As I read Shalimar The Clown

Had been reading Rushdie's Shalimar The Clown.

More than the book its the epigraphs that seem to have settled in my mind.

Shakespeare (specifically Romeo and Juliet)anyway seems to be in thing in my life. In 2 days flat i come across his lines straight offwhen i did not expect them.
After the roses lines ( in my prev post)You come home open your next fiction read and the epigraph says "A plague on both your houses"

Now i i feel like using it oh so many times when i am so very irritated with life or caught between two people who want to see no sense which is quite often these days.

Even the simple act of getting a learning license becomes a nuisance for me. I managed to get a leave after 3 weeks of cancellation and got the learning license and then that envelope got lost in 15 minutes flat never mind how.

Fate as much as i like to wish it away seems to just catch up in amazing ways. Now this is not some huge issue, it simply adds to the irritation factor in my life.Every little thing seems a huge road block and i am worn out with this.

"It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe."

Neverthless getting back to the other epigraph taken from from

"The Country without a post office" by Agha Shahid Ali
Its quite lovely in itself cause you could almost feel it

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I am being rowed through Paradise on a river of Hell
Exquisite ghost, it is night.
The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves…

I'm everything you lost. You won't forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.

There is nothing to forgive. You won't forgive me.

I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to
myself.
There is everything to forgive. You can't forgive me.

If only somehow you could have been mine,
what would not have been possible in the world?

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As for the book in itself its not ingenious or anything . It just shows some good research and linking up of facts and fiction with brilliance and brilliance is Rushdie's trademark.Though i never love his books one simply has to say that whole idea he scripts in his books is sheer brilliance. How he develops his script  sometimes irritates you.

 Every word esp in the introductory parts of the book alludes to something more. India is named to represent something …Kashmira represents something.

Though cannot say liked the book much it seemed quite better than "The Ground beneath her feet" which left you quite a bit unstable may be.The book when it looks beyond the revenge storypoint presents different facets of the same thing well……like the point wherein the Gen Kachhwaha thinks how the Kashmiris are not thankful about being defended and how he himself degenerates into savageness. The Kashmiris villagers though have their owm version as all the other characters define it.

The nuggets Rushdie inserts have their own significance like the story  about the "Room of Power" which he ends with the lines "Freedom is not a Tea party, India. Freedom is war"

Rushdie somehow lets one down badly when presenting a female standpoint and his sketch of Boonyi Kaul seems so messed up and confusing sort.
In fact the character he completely fleshes out i felt was only Max Ophelus. All the characters were set to represent something in the macro plot(Kashmir India and Pakistan) and never clear into the micro plot(the revenge drama).

Through out there is the description of a paradise called  Kashmir which probably was and which will never be even if peace returns.It is here that to some extent Rushdie succeeds.

Neverthless its an addition to Rushdie's brilliant plots set in tumultous times and full of human greed for power of various kinds manifesting itself in various ways.