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

eyed, diving ininin: to where Evie stands in the doorway of a clapboard be
droom holding a, holding a something sharp and glinty with red dripping of
f it, in the doorway of a, my God and on the bed a woman, who, in a pink,
my God, and Evie with the, and red staining the pink, and a man coming, my
God, and no no no no no…
'get out get out get out!' Bewildered children watch as Evie screams, la
nguage march forgotten, but suddenly remembered again, because Evie has
grabbed the back of the Monkey's bike what're YOU DOING EVIE as she push
es it THERE GET OUT YA BUM THERE get out to hell! She's pushed me hard a
s hard, and I losing control hurtling down the slope round the end of th
e U bend downdown, my god the march past Band Box laundry, past Noor Vil
le and Laxmi Vilas, aaaaa and down into the mouth of the march, heads fe
et bodies, the waves of the march parting as I arrive, yelling blue murd
er, crashing into history on a runaway, young girl's bike.
Hands grabbing handlebars as I slow down in the impassioned throng. Smiles
filled with good teeth surround me. They are not friendly smiles. 'Look loo
k, a little laad sahib comes down to join us from the big rich hill!' In Ma
rathi which I hardly understand, it's my worst subject at school, and the s
miles asking, 'You want to join S.M.S., little princeling?' And I, just abo
ut knowing what's being said, but dazed into telling the truth, shake my he
ad No. And the smiles, 'Oho! The young nawab does not like our tongue! What
does he like?' And another smile, 'Maybe Gujarati! You speak Gujarati, my
lord?' But my Gujarati was as bad as my Marathi; I only knew one thing in t
he marshy tongue of Kathiawar; and the smiles, urging, and the fingers, pro
dding, 'Speak, little master! Speak some Gujarati!' so I told them what I k
new, a rhyme I'd learned from Glandy Keith Colaco at school, which he used
when he was bullying Gujarati boys, a rhyme designed to make fun of the spe
ech rhythms of the language:
@@@Soo che? Saru che!
Danda le ke maru che!
How are you? I am well! ?II take a stick and thrash you to hell! A nonsense;
a nothing; nine words of emptiness… but when I'd retited them, the smiles b
egan to laugh; and then voices near me and then further and further away beg
an to take up my chant, how are you? I am well!, and they lost interest in m
e, 'Go go with your bicycle, masterji,' they scoffed, i'll take a stick and
thrash you ?? hell, I fled away up the hillock as my chant rushed forward an
d back, up to the front .and down to the back of the two day long procession
, becoming, as it went, a song of war.
That afternoon, the head of the procession of the Samyukta Maharashtra Sami
ti collided at Kemp's Corner, with the head of a Maha Gujarat Parishad demo