Rushdie's forced to shift 'Midnight's Children' press meet

Delhi was the first stop for the author in a multi-city tour of the country, which does not include a trip to Jaipur, a city where his presence at the Literature Festival was called off last year due to protests from several organisations.

The event, jointly organised by Landmark and PVR Pictures, was first scheduled to be held at a south Delhi mall but it was cancelled and at the last moment the venue was shifted to a hotel.

This year, Rushdie tried to keep the focus on "Midnight's Children," the movie, based on his Booker Prize wining novel, which is releasing in India on February 1.

Accompanied by director Deepa Mehta, the author at a press meet here, did not talk about last year's fiasco but touched upon briefly on increasing intolerance.

"...'Moors Last Sigh' is the sequel of "...'Midnight's Children' and it talks about the changes we are witnessing today. It talks about Bombay of childhood, which was a very tolerant city in the 60s and 70s being replaced by an intolerant, sectarian and problematic city that we now have...," he merely said.

Earlier in the day, Rushdie had said that India was witnessing an emergency of a different kind. "...It is cultural emergency. Well it is a different emergency," the 65-year-old author said.

There was speculation that the film "Midnight's Children" might not be released in India after the JLF fiasco over Rushdie's visit and also because a large chunk of the film's narrative deals with the Emergency period.

The author said contrary to reports in the media the film did not face "any problem" with the censors or finding a distributor in India.

"There is a worry that I have about how easily uninformed speculation makes its way into print and by being repeated... Through the Internet, it has a multiplier effect. By repetition it seems to be true... Actually there was never a problem. It was an ordinary process," he said.