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

Let me sum up: at a crucial point in the history of our child nation, at a
time when Five Year Plans were being drawn up and elections were approachin
g and language marchers were fighting over Bombay, a nine year old boy name
d Saleem Sinai acquired a miraculous gift. Despite the many vital uses to w
hich his abilities could have been put by his impoverished, underdeveloped
country, he chose to conceal his talents, frittering them away on inconsequ
ential voyeurism and petty cheating. This behaviour not, I confess, the beh
aviour of a hero was the direct result of a confusion in his mind, which in
variably muddled up morality the desire to do what is right and popularity
the rather more dubious desire to do what is approved of. Fearing parental
ostracism, he suppressed the news of his transformation; seeking parental c
ongratulations, he abused his talents at school. This flaw in his character
can partially be excused on the grounds of his tender years; but only part
ially. Confused thinking was to bedevil much of his career.
I can be quite tough in my self judgements when I choose.
What stood on the flat roof of the Breach Candy Kindergarten a roof, you w
ill recall, which could be reached from the garden of Buckingham Villa, si
mply by climbing over a boundary wall? What, no longer capable of performi
ng the function for which it was designed, watched over us that year when
even the winter forgot to cool down what observed Sonny Ibrahim, Eyeslice,
Hairoil, and myself, as we played kabaddi, and French Cricket, and seven
tiles, with the occasional participation of Cyrus the great and of other,
visiting friends: Fat Perce Fishwala and Glandy Keith Colaco? What was pre
sent on the frequent occasions when Toxy Catrack's nurse Bi Appah yelled d
own from the top floor of Homi's home: 'Brats! Rackety good for nothings!
Shut your noise!'… so that we all ran away, returning (when she vanished f
rom our sight) to make mute faces at the window at which she'd stood? In s
hort, what was it, tall and blue and flaking, which oversaw our lives, whi
ch seemed, for a while, to be marking time, waiting not only for the nearb
y time when we would put on long trousers, but also, perhaps, for the comi
ng of Evie Burns? Perhaps you'd like clues: what had once hidden bombs? In
what had Joseph D'Costa died of snake bite?…
When, after some months of inner torment, I at last sought refuge from grow
n up voices, I found it in an old clocktower, which nobody bothered to lock
; and here, in the solitude of rusting time, I paradoxically took my first
tentative steps towards that involvement with mighty events and public live
s from which I would never again be free… never, until the Widow…
Banned from washing chests, I began, whenever possible, to creep unobserved
into the tower of crippled hours. When the circus ring was emptied by heat
or chance or prying eyes; when Ahmed and Amina went off to the Willingdon
Club for canasta evenings; when the Brass Monkey was away, hanging around h