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

Ahmed Sinai, his face ravaged by whisky and now by something worse, stand
s beside the Venetian blind. Amina, speaking in whispers. Again, snatches
across the million miles of distance. Janumplease. Ibegyou. No, what are
you saying. Of course it was. Of course you are the. How could you think
I would. Who could it have. ? God don't just stand and look. I swear Isw
earonmymother'shead. Now shh he is…
A new song from Tony Brent, whose repertoire today is uncannily similar to
Wee Willie Winkie's: 'How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?' hangs in the
air, floating on radio waves. My father advances on my bed, towers over me,
I've never seen him look like this before. 'Abba…' And he, 'I should have
known. Just look, where am I in that face. That nose, I should have…' He tu
rns on his heel and leaves the room; my mother follows him, too distraught
to whisper now: 'No, janum, I won't let you believe such things about me! I
'll kill myself! I'll,' and the door swings shut behind them. There is a no
ise outside: like a clap. Or a slap. Most of what matters in your life take
s place in your absence.
Tony Brent begins crooning his latest hit into my good ear: and assures me,
melodiously, that 'The Clouds Will Soon Roll By'.
… And now I, Saleem Sinai, intend briefly to endow my self then with the be
nefits of hindsight; destroying the unities and conventions of fine writing
, I make him cognizant of what was to come, purely so that he can be permit
ted to think the following thoughts: 'O eternal opposition of inside and ou
tside! Because a human being, inside himself, is anything but a whole, anyt
hing but homogeneous; all kinds of everywhichthing are jumbled up inside hi
m, and he is one person one minute and another the next. The body, on the o
ther hand, is homogeneous as anything. Indivisible, a one piece suit, a sac
red temple, if you will. It is important to preserve this wholeness. But th
e loss of my finger (which was conceivably foretold by the pointing digit o
f Raleigh's fisherman), not to mention the removal of certain hairs from my
head, has undone all that. Thus we enter into a state of affairs which is
nothing short of revolutionary; and its effect on history is bound to be pr
etty damn startling. Uncork the body, and God knows what you permit to come
tumbling out. Suddenly you are forever other than you were; and the world
becomes such that parents can cease to be parents, and love can turn to hat
e. And these, mark you, are only the effects on private life. The consequen
ces for the sphere of public action, as will be shown, are were will be no
less profound.'
Finally, withdrawing my gift of foreknowledge, I leave you with the image of
a ten year old boy with a bandaged finger, sitting in a hospital bed, musin
g about blood and noises like claps and the expression on his father's face;
zooming out slowly into long shot, I allow the sound track music to drown m