Midnight's Children

Midnight's Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie


There are books and then there are Masterpieces, like Midnight’s Children. The thing that attracted me most was the unusual name, which I couldn’t comprehend till I read the novel, Children who were born on Midnight. But the important thing is “Which” particular Midnight.

There comes the answer: “14th August, 1947”, when the “Tryst with Destiny” was delivered.

The thing which I like about the work of Salman Rushdie is the amount of research he does, for his work. There are other writers like Robin Cook, who do such extensive research for their work, but the way Rushdie mixes the Facts with the Fiction, is amazing. Best thing about the book is the way in which Mr. Rushdie has fictionalized these events. The book describes the political/social condition of India, Pakistan and East-Pakistan (Bangladesh) from 1915 till 81. Various events which changed the Destiny of Sub-continent, primarily related to India.

Our hero, Salim Sinai, was born on the stroke of Midnight on 14th August 1947, when Partition of Hindustan into India & Pakistan took place. He shares his birthday with 581 more children, the MCC club, (582 is the no of Members of Parliament in India). Prior to this there is a mention of his Grandfather, Adam Aziz, who was witness to Massacre at Jalianwala bag (1919).

Then there is the story of his parents, how they got married and then the wrath of Riots after the partition and how his father paid the communal parties, (obviously Hindu fanatics) to save his business. Then the story shifts to Bombay and we come to know about “Partition of the state of Bombay” and how Marathis and Gujaratis fought for that forsaken Island.

Meanwhile our hero, Salim faces harsh realities and complexities of his family life (His Father Ahmed and his secretaries plus his obsession with Djins, his Mother Amina and her relations with her ex-husband Nasir, plus his Sister Brass Monkey) and their families (His Grandmother whatitsname Naseem, His no-longer-successful uncle Hanif and His promiscuous wife) plus his neighborhood (All the families of Methwold state).

When Salim was still in Bombay, India-China war of 1961 started (an un-biased version) and then there are stories, Battle of Thag-la-ridge and how Indian government first started the war, and then tried to save their face by launching the 'Ornaments for Armaments' campaign. Then Salim’s Aaya reveals to Ahmed and Amina that Salim is not their child, and she had exchanged him with Williy-Winkie’s child.

So here the story takes a new turn and Salim went to Pakistan and then there he becomes the witness of Military coupe by Gen. Ayub Khan. Few years after this the Indo-Pak war broke out. But our hero is not bothered with all this and he is fighting his own war against feelings of Incest. When the war is over so is Salim’s family. His Mother and Father were killed and his sister left him forever and he wakes up in East-Pakistan (Bangladesh).

Here he becomes witness to the brutalities of Gen Tikka Khan and Yahya Khan and how these Generals arrested Mujib-ur-Rehman, the founder of Bangladesh. After India intervened and Bangladesh became free, on 25th March 1971, with the efforts of Sam Manekshaw. So Salim return to his Mother-land.

In Delhi he got married to Parvati-the-witch, another member of MCC. Here he becomes witness to the Emergency and hence to all the Good/Bad effects of Emergency applied by Indira Gandhi (The Widow) and her labia-lip son Sanjay Gandhi. And finally returns to Bombay and the story ends.

I have tried to mention whatever I could recall, and there are lots of things which I have missed out.

There are few Historical characters and facts, which I really want to verify:

• Role of Krishna Menon in Indo-China war of ‘61
• Idiosyncrasies of Mountbatten’s
• Sam Manekshaw’s role in ’65 and 71’ war
• Gen Yahya khan and Tikka Khan’s
• Ayub khan and Military coupe in Pakistan
• Mujib-ur-Rehman and his conflicts with Julfikar Ali Bhutto and Ayub Khan
  

Other than these historical events, there are amazing descriptions of Kashmir, Bombay, Karachi, Delhi and Sundarbans.


I was really engrossed while reading such vivid descriptions of life, in almost every form you can think of. Please do read this amazing piece of Literature, as I have given you enough reasons for this.

Extracts from the book:

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In St Thomas's Cathedral, Miss Mary Pereira is learning about the colour of God.

'Blue,' the young priest said earnestly. 'All available evidence, my daughter, suggests that Our Lord Christ Jesus was the most beauteous crystal shade of pale sky blue.'

The little woman behind the wooden latticed window of the confessional fell silent for a moment. An anxious, cogitating silence. Then: 'But how, Father? People are not blue. No people are blue in the whole big world!'

Bewilderment of little woman, matched by perplexity of the priest ... because this is not how she's supposed to react. The Bishop had said, 'Problems with recent converts ... when they ask about color they're almost always that ... important to build bridges, my son. Remember,' thus spoke the Bishop, 'God is love; and the Hindu love-god, Krishna, is always depicted with blue skin. Tell them blue; it will be a sort of bridge between the faiths; gently does it, you follow; and besides blue is a neutral sort of colour, avoids the usual Color problems, gets you away from black and white:

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Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.

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In my India, Gandhi will continue to die at the wrong time.

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Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.

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I no longer want to be anything except what who I am. Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each 'I', every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you'll have to swallow a world.


