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

pout of Parvati the witch; a certain lock of hero's hair is waiting in the
wings; and also a labour of thirteen days, and history as an analogue of a p
rime minister's hair style; there is to be treason, and fare dodging, and th
e scent (wafting on breezes heavy with the ululations of widows) of somethin
g frying in an iron skillet… so that I, too, am forced to accelerate, to mak
e a wild dash for the finishing line; before memory cracks beyond hope of re
assembly, I must breast the tape. (Although already, already there are fadi
ngs, and gaps; it will be necessary to improvise on occasion.)
Twenty six pickle jars stand gravely on a shelf; twenty six special blends,
each with its identifying label, neatly inscribed with familiar phrases: '
Movements Performed by Pepperpots', for instance, or 'Alpha and Omega', or
'Commander Sabarmati's Baton'. Twenty six rattle eloquently when local trai
ns go yellow and browning past; on my desk, five empty jars tinkle urgently
, reminding me of my uncompleted task. But now I cannot linger over empty p
ickle jars; the night is for words, and green chutney must wait its turn.
… Padma is wistful: 'O, mister, how lovely Kashmir must be in August, when
here it is hot like a chilli!' I am obliged to reprove my plump yet muscled
companion, whose attention has been wandering; and to observe that our Pad
ma Bibi, long suffering tolerant consoling, is beginning to behave exactly
like a traditional Indian wife. (And I, with my distances and self absorpti
on, like a husband?) Of late, in spite of my stoic fatalism about the sprea
ding cracks, I have smelled, on Padma's breath, the dream of an alternative
(but impossible) future; ignoring the implacable finalities of inner fissu
res, she has begun to exude the bitter sweet fragrance of hope for marriage
. My dung lotus, who remained impervious for so long to the sneer lipped ba
rbs hurled by our workforce of downy forearmed women; who placed her cohabi
tation with me outside and above all codes of social propriety, has seeming
ly succumbed to a desire for legitimacy… in short, although she has not sai
d a word on the subject, she is waiting for me to make an honest woman of h
er. The perfume of her sad hopefulness permeates her most innocently solici
tous remarks even at this very moment, as she, 'Hey, mister, why not finish
your writery and then take rest; go to Kashmir, sit quietly for some time
and maybe you will take your Padma also, and she can look after…?' Behind t
his burgeoning dream of a Kashmir! holiday (which was once also the dream o
f Jehangir, the Mughal Emperor; of poor forgotten Ilse Lubin; and, perhaps,
of Christ himself), I nose out the presence of another dream; but neither
this nor that can be fulfilled. Because now the cracks, the cracks and alwa
ys the cracks are narrowing my future towards its single inescapable fullpo
int; and even Padma must take a back seat if I'm to finish my tales.
Today, the papers are talking about the supposed political rebirth of Mrs.
Indira Gandhi; but when I returned to India, concealed in a wicker basket,