Rushdie On Indian Women

“One of the things I’ve always thought about my experience of women in the Indian subcontinent, they are very often the more flamboyant of the sexes. That you get these—and I don’t just mean glamorous—but you get these very big characters, very big personalities, often, in Indian women, quite unlike the stereotype of the passive, recessive Indian wife. Or daughter. And my experience is that they’re much the more theatrical and operatic gender. And the men do tend to be more low-key very often, so I think that in my books, just because that’s been a feeling I’ve had, in my books the women often do seem to wear brighter plumage than the men. I don’t know: it would be rash to state that that’s what the country’s really like. Because when you’ve got a country as big as that [India], it’s really like anything you feel like saying it is.”

“People who like my books...tend to praise the female characters. The people who don’t like my books say I can’t write about women. And you know, I give up, really. My view is I’m doing my best. If people can come along for the ride, I’m very happy. If they can’t, what can I do?”

- From an interview in Georgia Straight