In February 1989, Salman Rushdie had a date at New York City’s Asia Society. Rushdie was coming to the city to promote his new book Satanic Verses.
Tickets were sold out and everyone eagerly awaited the arrival of the author. But then Asia Society and the rest of the world got the news. Rushdie had gone into hiding, due to developments in another part of the world. The New York trip was cancelled, as was the Asia Society reading.
This story was narrated last Saturday by Vishakha Desai, Asia Society’s first Indian and first woman president. Desai was welcoming some 150 invited guests, including several boldface names — friends and supporters of Rushdie who had gathered to raise a toast to the author and his new book Shalimar The Clown.
“Salman is one those very unusual writers with a vivid imagination of mind and life, and a strong sense of historical narrative,” Desai said. Rushdie did not want a book reading event, said Aroon Shivdasani, the executive director of the Indo-American Arts Council, the host of the party. He simply wanted to celebrate with his good friends, she added.
Guests at the party included mother and daughter writing team — Anita and Kiran Desai; Ajai Singh “Sonny” Mehta, chairman and editor-in-chief of Alfred A Knopf; Citicorp executive Victor Menzes; TiE Tri-State president, Parag Saxena; SAJA founding member and Dean of Students at Columbia, Sreenath Sreenivasan and his Arjuna Award winning wife Roopa Unnikrishnan; tabla player Suphala; Hugo Weihe, head of Christie’s Indian and Southeast Asian Art; and of course Rushdie’s wife, the stunning model and actress, Padma Lakshmi.
Also present was celebrity wedding planner Marcie Blum. She organised both the Rushdie-Lakshmi wedding as well as that of Billy Joel.
Shivdasani reminded the guests that since his move to New York City, Rushdie had been a friend and supporter of IAAC. He had made several appearances at IAAC functions — introducing events, including earlier this year at a screening of Satyajit Ray’s Ghaire Baire, and last year’s performance of Bachi Karkaria’s The Rummy Game with Sabira Merchant and Hosi Vasunia.
In his brief speech Rushdie thanked Shivdasani. “She threw the party entirely without any arm twisting,” Rushdie said. And then he added as an afterthought, “almost.”
“There is a new kind of Indian American about to make a breakthrough in the US and Indo-American Arts Council is leading the way,” he added. He then decided to read from the book – two brief passages, including one with a suggestive sexual situation. As an introduction to the second passage he said: “So I will read you the dirty bit, it being late in the night.”
After the reading, Suphala performed a table piece accompanied by Mazz Swift, a violinist. Swift has performed in Suphala’s new album The Now.
Later Rushdie stood in the middle of the room personalising copies of his book for guests. At the beginning of the party Rushdie had sat down and signed over hundred copies of the book, but in personalising the book he got a chance to talk to the guests. And the man, who spent a decade hiding from even his family and friends, was very comfortable getting his pictures taken, often with people he had never met.
Meanwhile Lakshmi chatted with the guests or at times she just stood by Rushdie, looking at him in awe.
Lakshmi was overheard talking to another guest about the Toronto International Film Festival, where she had seen Deepa Mehta’s Water. “It was very powerful,” she said. But she failed to mention her prime purpose of attending the Toronto festival — to attend the screening of Paul Mayeda Berges’ film Mistress of Spices. All reports indicate the Gurinder Chadha production, in which Lakshmi plays a minor role, was poorly received at the festival. Rushdie — a movie buff expressed regrets at missing the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. Five years ago Rushdie was the guest programme director of the festival and he brought a wide range of personal favourite films to the event. This year he said he convinced his friend, writer Don DeLillo to take on the role of the guest programme director.
“I heard he had a great time at the festival,” Rushdie said.
The party continued for nearly three hours, with food catered by Amma, an Indian restaurant located on Manhattan’s Eastside and alcohol donated by General Bilimoria Wines.
The guests began to leave around 10 pm, but the Rushdies stayed until nearly the end.
* Aseem Chhabra is a freelance writer based in New York who has previously written for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer and Time Out, New York |
