Padma can hear it: there's nothing like a countdown for building suspense2. I watched my dung-flower at work today, stirring vats3 like a whirlwind, as if that would make the time go faster. (And perhaps it did; time, in my experience, has been as variable and inconstant as Bombay's electric power supply. Just telephone the speaking clock if you don't believe me - tied to electricity, it's usually a few hours wrong. Unless we're the ones who are wrong ... no people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for' tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time.)
But today, Padma heard Mountbatten's ticktock... English-made, it beats with relentless4 accuracy. And now the factory is empty; fumes5 linger, but the vats are still; and I've kept my word. Dressed up to the nines, I greet Padma as she rushes to my desk, flounces down on the floor beside me, commands: 'Begin.' I give a little satisfied smile; feel the children of midnight queueing up in my head, pushing and jostling like Koli fishwives; I tell them to wait, it won't be long now; I clear my throat, give my pen a little shake; and start.
Thirty-two years before the transfer of power, my grandfather bumped his nose against Kashmir! earth. There were rubies6 and diamonds. There was the ice of the future, waiting beneath the water's skin There was an oath: not to bow down before god or man. The oath created a hole, which would temporarily be filled by a woman behind a perforated sheet. A boatman who had once prophesied7 dynasties lurking8 in my grandfather's nose ferried him angrily across a lake. There were blind landowners and lady wrestlers. And there was a sheet in a gloomy room. On that day, my inheritance began to form - the blue of Kashmiri sky which dripped into my grandfather's eyes; the long sufferings of my great-grandmother which would become the forebearance of my own mother and the late steeliness of Naseem Aziz; my great-grandfather's gift of conversing9 with birds whkh would descend10 through meandering11 bloodlines into the veins13 of my sister the Brass14 Monkey; the conflict between grandpaternal scepticism and grandmaternal credulity; and above all the ghostly essence of that perforated sheet, which doomed15 my mother to learn to love a man in segments, and which condemned16 me to see my own life - its meanings, its structures - in fragments also; so that by the time I understood it, it was far too late.
Years ticking away - and my inheritance grows, because now I have the mythical17 golden teeth of the boatman Tai, and his brandy bottle which foretold18 my father's alcoholic19 djinns; I have Ilse Lubin for suicide and pickled snakes for virility20; I have Tai-for-changelessness opposed to Aadam-for-progress; and I have, too, the odours of the unwashed boatman which drove my grandparents south, and made Bombay a possibility.
... And now, driven by Padma and ticktock, I move on, acquiring Mahatma Gandhi and his hartal, ingesting thumb-and-forefinger, swallowing the moment at which Aadam Aziz did not know whether he was Kashmir! or Indian; now I'm drinking Mercurochrome and stains the shape of hands which will recur21 in spilt betel-juice, and I'm gulping22 down Dyer, moustache and all; my grandfather is saved by his nose and a bruise23 appears on his chest, never to fade, so that he and I find in its ceaseless throbbing24 the answer to the question, Indian or Kashmiri? Stained by the bruise of a Heidelberg bag's clasp, we throw our lot in with India; but the alienness of blue eyes remains25. Tai dies, but his magic hangs over us still, and makes us men apart.
... Hurtling on, I pause to pick up the game of hit-the-spittoon. Five years before the birth of a nation, my inheritance grows, to include an optimism disease which would flare26 up again in my own time, and cracks in the earth which will-be-have-been reborn in my skin, and ex-conjurer Hummingbirds27 who began the long line of street-entertainers which has run in parallel with my life, and my grandmother's moles28 like witchnipples and hatred29 of photographs, and whatsitsname, and wars of starvation and silence, and the wisdom of my aunt Alia which turned into spinsterhood and bitterness and finally burst out in deadly revenge, and the love of Emerald and Zulfikar which would enable me to start a revolution, and crescent knives, fatal moons echoed by my mother's love-name for me, her innocent chand-ka-tukra, her affectionate piece-of-the- ... growing larger now, floating in the amniotic fluid of the past, I feed on a hum that rose higherhigher until dogs came to the rescue, on an escape into a cornfield and a rescue by Rashid the rickshaw-wallah with his Gai-Wallah antics as he ran -FULL-TILT!- screaming silently, as he revealed the secrets of locks made in India and brought Nadir30 Khan into a toilet containing a washing-chest; yes, I'm getting heavier by the second, fattening31 up on washing-chests and the under-the-carpet love of Mumtaz and the rhymeless bard32, plumping out as I swallow Zulnkar's dream of a bath by his bedside and an underground Taj Mahal and a silver spittoon encrusted with lapis lazuli; a marriage disintegrates33, and feeds me; an aunt runs traitorously34 through Agra streets, without her honour, and that feeds me too; and now false starts are over, and Amina has stopped being Mumtaz, and Ahmed Sinai has become, in a sense, her father as well as her husband ... my inheritance includes this gift, the gift of inventing new parents for myself whenever necessary. The power of giving birth to fathers and mothers: which Ahmed wanted and never had.
