The book is apt to leave a bad taste in the reader mouth, but that is probably because it resonates with sharpness. Rushdie does not make compromises in this book. And that is why the book remains so forceful. The novel opens doors that let us peer into the universally fine cobweb-shrouds that we call takaluf , sharam and the writer's mind , to see what lies within. The book would have been banned, dumped in the rubbish bin, burned.
Realism can break a writer's heart.
No drastic actions ned be taken either. They remind me of my anonymous girl. Humiliate people for long enough and a wildness bursts out of them. Afterwards, surveying the wreckage of their rage, they look bewildered, uncomprehending, young.