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

the great charged a fee. In exchange for anatomy, he demanded comic books
and I, in all innocence, gave him a copy of that most precious of Superman
comics, the one containing the frame story, about the explosion of the pl
anet Krypton and the rocket ship in which Jor El his father despatched him
through space, to land on earth and be adopted by the good, mild Kents… d
id nobody else see it? In all those years, did no person understand that w
hat Mrs Dubash had done was to rework and reinvent the most potent of all
modern myths the legend of the coming of the superman? I saw the hoardings
trumpeting the coming of Lord Khusro Khusrovand Bhagwan; and found myself
obliged, yet again, to accept responsibility for the events of my turbule
nt, fabulous world.
How I admire the leg muscles of my solicitous Padma! There she squats, a fe
w feet from my table, her sari hitched up in fisherwoman fashion. Calf musc
les show no sign of strain; thigh muscles, rippling through sari folds, dis
play their commendable stamina. Strong enough to squat forever, simultaneou
sly defying gravity and cramp, my Padma listens unhurriedly to my lengthy t
ale; ? mighty pickle woman! What reassuring solidity, how comforting an air
of permanence, in her biceps and triceps… for my admiration extends also t
o her arms, which could wrestle mine down in a trice, and from which, when
they enfold me nightly in futile embraces, there is no escape. Past our cri
sis now, we exist in perfect harmony: I recount, she is recounted to; she m
inisters, and I accept her ministrations with grace. I am, in fact, entirel
y content with the uncomplaining thews of Padma Mangroli, who is, unaccount
ably, more interested in me than my tales.
Why I have chosen to expound on Padma's musculature: these days, it's to th
ose muscles, much as to anything or one (for instance, my son, who hasn't e
ven learned to read as yet), that I'm telling my story. Because I am rushin
g ahead at breakneck speed; errors are possible, and overstatements, and ja
rring alterations in tone; I'm racing the cracks, but I remain conscious th
at errors have already been made, and that, as my decay accelerates (my wri
ting speed is having trouble keeping up), the risk of unreliability grows…
in this condition, I am learning to use Padma's muscles as my guides. When
she's bored, I can detect in her fibres the ripples of uninterest; when she
's unconvinced, there is a tic which gets going in her cheek. The dance of
her musculature helps to keep me on the rails; because in autobiography, as
in all literature, what actually happened is less important than what the
author can manage to persuade his audience to believe… Padma, having accept
ed the story of Cyrus the great, gives me the courage to speed on, into the
worst time of my eleven year old life (there is, was, worse to come) into
the August and September when revelations flowed faster than blood.
Nodding signboards had scarcely been taken down when the demolition crews