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

d to stroll down to Chowpatty Beach and buy himself some bhel puri and a li
ttle coconut milk. As he strolled briskly along the pavement by the sea wal
l, he overtook the tail end of a language march, which moved slowly along,
chanting peacefully. Dr Narlikar neared the place where, with the Municipal
Corporation's permission, he had arranged for a single, symbolic tetrapod
to be placed upon the sea wall, as a kind of icon pointing the way to the f
uture; and here he noticed a thing which made him lose his reason. A group
of beggar women had clustered around the tetrapod and were performing the r
ite of puja. They had lighted oil lamps at the base of the object; one of t
hem had painted the ?? symbol on its upraised tip; they were chanting praye
rs as they gave the tetrapod a thorough and worshipful wash. Technological
miracle had been transformed into Shiva lingam; Doctor Narlikar, the oppone
nt of fertility, was driven wild at this vision, in which it seemed to him
that all the old dark priapic forces of ancient, procreative India had been
unleashed upon the beauty of sterile twentieth century concrete… sprinting
along, he shouted his abuse at the worshipping women, gleaming fiercely in
his rage; reaching them, he kicked away their little dia lamps; it is said
he even tried to push the women. And he was seen by the eyes of the language march
The ears of the language marchers heard the roughness of his tongue; the ma
rchers' feet paused, their voices rose in rebuke. Fists were shaken; oaths
were oathed. Whereupon the good doctor, made incautious by anger, turned up
on the crowd and denigrated its cause, its breeding and its sisters. A sile
nce fell and exerted its powers. Silence guided marcher feet towards the gl
eaming gynaecologist, who stood between the tetrapod and the wailing women.
In silence the marchers' hands reached out towards Narlikar and in a deep
hush he clung to four legged concrete as they attempted to pull him towards
them. In absolute soundlessness, fear gave Dr Narlikar the strength of lim
pets; his arms stuck to the tetrapod and would not be detached. The marcher
s applied themselves to the tetrapod… silently they began to rock it; mutel
y the force of their numbers overcame its weight. In an evening seized by a
demonic quietness the tetrapod tilted, preparing to become the first of it
s kind to enter the waters and begin the great work of land reclamation. Dr
Suresh Narlikar, his mouth opening in a voiceless A, clung to it like a ph
osphorescent mollusc… man and four legged concrete fell without a sound. Th
e splash of the waters broke the spell.
It was said that when Dr Narlikar fell and was crushed into death by the wei
ght of his beloved obsession, nobody had any trouble locating the body becau
se it sent light glowing upwards through the waters like a fire.
'Do you know what's happening?' 'Hey, man, what gives?' children, myself in
cluded, clustered around the garden hedge of Escorial Villa, in which was D
r Narlikar's bachelor apartment; and a hamal of Lila Sabarmati's, taking on