In this paper, the focus is on Rushdie's idea of history as inclusiveness of all civilizations, in the East and West through the character of Qara Koz, the Enchantress of Florence. She is a symbolic bridge between the East and West, as she is the archetypal migrant. Rushdie tells this story of migrants, world over through the epochs of Akbar and the Italian extravaganza. Rushdie also describes the art of storytelling in a self-reflexive manner, through the tales of Mogor and Akbar, the Great. This narrative is structurally divided into two into the 15^th century Moghul period in its oriental landscape and timescape and the mid-15^th century Italian exravaganza through the human character of Qara Koz. Built into these issues of the East and West is the question of migrancy, both as an experience and an idea for its own sake. Mogor, Qara Koz and Akbar are the displaced selves, without roots. Migrancy is their way of understanding the world, as for them displacement is, in reality, re-placement in another setting and milieu for joy and fulfilment. According to Rushdie, every new place for a migrant is an imaginary homeland, with the qualities of"a culture of inclusion"; it is "one grand syncretization of the earth, its vanities, its philosophies, its sports, its whims". For Mogor, the archetypal migrant, story telling is his way of discovering the world, as his desire is to "step into the tale he is telling and begin a new life inside it". Thus, in this novel, Rushdie, by problematizing the art of story telling, through three narrators, Gubadab, Mogor Dashwant and the authorial self, portrays the issue of displacement, which is very seminal to his art, as a writer and thinker.

Rushdie is a master storyteller, as for him telling tales is his vocation. Be it the fantasy of Grimus, Haroun and Sea of Stories, or this narrative, telling stories— unbelievable in nature—is his main interest as a writer. In The Enchanter of Florence, the narrative, structurally divided into the 15^th century Moghul period in its Oriental landscape and timescape, and the mid-15^th century Italian extravaganza, is linked in human terms with the saga of human travails through the human character of `Qara Koz', The Lady of Black Eyes and the Enchantress of Florence. Rushdie employing near bifocal `objective' vision, fuses fact and myth, sublime and mundane, in a bizarre world of fantasy and love, alike. As the narrative center is provided through the grotesque-realistic-factual-mythicized persona of the Enchantress, other characters like Akbar the Great, Mogor, Argalia and others appear to be merely caricatured historical figures, as the main interest in the novel appears to be to `realize' in art the historical sense of the Mughal dynasty and the Italian Renaissance, in their contrasting Oriental and Occidental transfigurations, sequentially.

As in all Rushdie's world from Flapping Eagle to Shalimar the Clown, this is the art of narrativization of a subjective self, to realize the `value' of historical significance, in myth and fantasy to provide a sense of objectivity. Within this golden aura of `reality' and fantasy, Rushdie, the master storyteller, raises (and leaves unanswered) certain polemical issues seminal to his art, as well as human condition in general: the art of storytelling, Oriental-Occidental hiatus; question of Reality (including the issue of Qara Koz and her mirror as magic and faith) Qara Koz as the migrant seeker of a bridge between the Oriental and Occidental; idea of migrancy; Mogor, the narrator, displaced self as a metaphor of human condition in the present times of globalization.

English Studies Journal, Rushdie, Italian Exravaganza, Mughal Dynasty, Italian Renaissance, Globalization, Mysterious Dematerialization, Polemical Terms, Oriental Supremacy, Emotional Anchorage, Emotional Bondage.