'Embracing Islam Was A Mistake' : Salman Rushdie On The Couch With Koel | Exclusive

[Music] on the couch we clean I really hadn't read a book till I'd read Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie changed the way I read books this wizard of modern literature has defied death threats won the Booker of Booker the United and at last count was married four times perhaps the young hot women he seldom without I enchanted by the very same magic he leaves in his books sir Salman Rushdie thank you very much for coming on the couch with you today thank you nice couch oh I'm glad you like it I'm gonna quote a little paragraph that I have always loved from Moore's last sight cuz I watched epifanio praying and gave thanks that somehow by some great fluke that seemed at the time the most ordinary thing in the world my parents had been cured of religion where is their medicine their priests poison beating antivenin bottle it for pity's sake and send it around the world do you wish that we could rid the world of religion well I mean I tend not to wish for impossible things I mean if there was a wage of waving a wand then I think may be better off without it yes I think it's been responsible for so much of so many of the worst things that have happened in human history I mean I'm not even talking about now but you know and and you go back to inquisitions and persecutions of various kinds I think we could easily do without it and yet you embrace Lee embraced Islam you know first of all I've repeatedly said that this was a mistake under enormous pressure everybody from the British government downwards so but I mean it wasn't right you know I'm not a religious person and I very rapidly unsaid it and this was 20 years ago so give me a break do you believe in a higher power no no I mean I think I'm quite content with the powers that are down here they're troublesome enough so where does all this sense of magic come from then because you certainly have it in your book I love I love story you know and I think all of us as children you know one of the first things we want when we come into the world is story and and the stories we want are wonderful tales you know we all want those extraordinary stories we don't just want stories about going to work and do your job we want stories about witches and queens and curses and so on and so on and and I guess I think that's something we grow out of you know with but many of us but I think maybe it's a mistake to grow out of it all the Midnight's Children in your a midnight show knows almost all Emmy nights we don't have special super powers if you could do you have any by the way I'm not able to reveal my secret identity at this point [Music] but if you could if you could have a superpower what would it be oh gosh I don't know I'm quite happy with I think just being a better writer might be good so that would be oh so then what would you win the Booker of the Booker's of the Booker's oh okay well no I think something else perhaps another character in one of your books Amore's discovers he's a born storyteller telling stories gives him an erection are you aroused by your own storytelling skills I think sometimes I laugh it's true I mean there's occasions when you think that it's really funny and that's always I mean not often enough frankly but but sometimes yeah I once made myself cry which was kind of ridiculous in when I was writing Shalimar the Klan there's a there's a passage in there where one of the girls father dies in a you know fruit orchard you know and I mean actually dies peacefully not violently so but I had become very fond of him you know and I was writing this passage it I found myself crying and I thought this is idiotic I just making this up but it did that's the only time I've but something has sometimes laughter and tears but mostly you're just sweating it out and a lot of sex in in in your books only recently you've got alper having sex with an operation you've got Saleem Sanai obsessed with this because he can erase almost having a curse with his 12-inch weapon yeah well I think is it because you're having too much or too little I don't know I think that's for you to judge I know nothing about you it's most of it in most of my books in the sex was either kind of offstage or it was comic you know that's is one or the other and I think it's it's very difficult to write about sexual encounters non-chemically without being kind of ridiculous or unintentionally funny well one of the other things in your personal life is that you like getting married you really believe in the institution of marriage but for some strange reason reason the institution doesn't believe in you why have things not worked out I mean you really do understand love and romance at least from your writing yeah I don't know that they haven't worked out you know and I had two very long relationships with the mothers of my children and both of whom whether we're married or not you know I mean my first wife sadly passed away because she had breast cancer but we were very close friends until the day she died in fact when she died I was the person sitting next to her bed holding her hand you know so I mean a marriage might end but the friendship doesn't and and now I mean achieve my younger son's mother I mean we may not be married but she's actually the person I talk to more than anyone else and when I talk