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

tore my strength by letting me suckle her left breast while my son pulled on
the right, 'and afterwards maybe you'll start thinking straight again', int
imations of mortality began to occupy most of my thoughts; and then I discov
ered the mirror of humility at the Shadipur bus depot, and became convinced
of my approaching demise.
It was an angled mirror above the entrance to the bus garage; I, wandering
aimlessly in the forecourt of the depot, found my attention caught by its w
inking reflections of the sun. I realized that I had not seen myself in a m
irror for months, perhaps years, and walked across to stand beneath it. Loo
king upwards into the mirror, I saw myself transformed into a big headed, t
op heavy dwarf; in the humblingly foreshortened reflection of myself I saw
that the hair on my head was now as grey as rainclouds; the dwarf in the mi
rror, with his lined face and tired eyes, reminded me vividly of my grandfa
ther Aadam Aziz on the day he told us about seeing God. In those days the a
fflictions cured by Parvati the witch had all (in the aftermath of drainage
) returned to plague me; nine fingered, horn templed, monk's tonsured, stai
n faced, bow legged, cucumber nosed, castrated, and now prematurely aged, I
saw in the mirror of humility a human being to whom history could do no mo
re, a grotesque creature who had been released from the pre ordained destin
y which had battered him until he was half senseless; with one good ear and
one bad ear I heard the soft footfalls of the Black Angel of death.
The young old face of the dwarf in the mirror wore an expression of profound
relief.
I'm becoming gloomy; let's change the subject… Exactly twenty four hours b
efore a paan wallah's taunt provoked Picture Singh into travelling to Bomb
ay, my son Aadam Sinai made the decision which permitted us to accompany t
he snake charmer on his journey: overnight, without any warning, and to th
e consternation of his washerwoman wet nurse, who was obliged to decant he
r remaining milk into five litre vanaspati drums, flat eared Aadam weaned
himself, soundlessly refusing the nipple and demanding (without words) a d
iet of solid foods: pulped rice overboiled lentils biscuits. It was as tho
ugh he had decided to permit me to reach my private, and now very near, fi
nishing line.
Mute autocracy of a less than two year old infant: Aadam did not tell us whe
n he was hungry or sleepy or anxious to perform his natural functions. He ex
pected us to know. The perpetual attention he required may be one of the rea
sons why I managed, in spite of all indications to the contrary, to stay ali
ve… incapable of anything else in those days after my release from captivity
, I concentrated on watching my son. 'I tell you, captain, it's lucky you ca
me back,' Picture Singh joked, 'otherwise this one would have turned us all
into ayahs.' I understood once again that Aadam was a member of a second gen