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

them at any moment; and then, in a murky corner of the abandoned shrine, th
ey saw the remnants of what might have been four small fires ancient ashes,
scorch marks on stone or perhaps four funeral pyres; and in the centre of
each of the four, a small, blackened, fire eaten heap of uncrushed bones.
How the buddha left the Sundarbans: the forest of illusions unleashed upon t
hem, as they fled from temple towards boat, its last and most terrifying tri
ck; they had barely reached the boat when it came towards them, at first a r
umble in the far distance, then a roar which could penetrate even mud deafen
ed ears, they had untied the boat and leapt wildly into it when the wave cam
e, and now they were at the mercy of the waters, which could have crushed th
em effortlessly against sundri or mangrove or nipa, but instead the tidal wa
ve bore them down turbulent brown channels as the forest of their torment bl
urred past them like a great green wall, it seemed as if the jungle, having
tired of its playthings, were ejecting them unceremoniously from its territo
ry; waterborne, impelled forwards and still forwards by the unimaginable pow
er of the wave, they bobbed pitifully amongst fallen branches and the slough
ed off skins of water snakes, until finally they were hurled from the boat a
s the ebbing wave broke it against a tree stump, they were left sitting in a
drowned rice paddy as the wave receded, in water up to their waists, but al
ive, borne out of the heart of the jungle of dreams, into which I had fled i
n the hope of peace and found both less and more, and back once more in the
world of armies and dates.
When they emerged from the jungle, it was October 1971. And I am bound to a
dmit (but, in my opinion, the fact only reinforces my wonder at the time sh
ifting sorcery of the forest) that there was no tidal wave recorded that mo
nth, although, over a year previously, floods had indeed devastated the reg
ion.
In the aftermath of the Sundarbans, my old life was waiting to reclaim me.
I should have known: no escape from past acquaintance. What you were is f
orever who you are.
For seven months during the course of the year 1971, three soldiers and the
ir tracker vanished off the face of the war. In October, however, when the
rains ended and the guerrilla units of the Mukti Bahini began terrorizing P
akistani military outposts; when Mukti Bahini snipers picked off soldiers a
nd petty officials alike, our quartet emerged from invisibility and, having
little option, attempted to rejoin the main body of the occupying West Win
g forces. Later, when questioned, the buddha would always explain his disap
pearance with the help of a garbled story about being lost in a jungle amid
trees whose roots grabbed at you like snakes. It was perhaps fortunate for
him that he was never formally interrogated by officers in the army of whi
ch he was a member. Ayooba Baloch, Farooq Rashid and Shaheed Dar were not s