Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Rushdie, Shadipur and the Delhi Metro

Finally finished re-reading "Midnight's Children". I find Salman Rushdie a better read now than in college but still feel he's over-rated. Magic realism is all very well but I found myself distracted and rooted in reality at various points. Like how Saleem (the protagonist) goes to Shadipur in "the outskirts of Delhi", and I kept thinking Shadipur is the sixth metro station from Rajiv Chowk, while my Dwarka Sector-21 stop is 30 stations from office. "Outskirts?" ... You get my point. Anyway, my rage is misdirected. Shadipur was probably considered really far in 1977 and what is now Dwarka was then a collection of nondescript villages and barren land. Still, tough to envisage knobbly knees and silver spittoons and dung-lotuses and snot-noses. I should really watch the movie now.

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