I am on chapter 2 of Rushdie's "Shalimar the clown". This is where he describes Kashmir and the characters' lives in that setting when the valley is still peaceful. What struck me was how nicely he describes them. Any Indian (maybe not all) is very comfortable with the idea that we can find thoughtful, intelligent, strong people amongst any geographic, economic, religious section of our country. However for people outside of our country, I would think its easy for the stereotypes to guide their understanding of us as a people. Although books analyzing India from all aspects as written by Amartya Sen or Shashi Tharoor or Edward Luce or AL Basham make a lot of sense they never get into the head of an Indian. Salman Rushdie and his ilk do that humanizing job and I think they are doing us Indians a great great service. Any person reading this can immediately connect to an Indian on basic human feelings, emotions and thoughts.
Anyways the importance of fiction just hit me hard today morning.
I am very impressed at the moment :)
Its a shame I havent read more of him so far.
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