Imaginary Homelands: Selected Essays by Salman Rushdie

 Hello readers !

“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.”

                                      ~Salman Rushdie

           

               Imaginary Homelands is a collection of essays written by Salman Rushdie. Salman Rushdie is the most controversial writer among Indian writing in English. His book, Imaginary Homeland, are essays written during 1981 to 1992, collecting controversial issues of the decade. 

 Here in this collection of essays we have studied these fore essays like ,

• Imaginary Homeland
•  Attenborough’s Gandhi
•  Commonwealth literature Does not Exist
• New Empire within British

💠 Imaginary Homeland :

        Salman Rushdie's 'Imaginary Homelands' is a narrative portraying a migrant's inner conflict between his strong urge to reclaim his homeland and his inability to capture its true essence. This conflict leads the author to create a number of "imaginary" homelands in his fictions such as, an India of the mind in 'The Satanic Verses'. While they are not precisely real, these imaginary homelands capture the essence of reality as seen through the eyes of character who, like their author, face the challenge of straddling two cultures.

💠 Attenborough’s Gandhi :-

                           Attenborough’s Gandhi” is also a part of his essay collection. It is also an essay in which he is reviewed about Richard Attenborough’s Movie “Gandhi” Salman Rushdie has some problem with making this movie and he highly criticized this movie by giving valid argument and points. He is deconstructing this movie by giving some rational argument. At some points as he also would have been appreciated this movie for few scene’s. 

                  The essay starts with the word ‘Deification’, and Rushdie further said that deification is an Indian disease, as Attenborough might now about it and he has construct Gandhi as a ‘Mahatma’, as it is Indian disease to say that ‘Avatar’ will come and do something good for human being and they makes a human as a ‘Avatar’ and console their human self and depend over avatar and Attenborough has do it in the movie. But he has not described. ‘Gandhi-a gift human’ and Attenborough knows that what Indian like and for what Oscar-Nobel committee would be like and for that he has just put the image of Gandhi as a Mahatma and has avoided Nathuram Godse’s speech, ploticalthriller also absent in the movie.

He also gives the three broad headings

1. Spiritualist

2. Simplicity

3. Change anything, Submit yourself

💠 Reference :

Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands. Granta Books, 1991. PDF.