Shame pages 41-60
By: Gina L.
(Edited by Noelia Valero)
The school to which Omar Khayyam is sent is a “Cantonment School” (Rushdie 41). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a cantonment is “The place of lodging assigned to a section of a force when cantoned out; also (often inpl.) the place or places of encampment formed by troops for a more permanent stay in the course of a campaign, or while in winter quarters; ‘in India the permanent military stations are so termed’” (Stocqueler Mil. Encycl.) (OED). This school is, according to Rushdie, where children of British descent are sent, until age eight, when they are typically returned to Britain so as not to be corrupted by an “Oriental upbringing” (Rushdie 42). The native children who attend school remain longer, until age eighteen. The omnipresence and permanence of the British imperialists and the military undertones of their presence are evidenced here; Rushdie gives no evidence that there is another option for Omar’s schooling.
Rushdie refers to the “Angrez sahibs” who feel the need to change the environment (41). Sahib is “a respectful title used by an Indian in addressing an Englishman or other European (=‘Sir’); an Englishman, a European. Also affixed as a title (equivalent to ‘Mr.’) to the name or office of a European and to Indian and Bangladeshi titles and names” (OED).
Rushdie compares Omar Khayyam to “that bold fellow in Agra who, they say, looked over a high wall to spy on the building of the Taj Mahal” (43). There are many myths and legends surrounding this great building, one of which is that Shah Jahan ordered that the hands of the builders and architects be dismembered after the completion of the Taj Mahal (“Mutilations”). I am unable to locate anything on someone who had his eyes gouged for spying on the construction, though the myth of hands being cut-off conveys the same meaning. The fact that Rushdie cites a rumor that one can not confirm elsewhere is demonstrative of the meretricious nature of such apocryphal sayings. It also is resonant of the extreme privatism that other characters (the three mothers and Bilquìs especially) cling to to hide their shame.
A “kukri knife” (Rushdie 43) is “a curved knife, broader at the point than at the handle, and usually having the keen edge on the concave side, used by the Gurkas of India” (OED)
“Maharaja” (Rushdie 43) is a title for a high prince or
person of rank, who would be one of the few who would have the means to such an
escapade as a tiger hunt (OED).
In regards to Eduardo Rodriguez, his secret past is denoted only by “cheap pictures... of a balmy coastal land in which palm trees swayed” which we can assume to be Portugal because of his “Portuguese name.” However, he is a Catholic in a land of Muslims, and is scorned for his alleged “Christian perversions” in regards to Farah (Rushdie 44-45).
The term “wallah” can be used as a suffix attached to English nouns to imitate “native derivatives” or to mean a “routine administrative job” (OED). Rushdie uses this term throughout Shame, as in “mule-wallahs” and “customs-wallah’s” (45).
Farah and her father are both of the Zoroastrian religion (their last name is in fact Zoroaster). Farah says her father dreams of that “damn land of Ahuramazda” and the “ancestral land of Zarathustra” (Rushdie 45, 49). Ahura Mazda is the supreme god and creator and Zarathustra is the prophet in the Zoroastrian religion. In the Persian Empire, until the invasion of Mohammedanism, Zoroastrianism was the national religion (Zaehner 200-202). There is still a small group of people practicing Zoroastrianism in Q., the Parsees, when Shame takes place. Rushdie demonstrates by their presence the intermingling of cultures in Q. or Pakistan that does not prohibit, and perhaps cause, the biases that cause Farah’s father to yearn for a homeland to which he’s never been.
The customs office where Farah’s father works is on the “Irani frontier” (Rushdie 46). Q., then, is in the south-west of Pakistan.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/asia/pakistan
(“Map”)
The tonga that Eduardo and Farah leave for the train station in is simply a small cart or carriage with two wheels (OED).
Omar Kahayyam leaves Q. to attend medical school in Karachi, which is the capital of Sindh and the largest city in Pakistan (Wikipedia).
The garland of flowers that Omar’s mothers place around his neck as he leaves for Karachi could just have religious significance, as garlands of flowers do in Hindu culture (“garland”) (Rushdie 52). However, it is Muslim practice, as well as the practice of many other religions, to put garlands on the grave of a loved one, signifying that for his mothers, his quitting them for a faraway city is the same as his dying to them.
