When Salman Rushdie came calling...

And then, it was Salman Rushdie time. After the judges -- a trio of journalists, incidentally, asked to judge by virtue of their being "book reviewers" -- had made the right noises about how Rushdie's work had moved them deeply, shaken their very souls, and reminded them once more about the pleasure of reading, the award for English Fiction went to the Man Booker Prize-winner's latest work, Shalimar the Clown.

A call was promptly made to Rushdie, who was in Italy, informing him about this latest addition to his mantelpiece. "I'm very touched," he said, his voice echoing through the silent auditorium. After mumbling something about having walked into a door not so long ago, the author thanked the judges for the honour. "This book has been very important for me," he said, "and Kashmir has waited for me to write about it."

Now, here's the interesting part: Of the six nominees -- Shauna Singh Baldwin, Rana Dasgupta, Siddhartha Deb, Cyrus Mistry, V S Naipaul and Rushdie -- only two currently reside in India. All were picked up by editors abroad, and published there, before their work was reprinted in India. Baldwin was born in Montreal, Dasgupta in England, Naipaul in Trinidad. And, last time we checked, Naipaul wasn't touting his Indian connection either.

Yes, the Hutch Crossword Book award is supposedly for authors who "must be Indian citizens or persons of Indian origin." And that, sadly, is also the loophole that makes it all a bit of a joke.

Image: Mukund Padmanabhan of The Hindu holds a cell phone to the mic. So what if Rushdie can't make it in person? We have his voice with us...