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

so wonderful that rumours of it spread throughout the Old City, and crowds
gathered to watch, Muslim businessmen from a nearby muhalla in which once
a public announcement had been made and silversmiths and milk shake vendors
from Chandni Chowk, evening strollers and Japanese tourists who all (on th
is occasion) wore surgical face masks out of politeness, so as not to infec
t us with their exhaled germs; and there were pink Europeans discussing cam
era lenses with the Japanese, there were shutters clicking and flash bulbs
popping, and I was told by one of the tourists that India was indeed a trul
y wonderful country with many remarkable traditions, and would be just fine
and perfect if one did not constantly have to eat Indian food. And at the
valima, the consummation ceremony (at which, on this occasion, no bloodstai
ned sheets were held up, with or without perforations, since I had spent ou
r nuptial night with my eyes shut tight and my body averted from my wife's,
lest the unbearable features of Jamila Singer come to haunt me. in the bew
ilderment of the dark), the magicians surpassed their efforts of the wedding night.
But when all the excitement had died down, I heard (with one good and one bad
ear) the inexorable sound of the future stealing up upon us: tick, tock, lou
der and louder, until the birth of Saleem Sinai and also of the baby's father
found a mirror in the events of the night of the 25th of June.
While mysterious assassins killed government officials, and narrowly failed
to get rid of Mrs Gandhi's personally chosen Chief Justice, A. N. Ray, the
magicians' ghetto concentrated on another mystery: the ballooning basket o
f Parvati the witch.
While the Janata Morcha grew in all kinds of bizarre directions, until it
embraced Maoist Communists (such as our very own contortionists, including
the rubber limbed triplets with whom Parvati had lived before our marriag
e since the nuptials, we had moved into a hut of our own, which the ghetto
had built for us as a wedding present on the site of Resham's hovel) and
extreme right wing members of the Ananda Marg; until Left Socialists and c
onservative Swatantra members joined its ranks… while the people's front e
xpanded in this grotesque manner, I, Saleem, wondered incessantly about wh
at might be growing behind the expanding frontage of my wife.
While public discontent with the Indira Congress threatened to crush the gov
ernment like a fly, the brand new Laylah Sinai, whose eyes had grown wider t
han ever, sat as still as a stone while the weight of the baby increased unt
il it threatened to crush her bones to powder; and Picture Singh, in an inno
cent echo of an ancient remark, said, 'Hey, captain! It's going to be big bi
g: a real ten chip whopper for sure!'
And then it was the twelfth of June.
History books newspapers radio programmes tell us that at two p.m. on June