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

w many millions of damn fools living in this country, man, and you think th
ere's a purpose! Man, I'll tell you you got to get what you can, do what yo
u can with it, and then you got to die. That's reason, rich boy. Everything
else is only mother sleeping wind!'
And now I, in my midnight bed, begin to shake… 'But history,' I say, 'and th
e Prime Minister wrote me a letter… and don't you even believe in… who knows
what we might…' He, my alter ego, Shiva, butted in: 'Lissen, little boy you
're so full of crazy stuff, I can see I'm going to have to take this thing o
ver. You tell that to all these other freak kids!'
Nose and knees and knees and nose… the rivalry that began that night would
never be ended, until two knives slashed, downdown down… whether the spir
its of Mian Abdullah, whom knives killed years before, had leaked into me,
imbuing me with the notion of loose federalism and making me vulnerable t
o knives, I cannot say; but at that point I found a measure of courage and
told Shiva, 'You can't run the Conference; without me, they won't even be
able to listen to you!'
And he, confirming the declaration of war: 'Rich kid, they'll want to know a
bout me; you just try and stop me!'
'Yes,' I told him, I'll try.'
Shiva, the god of destruction, who is also most potent of deities; Shiva, g
reatest of dancers; who rides on a bull; whom no force can resist… the boy
Shiva, he told us, had to fight for survival from his earliest days. And wh
en his father had, about a year previously, completely lost his singing voi
ce, Shiva had had to defend himself against Wee Willie Winkie's parental ze
al. 'He blindfolded me, man! He wrapped a rag around my eyes an' took me to
the roof of the chawl, man! You know what was in his hand? A sister sleepi
ng hammer, man! A hammer! Bastard was going to smash my legs up, man it hap
pens, you know, rich boy, they do it to kids so they can always earn money
begging you get more if you're all broken up, man! So I'm pushed over till
I'm lying down on the roof, man; and then ' And then hammer swinging down t
owards knees larger and knobblier than any policeman's, an easy target, but
now the knees went into action, faster than lightning the knees parted fel
t the breath of the down rushing hammer and spread wide apart; and then ham
mer plunging between knees, still held in his father's hand; and then, the
knees rushing together like fists. The hammer, clattering harmlessly on con
crete. The wrist of Wee Willie Winkie, clamped between the knees of his bli
ndfolded son. Hoarse breaths escaping from the lips of the anguished father
. And still the knees, closing ininin, tighter and tighter, until there is
a snap. 'Broke his goddamn wrist, man! That showed him damn fine, no? I swe
ar!'