In Moderation

Love, Greed, Power, Family, Politics, Jealousy, Status, Hate or Fear; the lists of motivations are endless.  We’ve all succumbed to them and some are ruled by them.  My grandmother used to tell me, ‘everything is good in moderation.’  I believe it is healthy to have a balance of collective motivations not just one and not in excess.  Some may argue that you can never have too much love and I believe that, yes, too much of anything, including love, can have its negative affects.   It is difficult to state that something so pure, like love, can be a negative motivator and even more difficult still  would be to state that arguably the two most influential motivators, money and religion, when in the wrong hands can be very, very negative.  But to state the obvious may be easier to take, if it’s done in subtext like a satire.  A perfect example of this is Salman Rushdie’s, short story, The Prophet’s Hair, in his book East, West.  Not only does Rushdie’s story drip with satirically wit, it also has a strong undercurrent of a parable, as he shows how too much of something, can kill you.

Rushdie’s story surrounds the unfortunate events of one moneylenders’ family and the people who have come into contact with them.  The family lives very well until the day the father finds a religious relic and he goes mad.  The family tries to secretly have the relic stolen by a hired thief but the relic becomes the demise of not only the family but the burglars’ family as well.  The story is full of satirical undertones surrounding the negative effects and corrupting nature of significant motivations.   

The story begins with the son of the moneylender, Atta, trying to hire a thief in the darkest corners of the city.  He is clean, honest and naive but money doesn’t create intelligence.  He is “robbed of the substantial bank-roll which he had insanely brought on his solitary excursion, and beaten within an inch of his life (p. 35)”   Money, or the lack of, can bring out the worst, as with the thieves who robbed Atta.  Money can create greed and therefore might include decency, for example the flower vender, who finds Atta and takes him home in hopes for a large reward.  Although money or wealth is intermingled with several motivations, it can be considered one of the key elements at the root or the heart of every one.  For the primary character in Rushdies’ story, his demise includes not only of money but religion.

The moneylender, Hashim, considers himself a decent man of considerable wealth.  “Hashim was fond of pointing out that while he was not a godly man he set great store by ‘living honourably in the world (p. 41).’”  He has never lived a pious life because he was too caught up in hording and collecting things that he considered to be signs of wealth.  He would be considered a nice enough man, even to people who came to ask for money and whom “he naturally asked an interest rate of over seventy percent (p. 41).”  But when he finds a silver vial that encased the hair of Prophet Muhammad, instead of returning it he justifies keeping it by telling himself, “the Prophet would have disapproved mightily of this relic-worship.  He abhorred the idea of being deified (p. 44).”  He contorts his philosophy of not returning the stolen item as a higher service.  It is at this point when Hashim now believes that the vial was set upon him to make changes and because he hadn’t lived the most honorable life he tries to make up for it by scolding his entire family.  “‘From now on,’ Hashim bellowed, ‘there’s going to be some discipline around here (p. 48)!”  Sometimes, the act of being religious can bring out the worst in the most decent of people.

Hashim had gone quite insane and the family felt the new found relic was the cause.  The daughter, Huma, went back to the alley and successfully hired a thief to steal the vial so that the family could return to its normalcy.   After explaining to Sheikh Sin, the Thief of Thieves, he agreed to steal the vial, not for the religious worth but because of the money promised.  The thief had become ill and knew his life was coming to an end but with the moneylenders’ daughter and wife’s jewelry he would now be able to move himself and his blind wife out of the darkest corners and “acquire the luxury of a respectable death (p. 52).”  The lack of money will make the most irrational decisions seem rational, for example, Sin also had four sons, which he had crippled, so that they would never go without.  “He had made sure they were all provided with a lifelong source of high income by crippling them at birth, so that, as they dragged themselves around the city, they earned excellent money in the begging business (p. 53).”   

A parable that tries to explain, too much of something, such as wealth, love or religion can be tricky and sometimes misinterpreted.  By having it told in a modestly satirical way, keeps some readers somewhat shielded from the possibility of reading something negative or worse, blasphemous.  In the end, Atta succumbs to a blood-clot from his beating, Hashim accidentally stabs his daughter Huma, then thrust his sword on himself and the wife is committed into an asylum.  As for the thief, he was shot dead for allegedly being responsible for Huma’s death, his sons were miraculously healed and his wife was no longer blind.  Now you may think that “only the Sheikh’s widow had some reason for feeling grateful, because although her husband was dead she had regained her sight (p. 58).”  But in a true satire, one will notice that not only are the sons no longer crippled therefore they no longer have any way to make any income but the wife who had been blind can now see all of the horrors and negativity that surround her. 

One of the most powerful things about a satire is its subtext; it can be diluted and deciphered differently by anyone who reads it.  It is definitely certain Salman Rushdie illustrates the corrupting nature of motivation, especially when it is held in a position of power.  In exemplifying this negativity through a satirical parable, it is contradicting to have any positive outcome in order to get a strong point across.  But according to my grandmother's mantra; instead of having a lot of something, it is best to have of a little of everything (including certain motivations) in moderation.