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

I) had been cleansed of the whole business; that after my vengeful abando
nment by Jamila Singer, who wormed me into the Army to get me out her sight
, I (or he) accepted the fate which was my repayment for love, and sat unco
mplaining under a chinar tree; that, emptied of history, the buddha learned
the arts of submission, and did only what was required of him. To sum up:
I became a citizen of Pakistan.
It was arguably inevitable that, during the months of training, the buddha sh
ould begin to irritate Ayooba Baloch. Perhaps it was because he chose to live
apart from the soldiers, in a straw lined ascetic's stall at the far end of
the kennel barracks; or because he was so often to be found sitting cross leg
ged under his tree, silver spittoon clutched in hand, with unfocused eyes and
a foolish smile on his lips as if he were actually happy that he'd lost his
brains! What's more, Ayooba, the apostle of meat, may have found his tracker
insufficiently virile. 'Like a brinjal, man,' I permit Ayooba to complain, 'I
swear a vegetable!'
(We may also, taking the wider view, assert that irritation was in the air
at the year's turn. Were not even General Yahya and Mr Bhutto getting hot
and bothered about the petulant insistence of Sheikh Mujib on his right t
o form the new government? The wretched Bengali's Awami League had won 160
out of a possible 162 East Wing seats; Mr Bhutto's P.P.P. had merely take
n 81 Western constituencies. Yes, an irritating election. It is easy to im
agine how irked Yahya and Bhutto, West Wingers both, must have been! And w
hen even the mighty wax peevish, how is one to blame the small man? The ir
ritation of Ayooba Baloch, let us conclude, placed him in excellent, Dot t
o say exalted company.)
On training manoeuvres, when Ayooba Shaheed Farooq scrambled after the budd
ha as he followed the faintest of trails across bush rocks streams, the thr
ee boys were obliged to admit his skill; but still Ayooba, tank like, deman
ded: 'Don't you remember really? Nothing? Allah, you don't feel bad? Somewh
ere you've maybe got mother father sister,' but the buddha interrupted him
gently: 'Don't try and fill my head with that history. I am who I am, that'
s all there is.' His accent was so pure, 'Really classy Lucknow type Urdu,
wah wah!' Farooq said admiringly, that Ayooba Baloch, who spoke coarsely, l
ike a tribesman, fell silent; and the three boys began to believe the rumou
rs even more fervently. They were unwillingly fascinated by this man with h
is nose like a cucumber and his head which rejected memories families histo
ries, which contained absolutely nothing except smells… 'like a bad egg tha
t somebody sucked dry,' Ayooba muttered to his companions, and then, return
ing to his central theme, added, 'Allah, even his nose looks like a vegetab
le.'
Their uneasiness lingered. Did they sense, in the buddha's numbed blankness,