Plucked out of the parade by an eagle-eyed official, he was told that if he did not return, tout suite, shod in regulation black footwear, he would be debarred from the ceremony. But the injustice stuck in his throat and so, a few days later, in a calculated gesture of defiance, he turned up to his graduation ceremony sporting a pair of brown shoes – strictly proscribed. Despite Rushdie’s protestations of innocence, ‘King’s instantly held him solely responsible for the mess, ignored all his representations to the contrary, and informed him that unless he paid for the damage, he would not be permitted to graduate.’ In late May 1968, a few weeks after the riots in Paris and a few nights before Salman Rushdie was due to graduate with a History degree from Cambridge University, a vandal with Dadaist tendencies accessed his rooms at King’s College and redecorated the walls, furniture, his record collection and clothes with a bucketful of gravy and onions.
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