder General 182, 280
wog 54
Wolf 316
Wonderland 6, 55, 122
Woodward, Bob 265
World's End (Land's End) 306
Wren, Christopher 327
X+
Xixabangma Feng (Gosainthan) 82
Y+
Ya Allah 30
yaar 3, 18, 51, 85
yahudan 31
yakhni 253
Yates, Dornford 229
Yates [277 ("The Second Coming")
Yathrib (Medina) 103, 125, 215
Yelamma cult 37
yeti 196
Yuké 248
Z+
Zafar 103
Zainab bint Khuzaimah [382
Zainab bint Khuzaimah (character) 382
Zainab bint Jahsh [382
Zainab bint Jahsh (character) 382
zamindar 216
Zamzam 78, 91, 94, 95, 104, 106
zenana 218
Zephon 324
numbers
420: 4, 5, 31, 73
1001: 21, 26, 60 (the Man of a Thousand Voices and a Voice), 215
_________________________
Source: http://www.geocities.com/satverses/SV-index.html