Through my umbilical cord, I'm taking in fare dodgers35 and the dangers of purchasing peacock-feather fans; Amina's assiduity seeps36 into me, and more ominous37 things - clattering38 footsteps, my mother's need to plead for money until the napkin in my father's lap began to quiver and make a little tent - and the cremated39 ashes of Arjuna Indiabikes, and a peepshow into which Lifafa Das tried to put everything in the world, and rapscallions perpetrating outrages40; many-headed monsters swell41 inside me - masked Ravanas, eight-year-old girls with lisps and one continuous eyebrow42, mobs crying Rapist. Public announcements nurture43 me as I grow towards my time, and there are only seven months left to go.
How many things people notions we bring with us into the world, how many possibilities and also restrictions45 of possibility! - Because all of these were the parents of the child born that midnight, and for every one of the midnight children there were as many more. Among the parents of midnight: the failure of the Cabinet Mission scheme; the determination of M. A. Jinnah, who was dying and wanted to see Pakistan formed in his lifetime, and would have done anything to ensure it - that same Jinnah whom my father, missing a turn as usual, refused to meet; and Mountbatten with his extraordinary haste and his chicken-breast-eater of a wife; and more and more - Red Fort and Old fort, monkeys and vultures dropping hands, and white transvestites, and bone-setters and mongoose-trainers and Shri Ramram Seth who made too much prophecy. And my father's dream of rearranging the Quran has its place; and the burning of a godown which turned him into a man of property and not leathercloth; and the piece of Ahmed which Amina could not love. To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world. I told you that.
And fishermen, and Catharine of Braganza, and Mumbadevi coconuts46 rice; Sivaji's statue and Methwold's Estate; a swimming pool in the shape of British India and a two-storey hillock; a centre-parting and a nose from Bergerac; an inoperative clocktower and a little circus-ring; an Englishman's lust48 for an Indian allegory and the seduction of an accordionist's wife. Budgerigars, ceiling fans, the Times of India are all part of the luggage I brought into the world ... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child? Blue Jesus leaked into me; and Mary's desperation, and Joseph's revolutionary wildness, and the flightiness of Alice Pereira ... all these made me, too.
If I seem a little bizarre, remember the wild profusion49 of my inheritance ...
perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming50 multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque51.
'At last,' Padma says with satisfaction, 'you've learned how to tell things really fast.'
August I3th, 1947: discontent in the heavens. Jupiter, Saturn52 and Venus are in quarrelsome vein12; moreover, the three crossed stars are moving into the most ill-favoured house of all. Benarsi astrologers name it fearfully: 'Karamstan! They enter Karamstan!'
While astrologers make frantic53 representations to Congress Party bosses, my mother lies down for her afternoon nap. While Earl Mountbatten deplores54 the lack of trained occultists on his General Staff, the slowly turning shadows of a ceiling fan caress55 Amina into sleep. While M. A. Jinnah, secure in the knowledge that his Pakistan will be born in just eleven hours, a full day before independent India, for which there are still thirty-five hours to go, is scoffing56 at the protestations of horoscope-mongers, shaking his head in amusement, Amina's head, too, is moving from side to side.
But she is asleep. And in these days of her boulder-like pregnancy57, an enigmatic dream of flypaper has been plaguing her sleeping hours ... in which she wanders now, as before, in a crystal sphere filled with dangling58 strips of the sticky brown material, which adhere to her clothing and rip it off as she stumbles through the impenetrable papery forest; and now she struggles, tears at paper, but it grabs at her, until she is naked, with the baby kicking inside her, and long tendrils of flypaper stream out to seize her by her undulating womb, paper glues itself to her hair nose teeth breasts thighs59, and as she opens her mouth to shout a brown adhesive60 gag falls across her parting lips ...
