Rushdie is well known for characters who undergo transformations and search for their identity because of or during migration, colonization, and nationalism—transformations further complicated by the perceived identities that characters impose on each other. Rushdie’s choice of setting in this story—a Pakistani shantytown erected between the bus compound and the British Consulate—conveys the transitory nature of place, power, and identity, as well as the unintended consequences of colonization and migration.

The short story tracks numerous changing people and places, demonstrating the cultural rifts that result from an outside party determining what is best for another. The partitioning of India, for example, ended in one of the most bloody, violent incidents in history. Though the “gift” of independence that Muhammad Ali offers to Miss Rehana does not produce such dramatic consequences (and isn’t accepted anyway), “Good Advice Is Rarer Than Rubies” nevertheless reveals the conflicts inherent in the postcolonial world. As in much of Rushdie’s writing, the story identifies the postcolonial subject, who inhabits multiple identities at once, as the site of many of these conflicts. Women, for example, are described as both manipulative and vulnerable, while Muhammad Ali is a con artist who is duped by his latest target.