On a visit to India to film a documentary on 40 years of independence, author Salman Rushdie found Maharashtra politician Chhagan Bhujbal a "walking political cartoon" and was amazed when he was denied permission to film a Sikh woman widowed in the 1984 riots.u00a0

Narrating the visit for the Channel 4 documentary titled 'The Riddle of Midnight', Rushdie writes in his memoir, 'Joseph Anton', released this week, that the only politician he interviewed at the time was Bhujbal, who was then a leader of the Shiv Sena.