Bangalore: 

Enchanting: Writer Salman Rushdie was first in the limelight for his book Midnight's Children. Now The Enchantress of Florence is earning him many more fans file pic

I have seldom avoided any writer as I have two names. John Le Carre and Salman Rushdie. Neither the world of espionage nor fabulism enticed me enough to set aside my prejudices and read them. Worse, each time I began books by either author, I abandoned them with a swarm of self doubts buzzing in my head. "Are they really as boring as I imagine them to be? Or, is it merely me? Unable to see merit in what the whole world salivates about..."

In recent times, I made a discovery. John Le Carre. Suddenly I was reading new dimensions into his writing. So much so I now tell anyone who would listen: The man is a poet and his writing the finest one can read in the body of writing that has emerged in these times.

With Rushdie, I didn't expect much to change in how I perceived him. Mostly, it had to do with my inability to find a word, phrase or scene that made me feel I was participating rather than watching. Unlike Le Carre, my objections to Rushdie stemmed from what I thought was his strenuous lyricism.  That is, until I began The Enchantress of Florence.

Somewhere between page 1 and 2 of the novel, I knew a liquification within.
 
The ice had begun to melt. After a long time, I knew again what it is to fall in love with a writer. To read with a sense of wonderment. To pause at a thought. To deliberate on a vision. To see beyond the obvious. To be enchanted.

It would be unwise to even toy with and capture the scope of the magical world Rushdie has created in his latest book The Enchantress of Florence. It would be easier to seek the moments of truth of this book. There is its whimsical genius Of how the queen mother and the crown prince's mother meet with the apparition of  Jodha, the invisible consort of Akbar to discuss the new threat another apparition and would like to share with her every means by which a woman may retain the power over a man.

There is the humour that so laces the narrative. And finally, there is the soul-searching of characters and from those quiet reflections, how a rare honesty emerges. That to me makes this book of fantastic tales a singular work. It is here Rushdie excels himself. In being able to shed cloaks and veils of self-deceit and in the acknowledgement of truth. At times, perhaps his own? I wonder if it is Rushdie speaking for himself.

In the opening pages of Midnight's Children, there is a statement of intent which could very well be the Rushdie hallmark.

 'And there are so many stories to tell, too many such an excess of intertwined lives events miracles places rumors, so dense a commingling of the improbable and the mundane! I have been a swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one of me, you'll have to swallow the lot as well.'