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

c nation.
(And beside them, one jar stands empty.)
The process of revision should be constant and endless; don't think I'm sat
isfied with what I've done! Among my unhappinesses: an overly harsh taste f
rom those jars containing memories of my father, a certain ambiguity in the
love flavour of 'Jamila Singer' (Special Formula No. 22), which might lead
the unperceptive to conclude that I've invented the whole story of the bab
y swap to justify an incestuous love; vague implausibilides in the jar labe
lled 'Accident in a Washing chest' the pickle raises questions which are no
t fully answered, such as: Why did Saleem need an accident to acquire his p
owers? Most of the other children didn't… Or again, in 'All India Radio' an
d others, a discordant note in the orchestrated flavours: would Mary's conf
ession have come as a shock to a true telepath? Sometimes, in the pickles'
version of history, Saleem appears to have known too little; at other times
, too much… yes, I should revise and revise, improve and improve; but there
is neither the time nor the energy. I am obliged to offer no more than thi
s stubborn sentence: It happened that way because that's how it happened.
There is also the matter of the spice bases. The intricacies of turmeric and
cumin, the subtlety of fenugreek, when to use large (and when small) cardamom
s; the myriad possible effects of garlic, garam masala, stick cinnamon, coria
nder, ginger… not to mention the flavourful contributions of the occasional s
peck of dirt. (Saleem is no longer obsessed with purity.) In the spice bases,
I reconcile myself to the inevitable distortions of the pickling process. To
pickle is to give immortality, after all: fish, vegetables, fruit hang embal
med in spice and vinegar; a certain alteration, a slight intensification of t
aste, is a small matter, surely? The art is to change the flavour in degree,
but not in kind; and above all (in my thirty jars and ajar) to give it shape
and 'form that is to say, meaning. (I have mentioned my fear of absurdity.)
One day, perhaps, the world may taste the pickles of history. They may be too
strong for some palates, their smell may be overpowering, tears may rise to
eyes; I hope nevertheless that it will be possible to say of them that they p
ossess the authentic taste of truth… that they are, despite everything, acts
of love.
One empty jar… how to end? Happily, with Mary in her teak rocking chair and
a son who has begun to speak? Amid recipes, and thirty jars with chapter h
eadings for names? In melancholy, drowning in memories of Jamila and Parvat
i and even of Evie Burns? Or with the magic children… but then, should I be
glad that some escaped, or end in the tragedy of the disintegrating effect
s of drainage? (Because in drainage lie the origins of the cracks: my haple
ss, pulverized body, drained above and below, began to crack because it was
dried out. Parched, it yielded at last to the effects of a lifetime's batt