A postcolonial short story by the award winning author Salman Rushdie on international relations, gender and power, cultural differences, and the many-sided nature of human nature. Miss Rehana visits a British consulate in India, to be reunited with her fiancée who is living in England. A man named Mr. Ali approaches her in front of the consulate and offers her his “advice” on how to behave at the consulate to be permitted to travel to Europe. As she finds out, his business usually includes selling fake passports to desperate women. But she is actually not too keen to go to England…

Short fiction · United Kingdom · 1987