The saddest thing about most readers in India picking up Salman Rushdie’s 631-page memoir is how a majority will have access to just half the picture he has so meticulously put together. They will, for reasons known only to the government of India, have no way of gauging just why The Satanic Verses compelled the author to exchange his life of relative normality for one of subterfugeu00a0and exile.

Salman Rushdie with Padma Lakshmi during his visit to Mumbai in 2004