Salman Rushdie soaks up India with girlfriend

Salman Rushdie soaks up India with girlfriend

Uttara Choudhury
Agence France Presse
New Delhi

Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie, who spent the festive
season squiring his model-actress girlfriend around India, says
he has been using the trip to soak up the country's atmosphere
for his next book.

"It's good to be here just to get the smell of India again,"
he told India's NDTV channel near the end of a low-key visit
expected to conclude this week.

Rushdie, who shot to fame with his novel "Midnight's Children"
about the India-Pakistan divide, said he had spent over two and
half years working on the book in which India would feature
prominently and that the work would most likely take another year
to complete.

"The going (on the book) has been hard," said Rushdie.

It was not known Wednesday whether he had left the country,
but news reports said he would return to his New York home while
his girlfriend, Padma Lakshmi, stayed on in India to research her
role for a film in which she is cast as an Indian immigrant
living in the United States.

It was the second trip to India since 2000 for Bombay-born
Rushdie, who was forced into hiding for nearly a decade in 1989
after the late Iranian leader, Ayotallah Ruhollah Khomeini,
accused him of blasphemy against Islam with his novel "The
Satanic Verses" and issued an death edict against him.

Rushdie's 2000 trip to India, soon after Iran said it would
not support the Ayatollah's de facto death sentence, drew
hundreds of demonstrators who burnt him in effigy and accused him
of heresy. This time he attracted little attention.

Rushdie said he and his girlfriend had travelled to the
capital, New Delhi, the palace-studded desert state of Rajasthan
and the southern city of Madras, Lakshmi's home city, "just like
two ordinary people".

In fact it was Lakshmi, who recently made her movie debut in
the Bollywood comedy "Boom", who was the main focus. "I'm her
sidekick. So many people know her while hardly anyone seems to
recognise me," Rushdie joked to the media. "I'm here as the
boyfriend."

It was only on the final leg of Rushdie's trip this week in
Bombay that Muslim hardliners awoke to his presence. About 100
staged a demonstration and threatened to blacken his face with
soot -- deemed a grave insult in India.

But Rushdie shrugged off the demonstration. "I am used to such
protests," he told NDTV, before checking out of his Bombay hotel
room earlier this week.

Lakshmi said she was delighted to be in India with Rushdie who
had taken her to Bombay to show her his family home and introduce
her to his writer friends.

"We've never been in India together before -- he hasn't been
here for a long time -- and I'm happy to be holding his hand when
he is," said Lakshmi.

"I think the combination of the two of us is very seductive.
He comes from a very intellectual literary world and I come more
from fashion and film. I think he's very funny and makes me
laugh." Laskshmi added.

The trip came after Rushdie, 56, and Lakshmi, 32, denied
reports last year that they were breaking up.

Lakshmi told the Times of India newspaper she would go back to
Madras to prepare for her next film role. "I'm coming home to
Madras to watch how my grandmother makes dosas, to listen to
Indian classical music, observe the mannerisms of my aunts and
cousins, read everything from (Indian President) Abdul Kalam's
autobiography to the (Hindu holy book) Bhagwad Gita.

"She plays an old-fashioned girl. It will require acting,"
quipped Rushdie.

uc/pmc/lpo
India-Rushdie
AFP

GetAFP 2.10 -- JAN 15, 2004 08:52:38