Kolkata Literary Meet paid surprise guest Rushdie's flight ticket: Deepa Mehta

KOLKATA: Film maker Deepa Mehta has claimed the organisers of the Kolkata Literary Meet (KLM) had invited the controversial author Salman Rushdie who was forced to cancel his Kolkata trip at the last minute over security issues.

"(Rushdie) was going to be a surprise guest... Lit meet paid 4 his tkt (Mumbai-Kolkata flight ticket)(sic)," tweeted the Indo-Canadian director of ' Midnight's Children' based on Rushdie's book of the same name.

Endorsing Mehta's view, Rushdie re-twitted the message.

With the KLM organisers denying in public any such invitation to Rushdie, Mehta, who too was to attend a session at the literary meet, chose to cancel her visit to the city.

Malavika Banerjee, organiser of the five-day literary carnival, however, denied inviting the author, saying, "We never invited Rushdie. His name was never included in our schedule".

During the last session of the KLM inauguration day yesterday titled 'Midnight Magic', Deepa Mehta, her producer husband David Hamilton and actor Rahul Bose were to discuss the challenge of transferring 'Midnight's Children' from page to reel.

According to Mehta, Rushdie, who has not only written the screenplay but has also rendered a voice-over in the film, was to be a "surprise guest".

Only Bose could make it to the event last night while both the director and producer stayed back in Mumbai along with Rushdie.

With the film releasing tomorrow, the producers had planned some promotional activities including a press conference yesterday in Kolkata involving Rushdie but were forced to cancel it at the last minute after finding problems at the security level.