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

topped talking, the march of the table service also came to an end. Ayub K
han seemed to settle down in his chair; was the wink he gave me just my im
agination? at any rate, the Commander in Chief said, 'Very good, Zulfikar;
good show.'
In the movements performed by pepperpots etcetera, one table ornament remai
ned uncaptured: a cream jug in solid silver, which, in our table top coup,
represented the Head of State, President Iskander Mirza; for three weeks, M
irza remained President.
An eleven year old boy cannot judge whether a President is truly corrupt, e
ven if gongs and pips say he is; it is not for eleven year olds to say whet
her Mirza's association with the feeble Republican Party should have disqua
lified him from high office under the new regime. Saleem Sinai made no poli
tical judgments; but when, inevitably at midnight, on November 1st, my uncl
e shook me awake and whispered, 'Come on, sonny, it's time you got a taste
of the real thing!', I leaped out of bed smartly; I dressed and went out in
to the night, proudly aware that my uncle had preferred my company to that
of his own son.
Midnight. Rawalpindi speeding past us at seventy m.p.h. Motorcycles in fron
t of us beside us behind us. 'Where are we going Zulfy uncle?' Wait and see
. Black smoked windowed limousine pausing at darkened house. Sentries guard
the door with crossed rifles; which part, to let us through. I am marching
at my uncle's side, in step, through half lit corridors; until we burst in
to a dark room with a shaft of moonlight spotlighting a four poster bed. A
mosquito net hangs over the bed like a shroud.
There is a man waking up, startled, what the hell is going… But General Zul
fikar has a long barrelled revolver; the tip of the gun is forced mmff betw
een the man's parted teeth. 'Shut up,' my uncle says, superfluously. 'Come
with us.' Naked overweight man stumbling from his bed. His eyes, asking: Ar
e you going to shoot me? Sweat rolls down ample belly, catching moonlight,
dribbling on to his soo soo; but it is bitterly cold; he is not perspiring
from the heat. He looks like a white Laughing Buddha; but not laughing. Shi
vering. My uncle's pistol is extracted from his mouth. 'Turn. Quick march!'
… And gun barrel pushed between the cheeks of an overfed rump. The man crie
s, 'For God's sake be careful; that thing has the safety off!' Jawans giggl
e as naked flesh emerges into moonlight, is pushed into black limousine… Th
at night, I sat with a naked man as my uncle drove him to a military airfie
ld; I stood and watched as the waiting aircraft taxied, accelerated, flew.
What began, active metaphorically, with pepperpots, ended then; not only di
d I overthrow a government I also consigned a president to exile.
Midnight has many children; the offspring of Independence were not all huma
n. Violence, corruption, poverty, generals, chaos, greed and pepperpots… I
had to go into exile to learn that the children of midnight were more varie