'Amina Begum!' Musa is saying. 'Wake up! Bad dream, Begum Sahiba!'
Incidents of those last few hours - the last dregs of my inheritance: when there were thirty-five hours to go, my mother dreamed of being glued to brown paper like a fly. And at the cocktail62 hour (thirty hours to go) William Methwold visited my father in the garden of Buckingham Villa63. Centre-parting strolling beside and above big toe, Mr Methwold reminisced. Tales of the first Methwold, who had dreamed the city into existence, filled the evening air in that penultimate sunset. And my father - apeing Oxford64 drawl, anxious to impress the departing Englishman - responded with, 'Actually, old chap, ours is a pretty distinguished65 family, too.' Methwold listening: head cocked, red rose in cream lapel, wide-brimmed hat concealing66 parted hair, a veiled hint of amusement in his eyes ... Ahmed Sinai, lubricated by whisky, driven on by self-importance, warms to his theme. 'Mughal blood, as a matter of fact.' To which Methwold, 'No! Really? You're pulling my leg.' And Ahmed, beyond the point of no return, is obliged to press on. 'Wrong side of the blanket, of course; but Mughal, certainly.'
That was how, thirty hours before my birth, my father de-monstrated that he, too, longed for fictional67 ancestors... how he came to invent a family pedigree that, in later years, when whisky had blurred68 the edges of his memory and djinn-bottles came to confuse him, would obliterate69 all traces of reality ...
and how, to hammer his point home, he introduced into our lives the idea of the family curse.
'Oh yes.' my father said as Methwold cocked a grave unsmiling head, 'many old families possessed70 such curses. In our line, it is handed down from eldest71 son to eldest son - in writing only, because merely to speak it is to unleash73 its power, you know.' Now Methwold: 'Amazing! And you know the words?' My father nods, lip jutting74, toe still as he taps his forehead for emphasis. 'All in here; all memorized. Hasn't been used since an ancestor quarrelled with the Emperor Babar and put the curse on his son Humayun ... terrible story, that - every schoolboy knows.'
And the time would come when my father, in the throes of his utter retreat from reality, would lock himself in a blue room and try to remember a curse which he had dreamed up one evening in the gardens of his house while he stood tapping his temple beside the descendant of William Methwold.
Saddled now with flypaper-dreams and imaginary ancestors, I am still over a day away from being born ... but now the remorseless ticktock reasserts itself: twenty-nine hours to go, twenty-eight, twenty-seven ...
What other dreams were dreamed on that last night? Was it then -yes, why not - that Dr Narlikar, ignorant of the drama that was about to unfold at his Nursing Home, first dreamed of tetrapods? Was it on that last night - while Pakistan was being born to the north and west of Bombay - that my uncle Hanif, who had come (like his sister) to Bombay, and who had fallen in love with an actress, the divine Pia ('Her face is her fortune!' the Illustrated76 Weekly once said), first imagined the cinematic device which would soon give him the first of his three hit pictures? ... It seems likely; myths, nightmares, fantasies were in the air.
This much is certain: on that last night, my grandfather Aadam Aziz, alone now in the big old house in Cornwallis Road -except for a wife whose strength of will seemed to increase as Aziz was ground down by age, and for a daughter, Alia, whose embittered77 virginity would last until a bomb split her in two over eighteen years later - was suddenly imprisoned78 by great metal hoops79 of nostalgia80, and lay awake as they pressed down upon his chest; until finally, at five o'clock in the morning of August I4th - nineteen hours to go - he was pushed out of bed by an invisible force and drawn81 towards an old tin trunk.
Opening it, he found: old copies of German magazines; Lenin's What Is To Be Done?; a folded prayer-mat; and at last the thing which he had felt an irresistible82 urge to see once more - white and folded and glowing faintly in the dawn - my grandfather drew out, from the tin trunk of his past, a stained and perforated sheet, and discovered that the hole had grown; that there were other, smaller holes in the surrounding fabric83; and in the grip of a wild nostalgic rage he shook his wife awake and astounded84 her by yelling, as he waved her history under her nose: 'Moth-eaten! Look, Begum: moth-eaten! You forgot to put in any naphthalene balk85!'
