India, Oct. 11 -- On the clock, it is less than half of a minute, and a little more than a quarter of one. Nothing exceptional can possibly occur in such a short passage of time. Unless, of course, you enjoy poetry - "you could read aloud one of Shakespeare's sonnets, the one about the summer's day," novelist Salman Rushdie wrote in his memoir, 'Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder'. His romantic recall of the use of time as fleeting as this is abruptly marred by a more terrifying 27-second memory-his encounter with his assassin on the morning of August 12, 2022 at the amphitheater of the Chautauqua Institution in New York State, ironically to talk about "the importance of keeping writers safe from harm".

The knife attack would c...