Salman Rushdie Midnight's children Salman Rushdie Midnight's ...

ngs; but she gave a door in my mind a little nudge, so that when an accide
nt took place in a washing chest it was probably Toxy who made it possible.
That's enough for the moment, about the first days of Baby Saleem already m
y very presence is having an effect on history; already Baby Saleem is work
ing changes on the people around him; and, in the case of my father, I am c
onvinced that it was I who pushed him into the excesses which led, perhaps
inevitably, to the terrifying time of the freeze.
Ahmed Sinai never forgave his son for breaking his toe. Even after the spl
int was removed, a tiny limp remained. My father leaned over my crib and s
aid, 'So, my son: you're starting as you mean to go on. Already you've sta
rted bashing your poor old father!' In my opinion, this was only half a jo
ke. Because, with my birth, everything changed for Ahmed Sinai. His positi
on in the household was undermined by my coming. Suddenly Amina's assiduit
y had acquired different goals; she never wheedled money out of him any mo
re, and the napkin in his lap at the breakfast table felt sad pangs of nos
talgia for the old days. Now it was, 'Your son needs so and so,' or 'Janum
, you must give money for such and such.' Bad show, Ahmed Sinai thought. M
y father was a self important man.
And so it was my doing that Ahmed Sinai fell, in those days after my birth, i
nto the twin fantasies which were to be his undoing, into the unreal worlds o
f the djinns and of the land beneath the sea.
A memory of my father in a cool season evening, sitting on my bed (I was sev
en years old) and telling me, in a slightly thickened voice, the story of th
e fisherman who found the djinn in a bottle washed up on the beach… 'Never b
elieve in a djinn's promises, my son! Let them out of the bottle and they'll
eat you up!' And I, timidly because I could smell danger on my father's bre
ath: 'But, Abba, can a djinn really live inside a bottle?' Whereupon my fath
er, in a mercurial change of mood, roared with laughter and left the room, r
eturning with a dark green bottle with a white label. 'Look,' he said sonoro
usly, 'Do you want to see the djinn in here?' 'No!' I squealed in fright; bu
t 'Yes!' yelled my sister the Brass Monkey from the neighbouring bed… and co
wering together in excited terror we watched him unscrew the cap and dramati
cally cover the bottleneck with the palm of his hand; and now, in the other
hand, a cigarette lighter materialized. 'So perish all evil djinns!' my fath
er cried; and, removing his palm, applied the flame to the neck of the bottl
e. Awestruck, the Monkey and I watched an eerie flame, blue green yellow, mo
ve in a slow circle down the interior walls of the bottle; until, reaching t
he bottom, it flared briefly and died. The next day I provoked gales of laug
hter when I told Sonny, Eyeslice and Hairoil, 'My father fights with djinns;
he beats them; it's true!… And it was true. Ahmed Sinai, deprived of wheedl
es and attention, began, soon after my birth, a life long struggle with djin