But now the countdown will not be denied ... eighteen hours; seventeen; sixteen... and already, at Dr Narlikar's Nursing Home, it is possible to hear the shrieks86 of a woman in labour. Wee Willie Winkie is here; and his wife Vanita; she has been in a protracted88, unproductive labour for eight hours now.
The first pangs89 hit her just as, hundreds of miles away, M. A. Jinnah announced the midnight birth of a Muslim nation... but still she writhes90 on a bed in the Narlikar Home's 'charity ward44' (reserved for the babies of the poor) ... her eyes are standing91 halfway92 out of her head; her body glistens93 with sweat, but the baby shows no signs of coming, nor is its father present; it is eight o'clock in the morning, but there is still the possibility that, given the circumstances, the baby could be waiting for midnight.
Rumours94 in the city: The statue galloped95 last night!'... 'And the stars are unfavourable!'... But despite these signs of ill-omen, the city was poised96, with a new myth glinting in the corners of its eyes. August in Bombay: a month of festivals, the month of Krishna's birthday and Coconut47 Day; and this year - fourteen hours to go, thirteen, twelve -there was an extra festival on the calendar, a new myth to celebrate, because a nation which had never previously97 existed was about to win its freedom, catapulting us into a world which, although it had five thousand years of history, although it had invented the game of chess and traded with Middle Kingdom Egypt, was nevertheless quite imaginary; into a mythical land, a country which would never exist except by the efforts of a phenomenal collective will - except in a dream we all agreed to dream; it was a mass fantasy shared in varying degrees by Bengali and Punjabi, Madrasi and Jat, and would periodically need the sanctification and renewal98 which can only be provided by rituals of blood. India, the new myth - a collective fiction in which anything was possible, a fable99 rivalled only by the two other mighty100 fantasies: money and God.
I have been, in my time, the living proof of the fabulous101 nature of this collective dream; but for the moment, I shall turn away from these generalized, macrocosmic notions to concentrate upon a more private ritual; I shall not describe the mass blood-letting in progress on the frontiers of the divided Punjab (where the partitioned nations are washing themselves in one another's blood, and a certain punchinello-faced Major Zulfikar is buying refugee property at absurdly low prices, laying the foundations of a fortune that will rival the Nizam of Hyderabad's); I shall avert102 my eyes from the violence in Bengal and the long pacifying103 walk of Mahatma Gandhi. Selfish? Narrow-minded? Well, perhaps; but excusably so, in my opinion. After all, one is not born every day.
Twelve hours to go. Amina Sinai, having awakened104 from her flypaper nightmare, will not sleep again until after... Ramram Seth is filling her head, she is adrift in a turbulent sea jn which waves of excitement alternate with deep, giddying, dark, watery105 hollows of fear. But something else is in operation, too, Watch her hands - as, without any conscious instructions, they press down, hard, upon her womb; watch her lips, muttering without her knowledge: 'Come on, slowpoke, you don't want to be late for the newspapers!'
Eight hours to go ... at four o'clock that afternoon, William Methwold drives up the two-storey hillock in his black 1946 Rover. He parks in the circus-ring between the four noble villas106; but today he visits neither goldfish-pond nor cactus-garden; he does not greet Lila Sabarmati with his customary, 'How goes the pianola? Everything tickety-boo?' - nor does he salute107 old man Ibrahim who sits in the shade of a ground-floor verandah, rocking in a rocking-chair and musing108 about sisal; looking neither towards Catrack nor Sinai, he takes up his position in the exact centre of the circus-ring. Rose in lapel, cream hat held stiffly against his chest, centre-parting glinting in afternoon light, William Methwold stares straight ahead, past clock-tower and Warden109 Road, beyond Breach110 Candy's map-shaped pool, across the golden four o'clock waves, and salutes111; while out there, above the horizon, the sun begins its long dive towards the sea.
