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

d her limitless powers to spirit me to safety, escaped discovery; and also be
cause, as I later discovered, the ghetto of the magicians disbelieved, with t
he absolute certainty of illusionists by trade, in the possibility of magic.
So Picture Singh told me, with amazement, 'I swear, captain you were so light
in there, like a baby!' But he never dreamed that my weightlessness had been
anything more than a trick.
'Listen, baby sahib,' Picture Singh was crying, 'What do you say, baby cap
tain? Must I put you over my shoulder and make you belch?' And now Parvati
, tolerantly: 'That one, baba, always making joke shoke.' She was smiling
radiantly at everyone in sight… but there followed an inauspicious event.
A woman's voice began to wail at the back of the cluster of magicians: 'Ai
o ai o! Ai o o!' The crowd parted in surprise and an old woman burst thro
ugh it and rushed at Saleem; I was required to defend myself against a bra
ndished frying pan, until Picture Singh, alarmed, seized her by pan waving
arm and bellowed, 'Hey, capteena, why so much noise?' And the old woman,
obstinately: 'Ai o ai o!'
'Resham Bibi,' Parvati said, crossly, 'You got ants in your brain?' And Pict
ure Singh, 'We got a guest, capteena what'll he do with your shouting? Arre,
be quiet, Resham, this captain is known to our Parvati personal! Don't be c
oming crying in front of him!'
'Ai o ai o! Bad luck is come! You go to foreign places and bring it here! Ai
oooo!'
Disturbed visages of magicians stared from Resham Bibi to me because althou
gh they were a people who denied the supernatural, they were artistes, and
like all performers had an implicit faith in luck, good luck and bad luck,
luck… 'Yourself you said,' Resham Bibi wailed, 'this man is born twice, and
not even from woman! Now comes desolation, pestilence and death. I am old
and so I know. Arre baba,' she turned plaintively to face me, 'Have pity on
ly; go now go go quick!' There was a murmur 'It is true, Resham Bibi knows
the old stories' but then Picture Singh became angry. 'The captain is my ho
noured guest,' he said, 'He stays in my hut as long as he wishes, for short
or for long. What are you all talking? This is no place for fables.'
Saleem Sinai's first sojourn at the magicians' ghetto lasted only a matter o
f days; but during that short time, a number of things happened to allay the
fears which had been raised by ai o ai o. The plain, unadorned truth is tha
t, in those days, the ghetto illusionists and other artistes began to hit ne
w peaks of achievement jugglers managed to keep one thousand and one balls i
n the air at a time, and a fakir's as yet untrained protegee strayed on to a
bed of hot coals, only to stroll across it unconcerned, as though she had a
cquired her mentor's gifts by osmosis; I was told that the rope trick had be
en successfully performed. Also, the police failed to make their monthly rai
d on the ghetto, which had not happened within living memory; and the camp r