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

d melons heaved and… With a dramatic cry, she went on: 'But even then, in t
he time of our world beating fame, every picture a golden jubilee movie, th
is uncle of yours wants to live in a two room flat like a clerk! So I make
no fuss; I am not like some of your cheap type actresses; I live simply and
ask for no Cadillacs or air conditioners or Dunlopillo beds from England; no swimmi
d like bikinis like that Roxy Vishwanatham's! Here, like a wife of the masse
s, I have stayed; here, now, I am rotting! Rotting, absolutely. But I know t
his: my face is my fortune; after that, what riches do I need?' And I, anxio
usly agreeing: 'Mumani, none; none at all.' She shrieked wildly; even my sla
p deafened ear was penetrated. 'Yes, of course, you also want me to be poor!
All the world wants Pia to be in rags! Even that one, your uncle, writing h
is boring boring scripts! ? my God, I tell him, put in dances, or exotic loc
ations! Make your villains villainous, why not, make heroes like men! But he
says, no, all that is rubbish, he sees that now although once he was not so
proud! Now he must write about ordinary people and social problems! And I s
ay, yes, Hanif, do that, that is good; but put in a little comedy routine, a
little dance for your Pia to do, and tragedy and drama also; that is what t
he Public is wanting!' Her eyes were brimming with tears. 'So you know what
he is writing now? About…' she looked as if her heart would break '… the Ord
inary Life of a Pickle Factory!'
'Shh, mumani, shh,' I beg, 'Hanif mamu will hear!'
'Let him hear!' she stormed, weeping copiously now; 'Let his mother hear al
so, in Agra; they will make me die for shame!'
Reverend Mother had never liked her actress daughter in law. I overheard he
r once telling my mother: 'To marry an actress, whatsits name, my son has m
ade his bed in the gutter, soon, whatsitsname, she will be making him drink
alcohol and also eat some pig.' Eventually, she accepted the inevitability
of the match with bad grace; but she took to writing improving epistles to
Pia. 'Listen, daughter,' she wrote, 'don't do this actressy thing. Why to
do such shameless behaviour? Work, yes, you girls have modern ideas, but to
dance naked on the screen! When for a small sum only you could acquire the
concession on a good petrol pump. From my own pocket I would get it for yo
u in two minutes. Sit in an office, hire attendants; that is proper work.'
None of us ever knew whence Reverend Mother acquired her dream of petrol pu
mps, which would be the growing obsession of her old age; but she bombarded
Pia with it, to the actress's disgust.
'Why that woman doesn't ask me to be shorthand typist?' Pia wailed to Han
if and Mary and me at breakfast. 'Why not taxi driver, or handloom weaver
? I tell you, this pumpery shumpery makes me wild.'
My uncle quivered (for once in his life) on the edge of anger. 'There is a chil
d present,' he said, 'and she is your mother; show her respect.'