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

ing mobs are breaking them up. Doctor Aziz, leather bag in hand, is out in
the streets, giving help wherever possible. Trampled bodies have been left
where they fell. He is bandaging wounds, daubing them liberally with Mercur
ochrome, which makes them look bloodier than ever, but at least disinfects
them. Finally he returns to his hotel room, his clothes soaked in red stain
s, and Naseem commences a panic. 'Let me help, let me help, Allah what a ma
n I've married, who goes into gullies to fight with goondas!' She is all ov
er him with water on wads of cotton wool. 'I don't know why can't you be a
respectable doctor like ordinary people are just cure important illnesses a
nd all? ? God you've got blood everywhere! Sit, sit now, let me wash you at least!'
'It isn't blood, wife.'
'You think I can't see for myself with my own eyes? Why must you make a f
ool of me even when you're hurt? Must your wife not look after you, even?
'
'It's Mercurochrome, Naseem. Red medicine.'
Naseem who had become a whirlwind of activity, seizing clothes, running taps
freezes. 'You do it on purpose,' she says, 'to make me look stupid. I am no
t stupid. I have read several books.'
It is April 13th, and they are still in Amritsar. 'This affair isn't finished,
' Aadam Aziz told Naseem. 'We can't go, you see: they may need doctors again.'
'So we must sit here and wait until the end of the world?'
He rubbed his nose. 'No, not so long, I am afraid.'
That afternoon, the streets are suddenly full of people, all moving in the
same direction, defying Dyer's new Martial Law regulations. Aadam tells Nas
eem, 'There must be a meeting planned there will be trouble from the milita
ry. They have banned meetings.'
'Why do you have to go? Why not wait to be called?'
… A compound can be anything from a wasteland to a park. The largest compoun
d in Amritsar is called Jallianwala Bagh. It is not grassy. Stones cans glas
s and other things are everywhere. To get into it, you must walk down a very
narrow alleyway between two buildings. On April 13th, many thousands of Ind
ians are crowding through this alleyway. 'It is peaceful protest,' someone t
ells Doctor Aziz. Swept along by the crowds, he arrives at the mouth of the
alley. A bag from Heidelberg is in his right hand. (No close up is necessary
.) He is, I know, feeling very scared, because his nose is itching worse tha
n it ever has; but he is a trained doctor, he puts it out of his mind, he en
ters the compound. Somebody is making a passionate speech. Hawkers move thro
ugh the crowd selling channa and sweetmeats. The air is filled with dust. Th
ere do not seem to be any goondas, any trouble– makers, as far as my grandfa
ther can see. A group of Sikhs has spread a cloth on the ground and is eatin
g, seated around it. There is still a smell of ordure in the air. Aziz penet
rates the heart of the crowd, as Brigadier R. ?. Dyer arrives at the entranc