Nine years living in hiding after a fatwa was issued against him may not sound like a particularly merry experience, but Sir Salman Rushdie has said his period in police protection felt at times like "a comedy routine". 
 
 On leaving a dinner at the London home of fellow novelist Hanif Kureishi, he recalled that "one of the police officers left his gun behind. And for Hanif of course this was like a transcendent moment of joy. He ran out into the street, holding the gun by the barrel, shouting, 'Here, you forgot your shooter!'" 
 
 On another occasion, Rushdie said, a trip to rural Ayrshire led to strife between the English and the Scottish special branch about who should take charge, resolved by officers from both squads turning up. 
 
 "We were in this rural cottage in remote Ayrshire and there was this arsenal of armoured Jaguars parked outside. The hard thing was not concealing me, it was concealing them … there was this police convention going on." 
 
 The author was speaking about his third-person-narrated memoir, Joseph Anton (his pseudonym under the fatwa, after the first names of Conrad and Chekhov), at the Edinburgh international book festival. 
 
 He had no premonition of the storm that would greet the publication of The Satanic Verses, he said, when Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa of death against him in 1989 – an event that led to the killing of one of Rushdie's translators, the serious injury of another, and bombings of bookshops. 
 
 "International terrorism levelled against translators, publishers and writers wasn't something that we knew about. People who were conservative Muslim believers had not liked any of my books, so I expected them not to like it and my view was, 'So what?' In general if you don't want to read a book then don't: that's why there are all these books in bookstores for you to chose from. If you start reading a book and you don't like it you always have the option of shutting it. At this point it loses its capacity to offend you." 
 
 He added: "I do think one of the characteristics of our age is the growth of this culture of offendedness. It's got something to do with the rise of identity politics, where you are invited to define your identity quite narrowly … What's happened in this age is we are asked to define ourselves by hate." 
 
 The writer turned too to less solemn subjects. Aside from reminiscing about an incident in which he had seen the late novelist William Styron's testicles under a loose-fitting pair of shorts ("obviously it was his preferred form of dress"), he also recalled dining with the great American writer Thomas Pynchon. The latter's decades-long avoidance of public appearances and interviews, and his refusal to be filmed or photographed, has given him a reputation for almost mythic mysteriousness. 
 
 "Thomas Pynchon looks exactly like Thomas Pynchon should look," said Rushdie. "He is tall, he wears lumberjack shirts and blue jeans. He has Albert Einstein white hair and Bugs Bunny front teeth." 
 
 The evening "started a little stiltedly", he added, "and then he relaxed and became very chatty and there was a moment when it was 3am and my eyes were dropping when he said, 'I guess you guys are getting a little tired, huh?' And I was thinking, 'Yes! But it's Thomas Pynchon, so wake up!' And when this long, affable evening came to an end I thought now we are sort of friends, and every so often we will see each other. And he never called again, from that day to this." 
 
 Before the publication of his acclaimed novel Midnight's Children, Rushdie worked as an advertising copywriter. "I invented this campaign for Aero chocolate bars," he recalled. 
 
 "With bubble words: adorabubble, irresistibubble, delectabubble. Bus signs that said transportabubble. Shop signs that said availabubble. Trade ads that said profitabubble. I invented it because the guy I was working with had a stammer. We were sitting in a room trying to think of an idea and said, 'It's fucking impossibubble.' It was my one genuine lightbulb moment." ||||| Image caption Salman Rushdie will address the festival by video link 
 
 Author Salman Rushdie has withdrawn from India's biggest literary festival, saying that he feared assassination after influential Muslim clerics protested against his participation. 
 
 The author had been due to speak at the Jaipur literature festival. 
 
 He said he had been told by sources that assassins "may be on the way to Jaipur to kill me". 
 
 Salman Rushdie sparked anger in the Muslim world with his book The Satanic Verses, which many see as blasphemous. 
 
 He lived in hiding for many years after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his execution. 
 
 The author had been scheduled to speak on the opening day of the five-day Jaipur event which began on Friday, but earlier this week organisers said his schedule had changed and took his name off the list of speakers. 
 
 "I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to 'eliminate' me," Salman Rushdie said in a statement read out at the festival. 
 
 The failure of the state to secure Salman Rushdie's protection, many believe, is a shameful indictment of India's politicians and their opportunistic politics of least resistance A stain on India? 
 
 "While I have some doubts about the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the festival in such circumstances; irresponsible to my family, to the festival audience and to my fellow writers," he added. 
 
 "I will therefore not travel to Jaipur as planned." 
 
 'Stain on India' 
 
 The writer later tweeted that he was "very sad not to be at Jaipur" and that he would speak at the festival over a video link. 
 
 "I was told Bombay [Mumbai] mafia don issued weapons to two hitmen to 'eliminate' me. Will do video link instead. Damn." 
 
 Author William Dalrymple, who is also a festival organiser, said Salman Rushdie's decision to stay away was a "great tragedy". 
 
 Image caption There have been recent anti-Rushdie protests among Indian Muslim groups 
 
 "This is a result of a tragic game of Chinese whispers. We hope he will return to the festival," he added. 
 
 Author Hari Kunzru tweeted that Rushdie's absence from the festival is "a stain on India's international reputation". 
 
 Salman Rushdie was born in India but is a British citizen and has lived in the UK for most of his life. In recent years he has made many private visits to India and attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2007. 
 
 Correspondents say the protests against this year's planned trip are linked to crucial state elections due in Uttar Pradesh. 
 
 Correspondents say no political party wants to antagonise the Muslim community, which constitutes 18% of voters in the state, India's largest. 
 
 On 10 January, a leading Islamic seminary in India, Darul Uloom Deoband, called on the government to block Salman Rushdie's visit as he "had annoyed the religious sentiments of Muslims in the past". Darul Uloom is based in Uttar Pradesh. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Jaipur festival got under way on Friday amid tight security. More than 250 authors and a number of celebrities are participating. 
 
 Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend the festival, which is being attended by authors Michael Ondaatje and Ben Okri, playwright Tom Stoppard, journalists David Remnick and Philip Gourevitch and TV host Oprah Winfrey, among others.
– Writer Salman Rushdie was furious at "moronic" Facebook yesterday after the network took down his profile because operators thought it was fake. To start it up again, he was ordered to send in a copy of his passport—then told to use the name Ahmed because that's what appears on his passport. "They insist I call myself by the first name I have never used," he complained. "What a bunch of morons." Real first names are required by Facebook policy, even if you've used your middle name your entire life. “Dear #Facebook,” he tweeted, “forcing me to change my FB name from Salman to Ahmed Rushdie is like forcing J. Edgar to become John Hoover.” After much writerly moaning and groaning by the author of Satanic Verses, the profile page was reinstated with the name Salman Rushdie. Facebook said the takedown was all a misunderstanding and apologized. "Victory. Salman returns," crowed Ahmed.