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

at the scene of great historical events; he glanced towards his gifted sist
er with something in his eyes which looked like shame.
That afternoon, Mutasim the Handsome took Jamila's brother Saleem to one s
ide and tried hard to make friends; he showed Saleem the peacocks imported
from Rajasthan before Partition and the Nawab's precious collection of bo
oks of spells, from which he extracted such talismans and incantations as
would help him rule with sagacity; and while Mutasim (who was not the most
intelligent or cautious of youths) was escorting Saleem around the polo f
ield, he confessed that he had written out a love charm on a piece of parc
hment, in the hope of pressing it against the hand of the famous Jamila Si
nger and making her fall in love. At this point Saleem acquired the air of
a bad tempered dog and tried to turn away; but Mutasim now begged to know
what Jamila Singer really looked like. Saleem, however, kept his silence;
until Mutasim, in the grip of a wild obsession, asked to be brought close
enough to Jamila to press his charm against her hand. Now Saleem, whose s
ly look did not register on love struck Mutasim, said, 'Give me the parchm
ent'; and Mutasim, who, though expert in the geography of European cities,
was innocent in things magical, yielded his charm to Saleem, thinking it
would still work on his behalf, even if applied by another.
Evening approached at the palace; the convoy of cars bringing General and Be
gum Zulfikar, their son Zafar, and friends, approached, too. But now the win
d changed, and began to blow from the north: a cold wind, and also an intoxi
cating one, because in the north of Kif were the best hashish fields in the
land, and at this time of year the female plants were ripe and in heat. The
air was filled with the perfume of the heady lust of the plants, and all who
breathed it became doped to some extent. The vacuous beatitude of the plant
s affected the drivers in the convoy, which only reached the palace by great
good fortune, having overturned a number of street side barber stalls and i
nvaded at least one tea shop, leaving the Kifis wondering whether the new ho
rseless carriages, having stolen the streets, were now going to capture thei
r homes as well.
The wind from the north entered the enormous and highly sensitive nose of
Saleem, Jamila's brother, and made him so drowsy that he fell asleep in hi
s room; so that he missed the events of an evening during which, he afterw
ards learned, the hashashin wind had transformed the behaviour of the gues
ts at the engagement ceremony, making them giggle convulsively and gaze pr
ovocatively at one another through heavy lidded eyes; braided Generals sat
splay legged on gilded chairs and dreamed of Paradise. The mehndi ceremon
y took place amid a sleepy contentment so profound that nobody noticed whe
n the bridegroom relaxed so completely that he wet his pants; and even the
quarrelling badmashes from the C.O.P. linked arms and sang a folk song. A
nd when Mutasim the Handsome, possessed by the lustiness of hashish plants