--> Mishra

The Great Indian Novel: by Shashi Tharoor

It’s an amazing book. It left me speechless. Few months back I had tried to read a book on India’s struggle for Independence, but couldn’t make myself finish that. Reason being “Too many Facts”. I always wanted to know more about Indian history, but from a unbiased source, which you don’t get in your text books.

Luckily I picked up this marvelous book, which initially I did because of its author, and later I checked for the theme. From quite sometime I was planning to read Shashi Tharoor’s work, and now after reading this book, I am a big fan of him.

Actually it’s an incredible piece of imagination. Shashi Tharoor has re-dramatized the “Mahabharata” in the context of “Indian Independence Struggle” era.

I have tried to find the analogy between characters, as per my understanding:

Bhisma: Gandhiji
Dhritrashtra: Nehru
Paandu: Subhash C Bose
Drupad: Lord Mountbatten
Dronachaarya: Jai Prakash Narayna
Duryodhana: Indira Gandhi
Karma: Mohammed Ali Jinnah
Yudhishthir: Morarji Desai or (Symbolically) Judiciary
Bhim: Indian Army
Arjun: Arun Shourie or Journalism
Nakul: Bureaucrats
Sahadev: IFS officers
Draupadi: Democracy
Eklavya: V V Giri
Amba: Nathuram Godse or Orthodox religious beliefs


I am yet to find some: Krishna, Vidur, Kunti and Shakuni.

Analogy between events:

Creation of Bangladesh: Bhim – Jarasandh yudh
Emergency enforced by Indira Gandhi: Chaupar between Shakuni and Yudhisthir
Election of 1975: Mahabharata Yudh.

Excerpts:

If every Australian novelist has to set down the speech of his characters to approximate the sound the spoke, do you think there would be single readable Australian Novel in the World?

Dissent, is like a Gurkha’s ‘khukri’ , once it emerges form its sheath it must draw blodd before it can be put away again.

Don’t ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground.

Indira:

She was a slight frail girl, with a thin tapering face like kernel of a Mango and dark-brown eyebrows that nearly joined together over high-ridged nose, giving her to look of a desiccated school teacher at an age when she was barely old enough to enroll at school. She had dark and lustrous eyes. They shone from that finished face like blazing gems on a fading backcloth, flashing, questioning.

Philosophical ones:

There is, in short no end to the story of life. There are merely pauses. The end is the arbitrary intervention of the teller, but there can be no finality about the choice. Today’s end is, after all tomorrow’s beginning.

Instinctive Indian Sense: Nothing begins and nothing ends. We are all living in an eternal present in which what was and what will be is contained in what is, or to put it in a more contemporary idiom, that life is a series of sequel to history.

A Philosopher is a lover of Wisdom, Not of knowledge, which for all its great uses ultimately suffers from the crippling effect of ephemerality. All knowledge is transient linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes, whereas wisdom, true wisdom is eternal immutable. To be philosophical one must love wisdom for its own sake, accept its permanent validity and yet its perpetual irrelevance. It is the fate of the wise to understand the process of history and yet never to shape it.


We Indian, Arjun, are so good at respecting outward forms while ignoring the substance. We took the forms of parliamentary democracy, preserved them, put them on pedestal and paid them due obeisance. But we ignored the basic fact that parliamentary democracy can only work if those who run it are constantly responsive to needs of the people and if parliamentarians are qualified enough to legislate. Neither condition was fulfilled in India for long. Today most people are simply aware of their own irrelevance to the process. They see themselves standing helplessly on the margins while professional politicians and unprofessional politicians combine to run the country to the ground. What we have done ………….

We Indians are notoriously good at being resigned to our lot. Our fatalism goes beyond, even if it springs from, the hindu acceptance of the world as it is ordained to be. I must tell you a little story - a marvelous fable from our puranas that illustrates our resilience and self-absorption in the face of circumstances. A man is pursued by a tiger. He runs fast, but his panting heart tells him that he cannot run much longer. He sees a tree. Relief! He accelerates and gets to it in one last despairing stride. He climbs the tree. The tiger snarls below him, but he feels that he has at last escaped its snapping jaws. But no - what’s this? The branch on which he is sitting is weak. That is not all: wood-mice are gnawing away at it: before long they will eat through it and it will snap and fall. The branch sags down over a well. Aha! Escape” Perhaps our hero can swim ? But the well is dry and there are snakes writhing and hissing on its bed. As the branch bends lower, he perceives a solitary blade of grass on wall of well. On top of the balde of grass gleams a drop of honey. What is our hero to do? What action does our puranic man quintessential Indian, take in the situation?

He bends with the branch and licks up the honey.

What did you expect? Some neat solution to the problem? The tiger changes its mind and goes away? Amitabh Bachchan leaps to the rescue? Don’t be silly. One strength of Indian mind is that it knows some problems cannot be resolved and it learns to make best of them. That is the Indian answer to the insuperable difficulty. One does not fight against that by which one is certain to be over-whelmed; but one finds the best way, for oneself, to live with it. This is our national aesthetic. Without it, india as we know it could not survive.

And there is more……specially the last chapter and his views on Dharma.

--> Mishra