My idea was that the war in Indochina hadn’t ended at the time of the ignominious U.S. withdrawal. They’d left a wooden horse standing at the gates, and when the Indochinese accepted the gift, the real warriors of America-the big corporations, the sports culture of basketball and baseball, and of course rock’n roll-came swinging outContinue reading “RKS Literature: The United States the Real Victor in Vietnam (Salman Rushdie)”
Tag Archives: Salman Rushdie
RKS Literature: WHY CAN ANYONE BE UNHAPPY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM? (Salman Rushdie)
They say, sir, that in the U, K. if a man does not have a job, the government gives him money. If he does not have a job, the government gives him money. If he does not have a house, the government gives him a pukka residence, not a jopadpatti shack on the pavement butContinue reading “RKS Literature: WHY CAN ANYONE BE UNHAPPY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM? (Salman Rushdie)”
RKS Literature: I WANT TO BE IN AMERICA (Salman Rushdie)
I want to be in America, America where everyone’s like me, because everyone comes from somewhere else. All those histories, persecutions, massacres, piracies, slaveries; all those secret ceremonies, hanged witches, weeping wooden virgins and horned unyielding gods; all that yearning, hope, greed, excess, the whole lot adding up to a fabulous noisy historyless self-inventing citizenryContinue reading “RKS Literature: I WANT TO BE IN AMERICA (Salman Rushdie)”
RKS Literature: England an Ersatz America (Salman Rushdie)
Nowadays England is ersatz America, America’s delayed echo, America driving on the left. Sure, Jesse Garon Parker was white American trash who wanted to sing like a black boy, but the Beatles, for goodness sake, the Beatles are white English trash trying to sing like American girls. Crystals Ronettes Shirelles Chantels Chiffons Vandellas Marvelettes, whyContinue reading “RKS Literature: England an Ersatz America (Salman Rushdie)”
RKS Literature: 1965 Air India Flight from Bombay to London: Like the Mayflower (Salman Rushdie)
Welcome aboard the Mayflower, he greets them, seizing their hands as they pass by his seat, the terrified uncomprehending peasants from remote inland villages on their way to desert kingdoms, the perspiration sprinkled young executives in cheap suits, the frowning chaperones of a veiled young bride fainting in a pink gharana with too much goldContinue reading “RKS Literature: 1965 Air India Flight from Bombay to London: Like the Mayflower (Salman Rushdie)”
RKS Literature: Washing of Brains by the World’s Head Laundry (Salman Rushdie)
Most of you won’t do it. The world’s head laundry is pretty good at washing brains. Don’t jump off that cliff don’t walk through that door don’t step into that waterfall don’t take that chance don’t step across that line don’t ruffle my sensibilities. I’m warning you now don’t make me mad you’re doing itContinue reading “RKS Literature: Washing of Brains by the World’s Head Laundry (Salman Rushdie)”
RKS Literature: Types of Rock n Roll Bands (Salman Rushdie)
There are bands that are hit machines, bands that earn the respect of the music crowds, bands that fill stadiums, bands that drip sex; transcendent bands and ephemeral boy bands and girl bands, gimmick bands and inept bands, beach and driving bands, summer and winter bands, bands to make love by and bands that makeContinue reading “RKS Literature: Types of Rock n Roll Bands (Salman Rushdie)”
RKS Literature: India Only Discovers Sex in the Mid Twentieth Century! (Salman Rushdie)
And this in the far off 1950’s! In “underdeveloped” India, where boy-girl relations were so strictly controlled! True, true: but permit me to say “underdeveloped nation” or not, one of our prime cultural artifacts was a highly developed apparatus of hypocritical disapproval, not only of any incipient change in social mores, but also of ourContinue reading “RKS Literature: India Only Discovers Sex in the Mid Twentieth Century! (Salman Rushdie)”
RKS Literature: Celebrating Non-Belongers (Salman Rushdie)
But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-believers, the different ones,Continue reading “RKS Literature: Celebrating Non-Belongers (Salman Rushdie)”
RKS Literature: Outsideness (Salman Rushdie)
For a long while I have believed-this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness-that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation toContinue reading “RKS Literature: Outsideness (Salman Rushdie)”
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