Six hours to go. The cocktail hour. The successors of William Methwold are in their gardens - except that Amina sits in her tower-room, avoiding the mildly competitive glances being flung in her direction by Nussie-next-door, who is also, perhaps, urging her Sonny down and out between her legs; curiously112 they watch the Englishman, who stands as still and stiff as the ramrod to which we have previously compared his centre-parting; until they are distracted by a new arrival. A long, stringy man, wearing three rows of beads113 around his neck, and a belt of chicken-bones around his waist; his dark skin stained with ashes, his hair loose and long - naked except for beads and ashes, the sadhu strides up amongst the red-tiled mansions114. Musa, the old bearer, descends116 upon him to shoo him away; but hangs back, not knowing how to command a holy man. Cleaving117 through the veils of Musa's indecision, the sadhu enters the garden of Buckingham Villa; walks straight past my astonished father; seats himself, cross-legged, beneath the dripping garden tap.
'What do you want here, sadhuji?' - Musa, unable to avoid deference118; to which the sadhu, calm as a lake: 'I have come to await the coming of the One. The Mubarak - He who is Blessed. It will happen very soon.'
Believe it or not: I was prophesied twice! And on that day on which everything was so remarkably119 well-timed, my mother's sense of timing120 did not fail her; no sooner had the sadhu's last word left his lips than there issued, from a first-floor tower-room with glass tulips dancing in the windows, a piercing yell, a cocktail containing equal proportions of panic, excitement and triumph... 'Arre Ahmed!' Amina Sinai yelled, 'Janum, the baby! It's coming - bang on time!'
Ripples121 of electricity through Methwold's Estate... and here comes Homi Catrack, at a brisk emaciated122 sunken-eyed trot123, offering: 'My Studebaker is at your disposal, Sinai Sahib; take it now - go at once!'... and when there are still five hours and thirty minutes left, the Sinais, husband and wife, drive away down the two-storey hillock in the borrowed car; there is my father's big toe pressing down on the accelerator; there are my mother's hands pressing down on her moon-belly124; and they are out of sight now, around the bend, past Band Box Laundry and Reader's Paradise, past Fatbhoy jewels and Chimalker toys, past One Yard of Chocolates and Breach Candy gates, driving towards Dr Narlikar's Nursing Home where, in a charity ward, Wee Willie's Vanita still heaves and strains, spine125 curving, eyes popping, and a midwife called Mary Pereira is waiting for her time, too ... so that neither Ahmed of the jutting lip and squashy belly and fictional ancestors, nor dark-skinned prophecy-ridden Amina were present when the sun finally set over Methwold's Estate, and at the precise instant of its last disappearance126 - five hours and two minutes to go -William Methwold raised a long white arm above his head. White hand dangled127 above brilliantined black hair; long tapering128 white fingers twitched129 towards centre-parting, and the second and final secret was revealed, because fingers curled, and seized hair; drawing away from his head, they failed to release their prey130; and in the moment after the disappearance of the sun Mr Methwold stood in the afterglow of his Estate with his hairpiece in his hand.
'A baldie!' Padma exclaims. 'That slicked-up hair of his ... I knew it; too good to be true!'
Bald, bald; shiny-pated! Revealed: the deception131 which had tricked an accordionist's wife. Samson-like, William Methwold's power had resided in his hair; but now, bald patch glowing in the dusk, he flings his thatch132 through the window of his motor-car; distributes, with what looks like carelessness, the signed title-deeds to his palaces; and drives away. Nobody at Methwold's Estate ever saw him again; but I, who never saw him once, find him impossible to forget.
Suddenly everything is saffron and green. Amina Sinai in a room with saffron walls and green woodwork. In a neighbouring room, Wee Willie Winkie's Vanita, green-skinned, the whites of her eyes shot with saffron, the baby finally beginning its descent through inner passages that are also, no doubt, similarly colourful. Saffron minutes and green seconds tick away on the clocks on the walls. Outside Dr Narlikar's Nursing Home, there are fireworks and crowds, also conforming to the colours of the night - saffron rockets, green sparkling rain; the men in shirts of zafaran hue133, the women in saris of lime. On a saffron-and-green carpet, Dr Narlikar talks to Ahmed Sinai. 'I shall see to your Begum personally,' he says, in gentle tones the colour of the evening, 'Nothing to worry about. You wait here; plenty of room to pace.' Dr Narlikar, who dislikes babies, is nevertheless an expert gynaecologist. In his spare time he lectures writes pamphlets berates134 the nation on the subject of contraception.
