YouSaid · the spoken record

Salman Rushdie

lines on the record: 59
first: 2022-08-15
most recent: 2022-08-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, I mean, I think. Think about Mumbai the way people who live in Saigon think about Ho Chi Minh City. It's a fake name. One of the arguments is that whereas there are ancient Indian cities which had ancient Indian names which were then anglicized like Kolkata becoming Calcutta, like Vadodara becoming Baroda, etc. Like Varanasi becoming Benaris. It seems to me reasonable that those cities should go back to their traditional names. Fair enough. It's a city that didn't exist until the British built it. It was a group of islands and fishing villages. They were called the”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They still felt like the same place. I mean, Pakistan felt more conservative, but they still essentially felt like the same place. And now they don't. Now they don't. Now they really feel like very different places.”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Half my relatives either were or went to Pakistan. An equivalent number decided that they didn't want to do that, that they, and that included my parents' view, as expressed to me at some point, was that they felt more Indian than Muslim, if you know what I mean, that they didn't want to be in a religious state. They wanted to be in the secular state that was being born on the Indian side of the frontier. So I remember listening to My parents and people of that generation. Regretting the partition and wishing that in some way it could have been avoided and that this map, this unified map, could have remained the case. Because at that time, at that time, it was one country, it felt like one country. And even growing up, when I would go with my parents to visit relatives in Karachi or in Raul Pindi,”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, I mean, I'm a child of that generation. I mean, I'm slightly older than the children I wrote about in the novel. But I'm eight weeks older. So not a great deal. And I guess I grew up as a person who bought very passionately the idea of Indian secularism, the kind of Neruvian idea of India. And my family, you know, like many Indian Muslim families was divided more or less down the middle by the partition.”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's of a very high degree of purity. It's almost 100% pure silver, which is actually purer than the pure silver you get now. So, yeah, I mean, it has this beautiful little map engraved on it.”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, first of all, it just is a link to a childhood which I remember with great affection. Unlike the hero of midnight's children, whose childhood is somewhat fraught and troubled, I remember my childhood as being sort of uneventfully happy. And this little piece of silver takes me back to not just to the time but to the place where I grew up and the neighborhood, you know, and all of that. And I'm kind of amazed that I never lost it. Because, I mean, when I was a kid, my dad used to keep it locked up and I would have to ask to see it because he didn't trust me. When I went to boarding school in England, he gave it to me to bring with me. And somehow, amazingly, through four and a half years of a rugby school education, I failed to lose it. And nobody pitched it. I mean, it's silver. It's worth something. It's a solid.”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've chosen his song, Mr. Tambourine Man, which again, I mean, I could have chosen 100 different songs, but I chose that one.”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the first one is an object. It's actually the first thing I was ever given in my life. I was given it when I was one day old. And it's a piece of silver. It's a little silver ingot about an inch high, which is engraved with the unpartitioned map of India. Because when I was born, it was two months before the partition. So in those days, Pakistan didn't exist. So it was given to me by one of my father's friends. And I've kept it with me ever since. Always somewhere close by. And second thing is a story which is, I mean, I'm a big Joyce fan, so it's difficult to know what bit of joyce to choose, but I chose his short story The Dead from Dubliners, which I think has some claimed. Be one of the very greatest, if not the greatest short story in the language. And the third one is the well-known Nobel Literature laureate Bob Dillon.”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“La Cerie de Houlu Original Furriers Arives, Avoc Amy Rossum, Furius Suilagent du FBI, Alice Black, a la Portie, Mysterious, Ecalculatris, Vera Justice Mesa Musur colour vicentrome, la frontier entrobien elomal comments de la series of furies, surnepl”
2022-08-15 · Intelligence Squared · Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT