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

usand, like sixty one, were all in mufti. The General Officer Commanding (i
n a nattily blue double breasted suit) was Tikka Khan; the officer responsi
ble for Dacca, for its taming and eventual surrender, was called Tiger Niaz
i. He wore bush shirt, slacks and a jaunty little trilby on his head.
Via Ceylon we flew, sixty thousand and sixty one innocent airline passenger
s, avoiding overflying India, and thus losing our chance of watching, from
twenty thousand feet, the celebrations of Indira Gandhi's New Congress Part
y, which had won a landslide victory 350 out of a possible 515 seats in the
Lok Sabha in another recent election. Indira ignorant, unable to see her c
ampaign slogan, garibi hatao, Get Rid of Poverty, blazoned on walls and ban
ners across the great diamond of India, we landed in Dacca in the early spr
ing, and were driven in specially requisitioned civilian buses to a militar
y camp. On this last stage of our journey, however, we were unable to avoid
hearing a snatch of song, issuing from some unseen gramophone. The song wa
s called 'Amar Sonar Bangla' ('Our Golden Bengal', author: R. Tagore) and r
an, in part: 'During spring the fragrance of your mango groves maddens my h
eart with delight.' However, none of us could understand Bengali, so we wer
e protected against the insidious subversion of the lyric, although our fee
t did inadvertently tap (it must be admitted) to the tune.
At first, Ayooba Shaheed Farooq and the buddha were not told the name of
the city to which they had come. Ayooba, envisaging the destruction of ve
getarians, whispered: 'Didn't I tell you? Now we'll show them! Spy stuff,
man! Plain clothes and all! Up and at 'em, Number 22 Unit! Ka bang! Ka d
ang! Ka pow!'
But we were not in India; vegetarians were not our targets; and after days o
f cooling our heels, uniforms were issued to us once again. This second tran
sfiguration took place on March 25th.
On March 25th, Yahya and Bhutto abruptly broke off their talks with Mujib
and returned to the West Wing. Night fell; Brigadier Iskandar, followed by
Najmuddin and Lala Moin, who was staggering under the weight of sixty one
uniforms and nineteen dog collars, burst into the cutia barracks. Now Naj
muddin: 'Snap to it! Actions not words! One two double quick time!' Airlin
e passengers donned uniforms and took up arms; while Brigadier Iskandar at
last announced the purpose of our trip. 'That Mujib,' he revealed, 'We'll
give him what for all right. We'll make him jump for sure!'
(It was on March 25th, after the breakdown of the talks with Bhutto and Yah
ya, that Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman proclaimed the state of Bangladesh.) cutia
units emerged from barracks, piled into waiting jeeps; while, over the loud
speakers of the military base, the recorded voice of Jamila Singer was rais
ed in patriotic hymns. (And Ayooba, nudging the buddha: 'Listen, come on, d
on't you recognize think, man, isn't that your own dear Allah, this type is
good for nothing but sniffing!')