to her everyday you know and we're very close so you you would have still been married a long time ago but but you know as I say we remained very close and and same is true of my youngest son's mother Elizabeth and then there were a couple of other marriages I've never heard anyone say couple of other marriages now of course I tweeted about this interview oh did you I did and one of the predominant questions as you can imagine was that how what is it is it your brain fame money module sympathy some people said or do you have a secret weapon that you managed to get such hot chicks half your age yes I put a certain potion into people's drinks we're gonna find out the recipe of that and market it later and I have a few photographs here to tell me what's happening and what are the thoughts into what's going on in the photos just very briefly oh well that's actually that's when we just got married that's when we were on a honeymoon at the Cannes Film Festival that's where that is that's I think quite soon after the Fat Boy I think that's a photographer took a car photograph through a car window so as you can see we're not in a good mood second wife very briefly but that's one of the other marriages that you well that's just a montage isn't it I mean the picture on the left is Padma and myself at a party in England I think and picture on the right is just with my friend Olivia Wilde who's a movie actress oh well yeah she's a writer I took to a written a tree that min Misgav ski half-chinese always surrounded by beautiful women I mean this is that's an Dexter Jones yes that's election night that's election night that was a very big party that the film producer Harvey Weinstein gave in New York for us all to go and watch the election results and oh no Lawson but don't you these are my old old friends and you like dancing I wish I hadn't done that and this is used to with her no it's just a brief just a brief little thing okay now moving on to a few other photos which I'd like you to show me what what yes what was going on there and what were your thoughts at that moment no this is quite a famous well I wasn't there no obviously not let's hope no these were terrifying moments you know because as you can see it's a very ugly image and and to see that kind of image as a representation of yourself is first of all it's horrifying and secondly it makes you very angry which is what it did and this of course is the root of it all that's well that's no it's not the root of it all the root of it all is is is bigoted religion yes that's literature is not the thing that mobilizes baabs you know it's it's bigotry that does that so you'd never take back Satanic Verses you did briefly but that again was owned it for you said it I would know out you never disowned it when the book was captured print throughout let's talk about this moment getting the gong yeah what does it mean to be knighted we were talking about this earlier you know it's just what it's what they do in England as a way of recognizing a lifetime of work you know that other countries have other kinds of awards the British give you this and I mean it just it just means that somebody there's has thought that whatever it is 30 odd years of writing is worth a moment of recognition and that's all it is apart from shaking hands with the Queen and getting that lovely metal what what else do you get being a sir nothing zero you get I mean you get the title you know which you don't even want to use you told me don't call me sir call me someone so it's fine it's as I say it's a nice moment and I'm proud of the recognition but you know I don't you don't use it in daily life I mean that city that would be like dressing up in a suit of armor and walking around we don't want that we still have sir Salman Rushdie although he'd prefer to be called Salman on the couch come back after the short break on the couch [Music] on the country welcome back we're on the couch with Salman Rushdie one of my favorite writers now the wording of Khomeini's fatwa asked for your head without mincing any words what did you miss most when you went into hiding you know one of the things I've never liked is the term hiding because because one of the things anybody knows about maximum security is that it's incredibly visible it's actually the opposite of hiding it's like having a neon sign in the sky saying I'm you know so so know the thing you the thing that's hardest is the loss well first of all it's hard because it's it's worrying and so on but it's also the loss of spontaneity you know you can't do anything because you just feel like it at that time if you want to go for a walk in the park it's not that you can't go for a walk oh you can you could do it they said but you have to tell people two hours in advance you know and by the time it comes around you don't want to go for a walk anymore so it's it's I think the difficulty is first of all the loss of privacy because there's you know somebody in your kitchen you know and and the other is the loss of spontaneity that you caught you can't do things just on the spur of the moment what about fear the thing about fear is that fear is a tyrant you know if you if you give in to it that's all you could do you'd be afraid you know you sit in a corner and shake and so the alternative is to put it in a box and put it in the corner and get on with your day is that what you