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

what why. Afterwards, when I had remembered how to ask questions, I discov
ered that on January 18th (the very day of the end of snip snip, and of sub
stances fried in an iron skillet: what further proof would you like that we
, the four hundred and twenty, were what the Widow feared most of all?) the
Prime Minister had, to the astonishment of all, called a general election.
(But now that you know about us, you may find it easier to understand her
over confidence.) But on that day, I knew nothing about her crushing defeat
, nor about burning files; it was only later that I learned how the tattere
d hopes of the nation had been placed in the custody of an ancient dotard w
ho ate pistachios and cashews and daily took a glass of 'his own water'. Ur
ine drinkers had come to power. The Janata Party, with one of its leaders t
rapped in a kidney machine, did not seem to me (when I heard about it) to r
epresent a new dawn; but maybe I'd managed to cure myself of the optimism v
irus at last maybe others, with the disease still in their blood, felt othe
rwise. At any rate, I've had I had had, on that March day enough, more than
enough of politics.
Four hundred and twenty stood blinking in the sunlight and tumult of the gul
lies of Benares; four hundred and twenty looked at one another and saw in ea
ch other's eyes the memory of their gelding, and then, unable to bear the si
ght, mumbled farewells and dispersed, for the last time, into the healing pr
ivacy of the crowds.
What of Shiva? Major Shiva was placed under military detention by the new
regime; but he did not remain there long, because he was permitted to re
ceive one visit: Roshanara Shetty bribed coquetted wormed her way into hi
s cell, the same Roshanara who had poured poison into his ears at Mahalax
mi Racecourse and who had since been driven crazy by a bastard son who re
fused to speak and did nothing he did not wish to do. The steel magnate's
wife drew from her handbag the enormous German pistol owned by her husba
nd, and shot the war hero through the heart. Death, as they say, was inst
antaneous.
The Major died without knowing that once, in a saffron and green nursing h
ome amid the mythological chaos of an unforgettable midnight, a tiny distr
aught woman had changed baby tags and denied him his birth right, which wa
s that hillock top world cocooned in money and starched white clothes and
things things things a world he would dearly have loved to possess.
And Saleem? No longer connected to history, drained above and below, I made
my way back to the capital, conscious that an age, which had begun on that l
ong ago midnight, had come to a sort of end. How I travelled: I waited beyon
d the platform at Benares or Varanaji station with nothing but a platform ti
cket in my hand, and leaped on to the step of a first class compartment as t
he mail train pulled out heading west. And now, at last, I knew how it felt
to clutch on for dead life, while particles of soot dust ash gritted in your