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

the promise of our birth!' I had supporters, and none greater than Parvati t
he witch; but I felt them slipping away from me, each distracted by his or h
er own life… just as, in truth, I was being distracted by mine. It was as th
ough our glorious congress was turning out to be more than another of the to
ys of childhood, as though long trousers were destroying what midnight had c
reated… 'We must decide on a programme,' I pleaded, 'our own Five Year Plan,
why not?' But I could hear, behind my anxious broadcast, the amused laughte
r of my greatest rival; and there was SMva in all our heads, saying scornful
ly, 'No, little rich boy; there is no third principle; there is only money a
nd poverty, and have and lack, and right and left; there is only me against
the world! The world is not ideas, rich boy; the world is no place for dream
ers or their dreams; the world, little Snotnose, is things. Things and their
makers rule the world; look at Birla, and Tata, and all the powerful: they
make things. For things, the country is run. Not for people. For things, Ame
rica and Russia send aid; but five hundred million stay hungry. When you hav
e things, then there is time to dream; when you don't, you fight.' The Child
ren, listening fascinatedly as we fought… or perhaps not, perhaps even our d
ialogue failed to hold their interest. And now I: 'But people are not tilings; if we come
st this, this people together, this Conference, this children sticking toget
her through thick and thin, can be that third way…' But Shiva, snorting: 'Li
ttle rich boy, that's all just wind. All that importance of the individual.
All that possibility of human ity. Today, what people are is just another ki
nd of thing.' And I, Saleem, crumbling: 'But… free will… hope… the great sou
l, otherwise known as mahatma, of mankind… and what of poetry, and art, and…
' Whereupon SMva seized his victory: 'You see? I knew you'd turn out to be l
ike that. Mushy, like overcooked rice. Sentimental as a grandmother. Go, who
wants your rubbish? We all have lives to live. Hell's bells, cucumber nose,
I'm fed up with your Conference. It's got nothing to do with one single thi
ng.'
You ask: there are ten year olds? I reply: Yes, but. You say: did ten year
olds, or even almost elevens, discuss the role of the individual in society
? And the rivalry of capital and labour? Were the internal stresses of agra
rian and industrialized zones made explicit? And conflicts in socio cultura
l heritages? Did children of less than four thousand days discuss identity,
and the inherent conflicts of capitalism? Having got through fewer than on
e hundred thousand hours, did they contrast Gandhi and Marxlenin, power and
impotence? Was collectivity opposed to singularity? Was God killed by chil
dren? Even allowing for the truth of the supposed miracles, can we now beli
eve that urchins spoke like old men with beards?
I say: maybe not in these words; maybe not in words at all, but in the purer
language of thought; but yes, certainly, this is what was at the bottom of it