R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Yo!

It wasn't that i was caught unawares. Anything worth having is almost always a contraband in Pakistan and so i had already deduced that Salman Rushdie must not only have said something offensive but must also have said it well enough to warrant the chagrin of the entire Muslim Ummah, prompting the ban on his words, his thoughts, even his name in this Islamic Banana Republic of Pakistan. And even though I was pleasantly vindicated for my blind faith in his skill as a writer upon finally getting my hands on the much accliamed, Booker winning Midnight's Children, I longed to have my socks knocked off with something of so much beauty that it would justify the awe this wholly unremarkable and somehwhat evil looking man had commanded from me. And then i came across teh following, and stopped reading to make this post because something rendered with such staggering skill must not be allowed to go unheralded.

"Family history, of course, has its proper dietary laws. One is supposed to swallow and digest only the permitted parts of it, the halal portions of the past, drained of their redness, their blood. Unfortunately, this makes the stories less juicy; so i am about to become the first and only member of my family to flout the laws of halal. Letting no blood escape from the body of the tale, I arrive at the unspeakable part; and, undaunted, press on."

Hats off, dude.

Excerpt from Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.