I have to share this letter which Salman Rushdie wrote to a Chief Rabbi who denounced Rushdie's book 'The Satanic Verses'.
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Dear Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits,
I have visited at least one college in which young Jewish men were being taught, rigorously and judiciously, the
principles and practices of judicious and rigorous thought. Theirs were some of the most impressive and honed young
minds I have ever encountered and I know they would understand the danger and impropriety of making false moral
equivalences. It is a shame that a man they might look to as a leader has become neglectful of the proper process of
the mind. “Both Mr. Rushdie and the Ayatollah have abused freedom of speech,” you say. Thus a novel which, love it
or hate it, is in the opinion of at least a few critics and judges a serious work of art is equated with a naked call for
murder. This ought to be denounced as a self-evidently ridiculous r...
“One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair with my mouth wide open. And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am against hope hopen. Because some tortures are physical and some are mental, But the one that is both is dental.” Ogden Nash told us long ago (when we were in 9th standard to be precise), how visit to the dentist is one of the most excruciating experiences of all. I had, but forgotten the nice poem in my text book filled with literary devices and humor till yesterday. Like all normal homosapiens, yours truly is blessed with a set of 32. Now, the wisdom teeth, (that must be some strange irony!) have only one function in human body: Cause the occasional pain. I read that a normal adult doesn’t even require more than 28 teeth in the present age. But still there they are, vestigial and remnant of an age where we used to eat what not! Getting an appointment for a dentist is usually a smooth affair, although, most dentists don’t work on S...
Even during her decline, Sparta never forgot its claims on being the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic wit. An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying "If I enter Laconia, I will level Sparta to the ground", the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply: "If".
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