Rose petals may be a long way off, but the appropriate words were showered on author Salman Rushdie on the buzzing lawns of Hotel Diggi Palace here. Author Hari Kunzru tweeted before going in to address his session “Of Gods and Men” at the JLF: “About to defy bigots and shoe throwers, reading @SalmanRushdie Satanic Verses on stage with @amitavakumar at #jaipur #jlf”.
Which he did. Well, tried to. Kunzru and Kumar were stopped midway by the organisers, at which Rushdie tweeted, “@amitavakumar says organisers asked him not to continue reading from Satanic Verses. Willie, Sanjoy: why did this happen?” Willie is Dalrymple, and Sanjoy is Sanjoy Roy, both JLF directors.
But unbeknownst to the directors, an hour later, at the session titled “Exile on Main Street: Change and the City”, Indian authors Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi blew a flying kiss to Salman Rushdie by reading two of the “offending pages” of The Satanic Verses without interruption.
And they signed off saying, “Satanic Verses is available for download. Read it out publicly with friends and break the law.” More power to writers, the audience’s loud and stirring applause seemed to say.