Summary

The short story “Good Advice Is Rarer Than Rubies” by Salman Rushdie presents Miss Rehana, a woman who comes to the British Embassy to apply for a visa. Her beauty is noticed by everyone around her, including Muhammad Ali, a man who scams women applying for visas. 

When Muhammad Ali offers to give Miss Rehana advice in exchange for a small sum of money, she confesses that she is poor, so he offers his services for free. Muhammad Ali checks her papers to see if they are in order and finds out that Miss Rehana is engaged to a man in England. Muhammad Ali tells her that many of the women who apply for visas to England on Tuesdays are considered frauds. He also tells Miss Rehana that the clerks at the Embassy will ask her private questions that she might find hard to answer and offers her plenty o...