'I am delighted to be back'

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI, APRIL 14. Visibly smug at having been able to evade the media during his week-long effort to ``renew a broken relationship'' with the country of his birth, the Eurasian author, Mr. Salman Rushdie, today articulated the hope of being able to return to India more often in future.

Addressing a hurriedly arranged press conference moments after surfacing at the Commonwealth Writers Prize function here this evening, Mr. Rushdie said he was ``delighted to be back in India after 12 years.''

Accompanied by his son Zafar, Mr. Rushdie had been in the country for a week, during which time the duo visited Jaipur, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, Solan and Shimla before returning to the Capital.

Describing it as a ``moving occasion,'' Mr. Rushdie said his visit was a purely private one during which he had no plans to meet any politicians or even lobby for the lifting of the ban on his book ``The Satanic Verses.'' In fact, he refused to be drawn into what he called an ``old debate'' and said he would rather open a new page. ``I want to begin a new relationship with India. While in India, I have tried to find out the little things that have changed, the change in attitudes...listened closely to what people have to say.''

As to whether he was still angry with India, the Booker Prize- winning author answered in the negative. However, he did concede that he had objections to certain political decisions and that he was shocked when India decided to ban the book. Insisting that all this was in the past, he added: ``I have to leave behind the past to be able to go on.''

Neither did he appear disheartened by the protests to his visit. ``People have a right to protest. I'm appreciative of the fact that the protests have been conducted in a civilised and peaceful manner.'' Of the view that he was not the first and neither would be the last writer to have a hard time, his message for fellow ``Indian Muslims'' was: ``If they don't like what I write, I'm sorry.'' Maintaining that he had ``no quarrel with Indian Muslims'', he said people had been misinformed about the contents of ``The Satanic Verses.''

About English writing coming out of India, Mr. Rushdie said he was exited about the way it was maturing and diversifying. ``When I was asked this question during a visit to India with ``Midnight's Children,'' I did not have an answer; now things are different,'' said the man who is here just to take in as much of his motherland as he can in the limited time and space that his station of life as a controversial author allows him.

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