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

I2th, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found guilty, by Judge Jag Mohan L
al Sinha of the Allahabad High Court, of two counts of campaign malpractic
e during the election campaign of 1971; what has never previously been rev
ealed is that it was at precisely two p.m. that Parvati the witch (now Lay
lah Sinai) became sure she had entered labour.
The labour of Parvati Laylah lasted for thirteen days. On the first day, whi
le the Prime Minister was refusing to resign, although her convictions carri
ed with them a mandatory penalty barring her from public office for six year
s, the cervix of Parvati the witch, despite contractions as painful as mule
kicks, obstinately refused to dilate; Saleem Sinai and Picture Singh, barred
from the hut of her torment by the contortionist triplets who had taken on
the dudes of mid wives, were obliged to listen to her useless shrieks until
a steady stream of fire eaters card sharpers coal walkers came up and slappe
d them on the back and made dirty jokes; and it was only in my ears that the
ticking could be heard… a countdown to God knows what, until I became posse
ssed by fear, and told Picture Singh, 'I don't know what's going to come out
of her, but it isn't going to be good…' And Pictureji, reassuringly: 'Don't
you worry, captain! Everything will be fine! A ten chip whopper, I swear!'
And Parvati, screaming screaming, and night fading into day, and on the seco
nd day, when in Gujarat Mrs Gandhi's electoral candidates were routed by the
Janata Morcha, my Parvati was in the grip of pains so intense that they mad
e her as stiff as steel, and I refused to eat until the baby was born or wha
tever happened happened, I sat cross legged outside the hovel of her agony,
shaking with terror in the heat, begging don't let her die don't let her die
, although I had never made love to her during all the months of our marriag
e; in spite of my fear of the spectre of Jamila Singer, I prayed and fasted,
although Picture Singh, 'For pity's sake, captain,' I refused, and by the n
inth day the ghetto had fallen into a terrible hush, a silence so absolute t
hat not even the calls of the muezzin of the mosque could penetrate it, a so
undlessness of such immense powers that it shut out the roars of the Janata
Morcha demonstrations outside Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President's house, a h
orror struck muteness of the same awful enveloping magic as the great silence which h
he ninth day we could not hear Morarji Desai calling on President Ahmad to s
ack the disgraced Prime Minister, and the only sounds in the entire world we
re the ruined whimperings of Parvati Laylah, as the contractions piled upon
her like mountains, and she sounded as though she were calling to us down a
long hollow tunnel of pain, while I sat cross legged being dismembered by he
r agony with the soundless sound of ticktock in my brain, and inside the hut
there were the contortionist triplets pouring water over Parvati's body to
replenish the moisture which was pouring out of her in fountains, forcing a
stick between her teeth to prevent her from biting out her tongue, and tryin