'Birth Control,' he says, 'is Public Priority Number One. The day will come when I get that through people's thick heads, and then I'll be out of a job.' Ahmed Sinai smiles, awkward, nervous. 'Just for tonight,' my father says, 'forget lectures -deliver my child.'
It is twenty-nine minutes to midnight. Dr Narlikar's Nursing Home is running on a skeleton staff; there are many absentees, many employees who have preferred to celebrate the imminent135 birth of the nation, and will not assist tonight at the births of children. Saffron-shirted, green-skirted, they throng136 in the illuminated137 streets, beneath the infinite balconies of the city on which little dia-lamps of earthenware138 have been filled with mysterious oik; wicks float in the lamps which line every balcony and rooftop, and these wicks, too, conform to our two-tone colour scheme: half the lamps burn saffron, the others flame with green.
Threading its way through the many-headed monster of the crowd is a police car, the yellow and blue of its occupants' uniforms transformed by the unearthly lamplight into saffron and green. (We are on Colaba Causeway now, just for a moment, to reveal that at twenty-seven minutes to midnight, the police are hunting for a dangerous criminal. His name: Joseph D'Costa. The orderly is absent, has been absent for several days, from his work at the Nursing Home, from his room near the slaughterhouse, and from the life of a distraught virginal Mary.)
Twenty minutes pass, with aaahs from Amina Sinai, coming harder and faster by the minute, and weak tiring aaahs from Vanita in the next room. The monster in the streets has already begun to celebrate; the new myth courses through its veins, replacing its blood with corpuscles of saffron and green. And in Delhi, a wiry serious man sits in the Assembly Hall and prepares to make a speech. At Methwold's Estate goldfish hang stilly in ponds while the residents go from house to house bearing pistachio sweetmeats, embracing and kissing one another - green pistachio is eaten, and saffron laddoo-balls. Two children move down secret passages while in Agra an ageing doctor sits with his wife, who has two moles on her face like witchnipples, and in the midst of sleeping geese and moth-eaten memories they are somehow struck silent, and can find nothing to say.
And in all the cities all the towns all the villages the little dia-lamps burn on window-sills porches verandahs, while trains burn in the Punjab, with the green flames of blistering139 paint and the glaring saffron of fired fuel, like the biggest dias in the world.
And the city of Lahore, too, is burning.
The wiry serious man is getting to his feet. Anointed with holy water from the Tanjore River, he rises; his forehead smeared140 with sanctified ash, he clears his throat. Without written speech in hand, without having memorized any prepared words, Jawaharlal Nehru begins:'... Long years ago we made a tryst141 with destiny; and now the time comes when we shall redeem142 our pledge - not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially ...'
It is two minutes to twelve. At Dr Narlikar's Nursing Home, the dark glowing doctor, accompanied by a midwife called Flory, a thin kind lady of no importance, encourages Amina Sinai: 'Push! Harder! ... I can see the head!...'
while in the neighbouring room one Dr Bose - with Miss Mary Pereira by his side - presides over the terminal stages of Vanita's twenty-four-hour labour ...
'Yes; now; just one last try, come on; at last, and then it will be over!...'
Women wail143 and shriek87 while in another room men are silent. Wee Willie Winkie - incapable144 of song - squats145 in a corner, rocking back and forth146, back and forth... and Ahmed Sinai is looking for a chair. But there are no chairs in this room; it is a room designated for pacing; so Ahmed Sinai opens a door, finds a chair at a deserted147 receptionist's desk, lifts it, carries it back into the pacing room, where Wee Willie Winkie rocks, rocks, his eyes as empty as a blind man's... will she live? won't she? ... and.now, at last, it is midnight.
The monster in the streets has begun to roar, while in Delhi a wiry man is saying,'... At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India awakens148 to life and freedom ...' And beneath the roar of the monster there are two more yells, cries, bellows149, the howls of children arriving in the world, their unavailing protests mingling150 with the din1 of independence which hangs saffron-and-green in the night sky - 'A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new; when an age ends; and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance151 ...' while in a room with saffron-and-green carpet Ahmed Sinai is still clutching a chair when Dr Narlikar enters to inform him: 'On the stroke of midnight, Sinai brother, your Begum Sahiba gave birth to a large, healthy child: a son!' Now my father began to think about me (not knowing...); with the image of my face filling his thoughts he forgot about the chair; possessed by the love of me (even though...), filled with it from top of head to fingertips, he let the chair fall.
