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

aid, 'No.' She was disappearing down the street; the would be polisher and
watchman gave up eventually; there was a moment when all eyes turned to w
atch the passing of a second car, just in case it, too, stopped to disgorg
e a lady who gave away coins as if they were nuts; and in that instant (I
had been looking through several pairs of eyes to help me choose my moment
) I performed my trick with the pink plastic and was out in the street bes
ide a closed car boot in a flash. Setting my lips grimly, and ignoring all
outstretched palms, I set off in the direction my mother had taken, a poc
ket sized sleuth with the nose of a bloodhound and a loud drum pounding in the place
rrived, a few minutes later, at the Pioneer Cafe.
Dirty glass in the window; dirty glasses on the tables the Pioneer Cafe was
not much when compared to the Gaylords and Kwalitys of the city's more gla
morous parts; a real rutputty joint, with painted boards proclaiming lovely
lassi and funtabulous falooda and bhel puribombay fashion, with filmi play
back music blaring out from a cheap radio by the cash till, a long narrow g
reeny room lit by flickering neon, a forbidding world in which broken tooth
ed men sat at reccine covered tables with crumpled cards and expressionless
eyes. But for all its grimy decrepitude, the Pioneer Cafe was a repository
of many dreams. Early each morning, it would be full of the best looking n
e'er do wells in the city, all the goondas and taxi drivers and petty smugg
lers and racecourse tipsters who had once, long ago, arrived in the city dr
eaming of film stardom, of grotesquely vulgar homes and black money payment
s; because every morning at six, the major studios would send minor functio
naries to the Pioneer Cafe to rope in extras for the day's shooting. For ha
lf an hour each morning, when D. W. Rama Studios and Filmistan Talkies and
R ? Films were taking their pick, the Pioneer was the focus of all the city
's ambitions and hopes; then the studio scouts left, accompanied by the day
's lucky ones, and the Cafe emptied into its habitual, neon lit torpor. Aro
und lunchtime, a different set of dreams walked into the Cafe, to spend the
afternoon hunched over cards and Lovely Lassi and rough bins different men
with different hopes: I didn't know it then, but the afternoon Pioneer was
a notorious Communist Party hangout.
It was afternoon; I saw my mother enter the Pioneer Cafe; not daring to fol
low her, I stayed in the street, pressing my nose against a spider webbed c
orner of the grubby window pane; ignoring the curious glances I got because
my whites, although boot stained, were nevertheless starched; my hair, alt
hough boot rumpled, was well oiled; my shoes, scuffed as they were, were st
ill the plimsolls of a prosperous child I followed her with my eyes as she
went hesitantly and verruca hobbled past rickety tables and hard eyed men;
I saw my mother sit down at a shadowed table at the far end of the narrow c
avern; and then I saw the man who rose to greet her.