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

aligned in the war between our parents; what war had done for India, the ce
ssation of hostilities had achieved on our two storey hillock. Ahmed Sinai
had even given up his nightly battle with the djinns.
By November 1st indians attack under cover of artillery my nasal passages w
ere in a state of acute crisis. Although my mother subjected me to daily to
rture by Vick's Inhaler and steaming bowls of Vick's ointment dissolved in
water, which, blanket over head, I was obliged to try and inhale, my sinuse
s refused to respond to treatment. This was the day on which my father held
out his arms to me and said, 'Come, son come here and let me love you.' In
a frenzy of happiness (maybe the optimism disease had got to me, after all
) I allowed myself to be smothered in his squashy belly; but when he let me
go, nose goo had stained his bush shirt. I think that's what finally doome
d me; because that afternoon, my mother went on to the attack. Pretending t
o me that she was telephoning a friend, she made a certain telephone call.
While Indians attacked under cover of artillery, Amina Sinai planned my dow
nfall, protected by a lie.
Before I describe my entry into the desert of my later years, however, I mus
t admit the possibility that I have grievously wronged my parents. Never onc
e, to my knowledge, never once in all the time since Mary Pereira's revelati
ons, did they set out to look for the true son of their blood; and I have, a
t several points in this narrative, ascribed this failure to a certain lack
of imagination I have said, more or less, that I remained their son because
they could not imagine me out of the role. And there are worse interpretatio
ns possible, too such as their reluctance to accept into their bosom an urch
in who had spent eleven years in the gutter; but I wish to suggest a nobler
motive: maybe, despite everything, despite cucumber nose stainface chinlessn
ess horn temples bandy legs finger loss monk's tonsure and my (admittedly un
known to them) bad left ear, despite even the midnight baby swap of Mary Per
eira… maybe, I say, in spite of all these provocations, my parents loved me.
I withdrew from them into my secret world; fearing their hatred, I did not
admit the possibility that their love was stronger than ugliness, stronger e
ven then blood. It is certainly likely that what a telephone call arranged,
what finally took place on November 21st, 1962, was done for the highest of
reasons; that my parents ruined me for love.
The day of November 20th was a terrible day; the night was a terrible night
… six days earlier, on Nehru's seventy third birthday, the great confrontat
ion with the Chinese forces had begun; the Indian army jawans swing into ac
tion! had attacked the Chinese at Walong. News of the disaster of Walong, a
nd the rout of General Kaul and four battalions, reached Nehru on Saturday
18th; on Monday 20th, it flooded through radio and press and arrived at Met
hwold's Estate. ultimate panic in new delhi! indian forces in tatters! That
day the last day of my old life I sat huddled with my sister and parents a