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

d getting irritated whenever my narration becomes self conscious, whenever,
like an incompetent puppeteer, I reveal the hands holding the strings; but I
simply must register a protest. So, breaking into a chapter which, by a hap
py chance, I have named 'A Public Announcement', I issue (in the strongest p
ossible terms) the following general medical alert: 'A certain Doctor N. Q.
Baligga,' I wish to proclaim from the rooftops! Through the loudhailers of m
inarets! 'is a quack. Ought to be locked up, struck off, defenestrated. Or w
orse: subjected to his own quackery, brought out in leprous boils by a mis p
rescribed pill. Damn fool,' I underline my point, 'can't see what's under hi
s nose!'
Having let off steam, I must leave my mother to worry for a further moment a
bout the curious behaviour of the sun, to explain that our Padma, alarmed by
my references to cracking up, has confided covertly in this Baligga this ju
ju man! this green medicine wallah! and as a result, the charlatan, whom I
will not deign to glorify with a description, came to call. I, in all innoce
nce and for Padma's sake, permitted him to examine me. I should have feared
the worst; the worst is what he did. Believe this if you can: the fraud has
pronounced me whole! 'I see no cracks,' he intoned mournfully, differing fro
m Nelson at Copenhagen in that he possessed no good eye, his blindness not t
he choice of stubborn genius but the inevitable curse of his folly! Blindly,
he impugned my state of mind, cast doubts on my reliability as a witness, a
nd Godknowswhatelse: 'I see no cracks.'
In the end it was Padma who shooed him away. 'Never mind, Doctor Sahib,' P
adma said, 'we will look after him ourselves.' On her face I saw a kind of
recognition of her own dull guilt… exit Baligga, never to return to these
pages. But good God! Has the medical profession the calling of Aadam Aziz
sunk so low? To this cess pool of Baliggas? In the end, if this be true,
everyone will do without doctors… which brings me back to the reason why A
mina Sinai awoke one morning with the sun on her lips.
'It's come up in the wrong place!' she yelped, by accident; and then, throu
gh the fading buzzing of her bad night's sleep, understood how in this mont
h of illusion she had fallen victim to a trick, because all that had happen
ed was that she had woken up in Delhi, in the home of her new husband, whic
h faced east towards the sun; so the truth of the matter was that the sun w
as in the right place, and it was her position which had changed… but even
after she grasped this elementary thought, and stored it away with the many
similar mistakes she had made since coming here (because her confusion abo
ut the sun had been a regular occurrence, as if her mind were refusing to a
ccept the alteration in her circumstances, the new, above ground position o
f her bed), something of its jumbling influence remained with her and preve
nted her from feeling entirely at ease.
'In the end, everyone can do without fathers,' Doctor Aziz told his daught