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

e of the place of revelation, of put off thy shoes, of commandments and gold
en calves; but when all that is said and done; when Ibn Sina is forgotten an
d the moon has set; when snakes lie hidden and revelations end, it is the na
me of the desert of barrenness, infertility, dust; the name of the end.
In Arabia Arabia Deserta at the time of the prophet Muhammad, other prophe
ts also preached: Maslama of the tribe of the Banu Hanifa in the Yamama, t
he very heart of Arabia; and Hanzala ibn Safwan; and Khalid ibn Sinan. Mas
lama's God was ar Rahman, 'the Merciful'; today Muslims pray to Allah, ar
Rahman. Khalid ibn Sinan was sent to the tribe of 'Abs; for a time, he was
followed, but then he was lost. Prophets are not always false simply beca
use they are overtaken, and swallowed up, by history. Men of worth have al
ways roamed the desert.
'Wife,' Ahmed Sinai said, 'this country is finished.' After ceasefire and dra
inage, these words returned to haunt him; and Amina began to persuade him to
emigrate to Pakistan, where her surviving sisters already were, and to which
her mother would go after her father's death. 'A fresh start,' she suggested,
'Janum, it would be lovely. What is left for us on this God forsaken hill?'
So in the end Buckingham Villa was delivered into the clutches of the Narl
ikar women, after all; and over fifteen years late, my family moved to Pak
istan, the Land of the Pure. Ahmed Sinai left very little behind; there ar
e ways of transmitting money with the help of multi national companies, an
d my father knew those ways. And I, although sad to leave the city of my b
irth, was not unhappy about moving away from the city in which Shiva lurke
d somewhere like a carefully concealed land mine.
We left Bombay, finally, in February 1963; and on the day of our departure I
took an old tin globe down to the garden and buried it amongst the cacti. I
nside it: a Prime Minister's letter, and a jumbo sized front page baby snap,
captioned 'Midnight's Child'… They may not be holy relics I do not presume
to compare the trivial memorabilia of my life with the Hazratbal hair of the
Prophet, or the body of St Francis Xavier in the Cathedral of Bom Jesus but
they are all that has survived of my past: a squashed tin globe, a mildewed
letter, a photograph. Nothing else, not even a silver spittoon. Apart from
a Monkey crushed planet, the only records are sealed in the closed books of
heaven, Sidjeen and Illiyun, the Books of Evil and Good; at any rate, that's
the story.
… Only when we were aboard S.S. Sabarmati, and anchored off the Rann of Kut
ch, did I remember old Schaapsteker; and wondered, suddenly, if anyone had
told him we were going. I didn't dare to ask, for fear that the answer migh
t be no; so as I thought of the demolition crew getting to work, and pictur
ed the machines of destruction smashing into my father's office and my own
blue room, pulling down the servants' spiral iron staircase and the kitchen