Yes, it was my fault (despite everything) ... it was the power of my face, mine and nobody else's, which caused Ahmed Sinai's hands to release the chair; which caused the chair to drop, accelerating at thirty-two feet per second, and as Jawaharlal Nehru told the Assembly Hall, 'We end today a period of ill-fortune,'
as conch-sheik blared out the news of freedom, it was on my account that my father cried out too, because the falling chair shattered his toe.
And now we come to it: the noise brought everyone running; my father and his injury grabbed a brief moment of limelight from the two aching mothers, the two, synchronous152 midnight births - because Vanita had finally been delivered of a baby of remarkable153 size: 'You wouldn't have believed it,' Dr Bose said, 'It just kept on coming, more and more of the boy forcing its way out, it's a real ten-chip whopper all right!' And Narlikar, washing himself: 'Mine, too.' But that was a little later - just now Narlikar and Bose were tending to Ahmed Sinai's toe; midwives had been instructed to wash and swaddle the new-born pair; and now Miss Mary Pereira made her contribution.
'Go, go,' she said to poor Flory, 'see if you can help. I can do all right here.'
And when she was alone - two babies in her hands - two lives in her power - she did it for Joseph, her own private revolutionary act, thinking He will certainly love me for this, as she changed name-tags on the two huge infants, giving the poor baby a life of privilege and condemning154 the rich-born child to accordions155 and poverty ... 'Love me, Joseph!' was in Mary Pereira's mind, and then it was done. On the ankle of a ten-chip whopper with eyes as blue as Kashmiri sky - which were also eyes as blue as Methwold's - and a nose as dramatic as a Kashmiri grandfather's - which was also the nose of a grandmother from France - she placed this name: Sinai.
Saffron swaddled me as, thanks to the crime of Mary Pereira, I became the chosen child of midnight, whose parents were not his parents, whose son would not be his own... Mary took the child of my mother's womb, who was not to be her son, another ten-chip pomfret, but with eyes which were already turning brown, and knees as knobbly as Ahmed Sinai's, wrapped it in green, and brought it to Wee Willie Winkie - who was staring at her blind-eyed, who hardly saw his new son, who never knew about centre-partings ... Wee Willie Winkie, who had just learned that Vanita had not managed to survive her childbearing. At three minutes past midnight, while doctors fussed over broken toe, Vanita had haemorrhaged and died.
So I was brought to my mother; and she never doubted my authenticity156 for an instant. Ahmed Sinai, toe in splint, sat on her bed as she said: 'Look, janum, the poor fellow, he's got his grandfather's nose.' He watched mystified as she made sure there was only one head; and then she relaxed completely, understanding that even fortune-tellers have only limited gifts.
'Janum,' my mother said excitedly, 'you must call the papers. Call them at the Times of India. What did I tell you? I won.'
'... This is no time for petty or destructive criticism,' Jawaharlal Nehru told the Assembly. 'No time for ill-will. We have to build the noble mansion115 of free India, where all her children may dwell.' A flag unfurls: it is saffron, white and green.
'An Anglo?' Padma exclaims in horror. 'What are you telling me? You are an Anglo-Indian? Your name is not your own?'
'I am Saleem Sinai,' I told her, 'Snotnose, Stainface, Sniffer, Baldy, Piece-of-the-Moon. Whatever do you mean - not my own?'
'All the time,' Padma wails157 angrily, 'you tricked me. Your mother, you called her; your father, your grandfather, your aunts. What thing are you that you don't even care to tell the truth about who your parents were? You don't care that your mother died giving you life? That your father is maybe still alive somewhere, penniless, poor? You are a monster or what?'
No: I'm no monster. Nor have I been guilty of trickery. I provided clues ... but there's something more important than that. It's this: when we eventually discovered the crime of Mary Pereira, we all found that it made no difference!.
I was still their son: they remained my parents. In a kind of collective failure of imagination, we learned that we simply could not think our way out of our pasts... if you had asked my father (even him, despite all that happened!) who his son was, nothing on earth would have induced him to point in the direction of the accordionist's knock-kneed, unwashed boy. Even though he would grow up, this Shiva, to be something of a hero.
