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1st part of the review - /review/show...

So don’t let Rushdie fool you into thinking that “it is Moor/Zogoiby’s story and heck!, they’re somewhat flat, or Rushdie makes an allegory and fails on both counts �� both the upperstory and understory are not
well-developed �� happens when you want to ride two horses at once.�� But, oh, dear, it is one horse, not two.

*sigh* this review just doesn’t end. But Rushdie is a crazy fellow, maker of an atom bomb �� large scale destruction squeezed into a bomb the size of a fist. But I should end now, though I have a lot more to babble-o-fy about, I know��

What all did I like in this Rushdie, let me sum up fast �� the blasphemy, the profanity, the creativity, the chutneyfication of language, the masterly interweaving of fact and fiction, the literary references generously peppered all over the hot, spicy dish, the scathing political references that only a bold, fearless, audacious and blasphemous person can dare to make. (Dear Indian, do you have the guts to call Hindustan Dumpistan?)

I’m quite surprised, (not really, when the readers do not have EXTENSIVE knowledge of India) that the book is rated badly or averagely. Let me tell you, even if it sounds pompous. I’ve read this book the 10th time today in 5 years. I read it for the first time just after I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the first time. (How vastly different the tone, the manners, of the two books!) Then in two years, I read it 8 more times, until I got used to it. I’ve picked it up again after a gap of three years and am actually amazed by the fact that I’ve got a lot more out of this reading than any of those before. Simply because I am far better-armed with Indian History now than I was three years back. My recent obsession with Indian history, mythology and politics paid off today in very unexpected ways.


And yet, I still know I have failed to understand some points he made, and will need to read more history still. And much more of global popular and literary culture as well. I mean, I was introduced to
the legendary Johnny Cash and his civil war songs only two years back �� how could I have discerned the reference 4-5 years ago when Rushdie brings in a new character, a businessman-cum-charming musician/guitarist singing country songs about trains, named Jimmy Cash (Cashondeliveri)?


So I still don’t know who Kekoo Mody is in real life, or Justice Kachrawala is (the Bofors scandal judge, I think) This little book, didn’t I say, is a dynamite filled to the brim with everything Rushdie could squeeze in��?


If A Fine Balance, a book I love immensely, is one of the finest pictures of the contradictions of modern India, A Moor’s Last Sigh too shares the pedestal. While AFB is stoic, serious and
mournful, MLS is loud-mouthed, comic and mocking. AFB is the incarnation of naked, unadulterated pain, but MLS is the incarnation of pain masquerading as comic, insincere blasphemy �� the only way left
to tell honestly one’s sordid saga without making someone flinch. AFB is the ultimate Indian tragedy. MLS is the ultimate Indian tragi-comedy. Take away from it what you will.


(The review has ended. Don’t roll-o-fy your biggie eyes at me, you chose to read it, Sir-or-Madam, I didn’t force-o-fy your decision. I’m not the impotent Jaw-Jaw all-bark-no-bite-bitch, I bite-o-fy real hard, and I won’t bite so fast, and like little 13-year old Aurora who bide-o-fied her time to kill her grandma Epifania, I will bide-o my time too, to bite-o you. I’m no sweet Mother India).