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

nd love, to us women, is the greatest thing of all.)
'So I have been to a holy man, who taught me what I must do. Then with my
few pice I have taken a bus into the country to dig for herbs, with which
your manhood could be awakened from its sleep… imagine, mister, I have spo
ken magic with these words: 'Herb thou hast been uprooted by Bulls!' Then
I have ground herbs in water and milk and said, 'Thou potent and lusty her
b! Plant which Varuna had dug up for him by Gandharva! Give my Mr Saleem t
hy power. Give heat like that of Fire of Indra. Like the male antelope, ?
herb, thou hast all the force that Is, thou hast powers of Indra, and the
lusty force of beasts.'
'With this preparation I returned to find you alone as always and as always
with your nose in paper. But jealousy, I swear, I have put behind me; it s
its on the face and makes it old. ? God forgive me, quietly I put the prepa
ration in your food!… And then, hai hai, may Heaven forgive me, but I am a
simple woman, if holy men tell me, how should I argue?… But now at least yo
u are better, thanks be to God, and maybe you will not be angry.'
Under the influence of Padma's potion, I became delirious for a week. My d
ung lotus swears (through much gnashed teeth) that I was stiff as a board,
with bubbles around my mouth. There was also a fever. In my delirium I ba
bbled about snakes; but I know that Padma is no serpent, and never meant m
e harm.
'This love, mister,' Padma is wailing, 'It will drive a woman to craziness.'
I repeat: I don't blame Padma. At the feet of the Western Ghats, she searc
hed for the herbs of virility, mucuna pruritus and the root of feronia ele
phantum; who knows what she found? Who knows what, mashed with milk and mi
ngled with my food, flung my innards into that state of'churning' from whi
ch, as all students of Hindu cosmology will know, Indra created matter, by
stirring the primal soup in his own great milk churn? Never mind. It was
a noble attempt; but I am beyond regeneration the Widow has done for me. N
ot even the real mucuna could have put an end to my incapacity; feronia wo
uld never have engendered in me the 'lusty force of beasts'.
Still, I am at my table once again; once again Padma sits at my feet, urging
me on. I am balanced once more the base of my isosceles triangle is secure.
I hover at the apex, above present and past, and feel fluency returning to
my pen.
A kind of magic has been worked, then; and Padma's excursion in search of lo
ve potions has connected me briefly with that world of ancient learning and
sorcerers' lore so despised by most of us nowadays; but (despite stomach cra
mps and fever and frothings at the mouth) I'm glad of its irruption into my
last days, because to contemplate it is to regain a little, lost sense of pr
oportion.
Think of this: history, in my version, entered a new phase on August 15th,