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

The silence in the shack was punctuated by sibilant snakes and the calls of w
ild dogs in the night.
'You're telling truth, captain? Is a medical fact?'
'Yes'
'Because one must not lie about such things, captain. To lie about one's ma
nhood is bad, bad luck. Anything could happen, captain.
And I, wishing upon myself the curse of Nadir Khan, which was also the curse
of my uncle Hanif Aziz and, during the freeze and its long aftermath, of my
father Ahmed Sinai, was goaded into lying even more angrily: 'I tell you,'
Saleem cried, 'it ,s true, and that s that!'
Then, captain,' Pictureji said tragically, smacking wrist against forehead, 'G
od knows what to do with that poor girl.'
A wedding
I married Parvati the witch on February 23rd, 1975, the second anniversary o
f my outcast's return to the magicians' ghetto.
Stiffening of Padma: taut as a washing line, my dung lotus inquires: 'Marr
ied? But last night only you said you wouldn't and why you haven't told me
all these days, weeks, months… ?' I look at her sadly, and remind her tha
t I have already mentioned the death of my poor Parvati, which was not a n
atural death… slowly Padma uncoils, as I continue: 'Women have made me; an
d also unmade. From Reverend Mother to the Widow, and even beyond, I have
been at the mercy of the so called (erroneously, in my opinion!) gentler s
ex. It is, perhaps, a matter of connection: is not Mother India, Bharat Ma
ta, commonly thought of as female? And, as you know, there's no escape fro
m her.'
There have been thirty two years, in this story, during which I remained un
born; soon, I may complete thirty one years of my own. For sixty three year
s, before and after midnight, women have done their best; and also, I'm bou
nd to say, their worst.
In a blind landowner's house on the shores of a Kashmir! lake, Naseem Aziz d
oomed me to the inevitability of perforated sheets; and in the waters of tha
t same lake, Ilse Lubin leaked into history, and I have not forgotten her de
athwish;
Before Nadir Khan hid in his underworld, my grandmother had, by becomin
g Reverend Mother, begun a sequence of women who changed their names, a
sequence which continues even today– and which even leaked into Nadir,
who became Qasim, and sat with dancing hands in the Pioneer Cafe; and
after Nadir's departure, my mother Mumtaz Aziz became Amina Sinai;
And Alia, with the bitterness of ages, who clothed me in the baby things i
mpregnated with her old maid fury; and Emerald, who laid a table on which