The Himalayas appear in the novel not as a developed setting but as a charged point of elevation: a remembered height from which Saladin Chamcha has been hurled toward London, and an image for the obstacle and force generated by his approaching collision with Gibreel Farishta.

Height and Descent

After the destruction of the Hot Wax nightclub, Saladin resolves to return to life despite the losses and humiliations he has endured. Recalling his love of London, he figures its response as a fall toward the city from Himalayan heights. The image gives his arrival in London a vertical dimension: the city is at once the object of attachment and the destination toward which he has been violently brought down.

The Mountain as Collision

Elsewhere, Gibreel senses that events are closing in on him and imagines himself drifting toward Saladin as India once drifted toward Laurasia after breaking away from Gondwanaland. Their anticipated collision, he thinks, would raise the Himalayas. The mountain is thus not only a measure of height but an effect of impact. Gibreel’s brief reflection turns it into an obstacle and a possibility of transcendence, while insisting that it is also something made: the material consequence of colliding forces.