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

k with your blue eyes of a foreigner, O God, yaar, how you stink!'
We all stink: Shaheed, who is crushing (with tatter booted heel) a scorpion
on the dirty floor of the abandoned hut; Farooq, searching absurdly for a kn
ife with which to cut his hair; Ayooba, leaning his head against a corner of
the hut while a spider walks along the crown; and the buddha, too: the budd
ha, who stinks to heaven, clutches in his right hand a tarnished silver spit
toon, and is trying to recall his name. And can summon up only nicknames: Sn
otnose, Stainface, Baidy, Sniffer, Piece of the Moon.
… He sat cross legged amid the wailing storm of his companions' fear, forcing
himself to remember; but no, it would not come. And at last the buddha, hurl
ing spittoon against earthen floor, exclaimed to stone deaf ears: 'It's not n
ot fair!'
In the midst of the rubble of war, I discovered fair and unfair. Unfairness
smelled like onions; the sharpness of its perfume brought tears to my eyes
. Seized by the bitter aroma of injustice, I remembered how Jamila Singer h
ad leaned over a hospital bed whose? What name? how military gongs and pips
were also present how my sister no, not my sister! how she how she had sai
d, 'Brother, I have to go away, to sing in service of the country; the Army
will look after you now for me, they will look after you so, so well.' She
was veiled; behind white and gold brocade I smelled her traitress's smile;
through soft veiling fabric she planted on my brow the kiss of her revenge
; and then she, who always wrought a dreadful revenge upon those who loved
her best, left me to the tender mercies of pips and gongs… and after Jamila
's treachery I remembered the long ago ostracism I suffered at the hands of
Evie Burns; and exiles, and picnic tricks; and all the vast mountain of un
reasonable occurrences plaguing my life; and now, I lamented cucumber nose,
stain face, bandy legs, horn temples, monk's tonsure, finger loss, one bad
ear, and the numbing, braining spittoon; I wept copiously now, but still m
y name eluded me, and I repeated 'Not fair; not fair, not fair!' And, surpr
isingly, Ayooba the tank moved away from his corner; Ayooba, perhaps recall
ing his own breakdown in the Sundarbans, squatted down in front of me and w
rapped his one good arm around my neck. I accepted his comfortings; I cried
into his shirt; but then there was a bee, buzzing towards us; while he squ
atted, with his back to the glassless window of the hut, something came whi
ning through the overheated air; while he said, 'Hey, buddha come on, buddh
a hey, hey!' and while other bees, the bees of deafness, buzzed in his ears
, something stung him in the neck. He made a popping noise deep in his thro
at and fell forwards on top of me. The sniper's bullet which killed Ayooba
Baloch would, but for his presence, have speared me through the head. In dy
ing, he saved my life.