We’re then whooshed away to Europe, where bloodshed & strife is rife in the midst of World War II, as a young Max Ophuls establishes his reputation as a master forger in the Resistance against the Nazi forces & through his acts of daring and espionage, he is elevated to hero-like status. We see ourselves transported back in the past, to a time when Kashmir was still what the Great Mughal emperor Jehangir pronounced as ‘ Paradise on Earth‘, where Muslims & Kashmiri Pandits practised secularism & tolerance towards each other & treated each other like brothers in bond, where the bond was strong enough to see a village of Muslims stand up for the honour of a Hindu girl, where the marriage of a Hindu & a Muslim was viewed not with skepticism but celebrated as a victory of the culture this paradise nurtured for centuries, where the people were willing to stand up for their principles of love & kinship even when faced with budding extremism. What Rushdie does is that he weaves an epic narrative that transcends time, space as well as continents as we follow the lives & fortunes of the major players of this tale. Pretty simple, right? Except that Salman Rushdie is no mean writer. What first looks to be a political assasination turns out to be a extremely personal one, linked to a woman in their past. Okay, here goes the story – Maximilian Ophuls, a WWII hero, former US ambassador to India & subsequently the CIA counter-terrorism chief, is knifed to death at the doorstep of his daughter India by his mysterious Kashmiri driver who calls himself Shalimar the Clown. And that is perhaps where ‘ Shalimar the Clown‘ succeeds so well – in enlightening the reader about atleast some of the aspects of the Kashmir issue, if not all.

That is perhaps since most of us have been watching the same thing over & over again in the news since what seems like eternity & we think we know everything about it & we love to have an opinion on the same, but guess what – we know absolutely nothing. Had anyone ever given us a non-fiction book about the issues related to Kashmir as raised in this book, we’d have probably abandoned it after 100 pages or so & I’m not lying or judging anyone when I say that, since that is pretty normal. I’ve been a reader for some time now & I’ve read a few good books but none of them have made me realise the power of fiction. Awards: Vodafone Crossword Book Award for Fiction (2005)

Shalimar the clown