did yeah I think so I mean I think that's the only way you can function you know I'm not the first writer who was attacked you know it happened to many writers and many writers have responded you know nobly to very new Dostoyevsky faced a firing squad you know I didn't and no but I did back she wasn't actually standing there with people with a line of rifles facing a lot of people close to you but you did lose it was obviously a terrible time but what I'm saying is that writers have been able to overcome many problems you know historically and I just thought I took some inspiration from that I suppose the thing that was more to me was learning how to fight back you know you have to in the end you have to start learning how to argue your case taking taking on from that now I actually believe this that we are becoming a nation of cowards that people are just not going that extra mile to stand up to fanaticism and these days fanaticism comes from Hindu quarter from the Muslim Quarter from the Christian from everywhere in India what do you have to say about them I think we're not just a nation of cards I think it's an international phenomenon you know I think it's a it's not only India that's behaving like this you know I think there's a global cowardice in the face of fanaticism and bigotry and violence you know and and that carries often masks itself under what seemed like respectable points of view such as respect you know when people say that you have to respect other people what they mean is that they're scared of them nowadays it seems as if respect has been reinterpreted to mean just agree with thee or else you know and that's as I say yes it's true it happens here but but it by no means only happens here you know it's happening in England it's happening in the United States it's happening you know wherever you look did you feel abandoned by India at any point um depends what you mean by India I mean there was a period of almost a decade nine years I think when I was not able to visit here that was very difficult for me but I mean just the day you didn't stand up for you the official India yeah but I mean you know but the I'm much more interested in unofficial India you know and do you still have a strong connector does your book set yeah I do I mean I think I shall have a lot of friends here and I still have a great desire to be a part of this of this culture and this and this tradition and this this narrative if you like you know and so yeah I mean I think you know I'm an Indian boy who ended up somewhere else now we're gonna play a little game would you like company twenty years younger or ten years older depends if it's male or female if it's male probably ten years older what is the biggest delusion of grandeur that you've ever encountered oh well you you know people are incredibly vain with very little reason for being vehement and in fact I found that the greatest and most gifted people that I've ever met have been the most modest and the most self-deprecating and it's the people with little talent who believed that they are you know gods who's the most startling mind you've ever met oh you know I'm almost tempted to say Margaret Thatcher I mean not somebody that I particularly agreed with politically but she's very very smart but you had to be really on your game otherwise she would make mincemeat out of you what is the most arrogant thing you've ever done I don't do it right and do anything arrogant what do i do that's our again nothing I'm asking no I have no idea you must ask other people there's plenty of other people who tell you that what is the greatest fear oh you know oblivion I mean if the thing is if you write the kind of books that I write they're their books intended for the long-term you know if I mean like top fiction is there for the moment you know and to give a momentary pleasure but this kind of work it hopes to stick around you know and and you want the books to be there long after you are you know and I think this would be very sad to feel that they didn't last what are you dreams made of my dreams are so boring you know it's as if I use up all this imaginative material in my working life so my dreams are you know I said to the chair and read the newspaper London New York Paris or Bombay oh no a Bombay not no yeah well not Paris I mean I have deep connections to the other three cities you know and they all have different senses of home from you know and I think that the place that you were born and that you're a child is one particular kind of home you know and for me that's always gonna be Bombay and London in New York are you know equal if I don't know I don't know right now I'd like living in New York you know but that's right now ask me tomorrow we might get a different answer what is your current state of mind it's good it's good you know I mean I'm always good when I'm working I think many of us who are do this weird thing writing you know you you don't feel completely yourself when you don't have a book to write you know and I always feel that once I've got a project and I know what I'm doing it's like the whole of life falls into shape around it so you don't feel yourself till you're putting life into someone else but it's my imaginative world you know it's just nice to have an imaginative world that's alive in your head but that you're dealing with what would you instantly fall in