In Zoroastrianism, there is a period after which the world as we know it will end. Individual judgement has already occurred, but at the end of the 12,000 year cosmic period, all souls, both good and evil, will be “plunged into a sea of molten metal which purges them from all remaining stain of sin” (Zaehner 208). This is the end of the world that Farah’s father convinces the tribals he will bring about with the vehemence of his ranting (Rushdie 53).
In regards to Eduardo Rodriguez, his secret past is denoted only by “cheap pictures... of a balmy coastal land in which palm trees swayed” which we can assume to be Portugal because of his “Portuguese name.” However, he is a Catholic in a land of Muslims, and is scorned for his alleged “Christian perversions” in regards to Farah (Rushdie 44-45).
The term “wallah” can be used as a suffix attached to English nouns to imitate “native derivatives” or to mean a “routine administrative job” (OED). Rushdie uses this term throughout Shame, as in “mule-wallahs” and “customs-wallah’s” (45).
Farah and her father are both of the Zoroastrian religion (their last name is in fact Zoroaster). Farah says her father dreams of that “damn land of Ahuramazda” and the “ancestral land of Zarathustra” (Rushdie 45, 49). Ahura Mazda is the supreme god and creator and Zarathustra is the prophet in the Zoroastrian religion. In the Persian Empire, until the invasion of Mohammedanism, Zoroastrianism was the national religion (Zaehner 200-202). There is still a small group of people practicing Zoroastrianism in Q., the Parsees, when Shame takes place. Rushdie demonstrates by their presence the intermingling of cultures in Q. or Pakistan that does not prohibit, and perhaps cause, the biases that cause Farah’s father to yearn for a homeland to which he’s never been.
The customs office where Farah’s father works is on the “Irani frontier” (Rushdie 46). Q., then, is in the south-west of Pakistan.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/asia/pakistan
(“Map”)
The tonga that Eduardo and Farah leave for the train station in is simply a small cart or carriage with two wheels (OED).
Omar Kahayyam leaves Q. to attend medical school in Karachi, which is the capital of Sindh and the largest city in Pakistan (Wikipedia).
The garland of flowers that Omar’s mothers place around his neck as he leaves for Karachi could just have religious significance, as garlands of flowers do in Hindu culture (“garland”) (Rushdie 52). However, it is Muslim practice, as well as the practice of many other religions, to put garlands on the grave of a loved one, signifying that for his mothers, his quitting them for a faraway city is the same as his dying to them.
In Zoroastrianism, there is a period after which the world as we know it will end. Individual judgement has already occurred, but at the end of the 12,000 year cosmic period, all souls, both good and evil, will be “plunged into a sea of molten metal which purges them from all remaining stain of sin” (Zaehner 208). This is the end of the world that Farah’s father convinces the tribals he will bring about with the vehemence of his ranting (Rushdie 53).
The Loo that first is mentioned as Omar Khayyam boards the train and that later plagues Bilquìs (Rushdie 53) is the “the name given in Bihar and the Punjab to a hot dust-laden wind” (OED).
Khichri (Rushdie 60) is an “Indian dish of rice boiled with split pulse, onions, eggs, butter, and condiments” (OED).
When we meet Bilquis, she is in Delhi, India, although Rushdie also mentions “Indraprasth and Puranqila” (60), which are historical names and places in Delhi (OED). Rushdie is demonstrating the convoluted history of a place that has been controlled both by Muslim and Hindu peoples in the past, and the prejudices that still exist.
Works Cited
"garland". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica
Inc., 2013. Web. 08March 2013.
“Map of Pakistan.” Lonely Planet. BBC, 2013. Web. 8 March 2013.
“Mutilations in Taj Mahal Myth.” Taj Mahal. 2008. Web. 8 March 2013.
OED Online. December 2012. Oxford University Press. 8 March 2013
Rushdie, Salman. Shame. New York: Vintage International, 1983. Print.
Wikipedia contributors. "Karachi." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 8 March 2013.
Web. 9 March 2013.
Zaehner, R.C., ed. Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions. New York: Barnes and Nobel,
1988. Print.
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