love with instantly fall in love with intelligence actually even more than intelligence sense of human on what occasions do you like these what is the most ridiculous line you've ever written or read ever written I don't know I think they're all equally ridiculous maybe I thank you I don't know the most ridiculous line I could think of right now is from the movie Avatar okay it's where you discover that the mineral that this whole thing is about the whole fuss is about is called for God's sake unobtainium you know how do you have these good actors with a straight face having to say things like there are massive deposits of unobtainium underneath the Navi Village at that point I thought you know give me a break unobtainium you know you spend tens of millions of dollars making the movie couldn't you've spent a hundred dollars hiring a writer to think of a better name than you know what impossibility very hard to get here mr. Cameron is going to be here I think you can have a word with you absolutely well you have to ask you about unobtainium because it's the worst name for anything I've come across for a very long time would you call it anything else you know call it Fred that's better that's better than unobtainium what is the most meaningful line that you've ever written or said I heard already well you know there was a when I was first writing Midnight's Children not the finished version the first line of it was most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence and and then I thought that it sounds too much like tall story you know it sounds like the opening of Anna Karenina and I thought this is not a very tall story in novel so I have to bury it the line is still there but it's buried but in a way that was at the root of that novel and and at the root of many other things that I've done you know because it says what it means is that we are not just shaped by our own choices we're also shaped by the world in which we are born into and world in which in which other people make an impact on our lives so much that's almost prophetic of what happened in your life what is your all-time favorite book well alright well I'm very fond of One Hundred Years of Solitude I think it is a great novel and I think probably in my lifetime is the greatest novel that anyone has written but is that one book that you wish you had written that one if I said you could have the Nobel Prize but you would never have love in your life again what would you choose I choose love always who cares what prizes prizes are just things you know and and I mean one of the things I've always tried to feel is that you don't you shouldn't get obsessed by things and Gong's and you know there's a real life outside that you have to actually live you can't live for prizes it's monsters who is the one who is a new Indian writer to watch out for oh I think there's quite a few young guys right now I mean I like run on a script I like a lot after a while I like quite a lot of these younger people I think there's a it's an interesting moment and as you know as people are beginning to say there's now also some very talented young Pakistani writers so I mean danyoung we Nadine in particular I think you know is very extraordinary so it's nice to see it's always nice to see the next generation who are you marrying next my children have forbidden me to ever get married again what they would nail me to the floor I think but are you gonna defy them no no no I never always do what people tell me hardly what is the question you would like to be asked well I suppose the question you always wanted to be asked is about your next book next book is actually a sequel sort of sequel to Haroon in the sea of stories it's called Luca at the fire of life it's coming out in October and it's because basically I once again have now a 12 year old son and he's been saying for some years you know what about me where's my book so I thought that's reasonable question you know and so it's been very excited I loved writing Haroon sea of stories even though I wrote it at a very difficult time for me but and the response to that book by readers and children and grown-ups has been the most enjoyable I loved reading it and so to do another one I mean I hope that people like it as much if you're one sitting on the couch right now what would you be doing I'd be running around town seeing the friends I've got all over the city who I'd tried to pack in as many of them into the few days I have you in there in a few hours that you have here this well thank you very much for being a lovely lovely lovely lovely guest I can't let you go before you sign my book so I can do that yes that one so I'm having my book signed by the book or book of winners catch me on twitter twitter writing - on the couch in midland today dot in [Music] on the couch [Music]

Channel: India Today

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Keywords: top news in english, top english news, latest english news, latest news in english, english news, news in english, news, google news, Headlines Today, Pepper media, Indiatoday, India Today, Aaj Tak, on the couch with koel, salman rushdie, koel purie, koel, on, with, couch, the, headlines today, interview, couch interview, salman, salman rushdie interview, salman rushdie on the couch with koel

Id: DDGV2RUvzwc

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 20 2017