So: there were knees and a nose, a nose and knees. In fact, all over the new India, the dream we all shared, children were being born who were only partially158 the offspring of their parents - the children of midnight were also the children of the time: fathered, you understand, by history. It can happen. Especially in a country which is itself a sort of dream.
'Enough,' Padma sulks. 'I don't want to listen.' Expecting one type of two-headed child, she is peeved159 at being offered another. Nevertheless, whether she is listening or not, I have tilings to record.
Three days after my birth, Mary Pereira was consumed by remorse75. Joseph D'Costa, on the run from the searching police cars, had clearly abandoned her sister Alice as well as Mary; and the little plump woman - unable, in her fright, to confess her crime - realized that she had been a fool. 'Donkey from somewhere!'
she cursed herself; but she kept her secret. She decided160, however, to make amends161 of a kind. She gave up her job at the Nursing Home and approached Amina Sinai with, 'Madam, I saw your baby just one time and fell in love. Are you needing an ayah?' And Amina, her eyes shining with motherhood, 'Yes.' Mary Pereira ('You might as well call her your mother,' Padma interjects, proving she is still interested, 'She made you, you know'), from that moment on, devoted162 her life to bringing me up, thus binding163 the rest of her days to the memory of her crime.
On August 20th, Nussie Ibrahim followed my mother into the Pedder Road clinic, and little Sonny followed me into the world - but he was reluctant to emerge; forceps were obliged to reach in and extract him; Dr Bose, in the heat of the moment, pressed a little too hard, and Sonny arrived with little dents61 beside each of his temples, shallow forcep-hollows which would make him as irresistibly164 attractive as the hairpiece of William Methwold had made the Englishman. Girls (Evie, the Brass Monkey, others) reached out to stroke his little valleys ... it would lead to difficulties between us.
But I've saved the most interesting snippet for the last. So let me reveal now that, on the day after I was born, my mother and I were visited in a saffron and green bedroom by two persons from the Times of India (Bombay edition). I lay in a green crib, swaddled in saffron, and looked up at them. There was a reporter, who spent his time interviewing my mother; and a tall, aquiline165 photographer who devoted his attentions to me. The next day, words as well as pictures appeared in newsprint ...
Quite recently, I visited a cactus-garden where once, many years back, I buried a toy tin globe, which was badly dented166 and stuck together with Scotch167 Tape; and extracted from its insides the things I had placed there all those years ago.
Holding them in my left hand now, as I write, I can still see - despite yellowing and mildew168 - that one is a letter, a personal letter to myself, signed by the Prime Minister of India; but the other is a newspaper cutting.
It has a headline: MIDNIGHT'S CHILD.
And a text: 'A charming pose of Baby Saleem Sinai, who was born last night at the exact moment of our Nation's independence - the happy Child of that glorious Hour!'
And a large photograph: an A-1 top-quality front-page jumbo-sized baby-snap, in which it is still possible to make out a child with birthmarks staining his cheeks and a runny and glistening169 nose. (The picture is captioned170: Photo by Kalidas Gupta.)
Despite headline, text and photograph, I must accuse our visitors of the crime of trivialization; mere72 journalists, looking no further than the next day's paper, they had no idea of the importance of the event they were covering. To them, it was no more than a human-interest drama.
How do I know this? Because, at the end of the interview, the photographer presented my mother with a cheque - for one hundred rupees.
One hundred rupees! Is it possible to imagine a more piffling, derisory sum? It is a sum by which one could, were one of a mind to do so, feel insulted. I shall, however, merely thank them for celebrating my arrival, and forgive them for their lack of a genuine historical sense.
'Don't be vain,' Padma says grumpily. 'One hundred rupees is not so little; after all, everybody gets born, it's not such a big big thing.'
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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vats
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| varieties 变化，多样性，种类 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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rubies
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| 红宝石( ruby的名词复数 )； 红宝石色，深红色 | |
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prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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meandering
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| 蜿蜒的河流，漫步，聊天 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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alcoholic
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| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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virility
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| n.雄劲，丈夫气 | |
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recur
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| vi.复发，重现，再发生 | |
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gulping
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的现在分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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hummingbirds
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| n.蜂鸟( hummingbird的名词复数 ) | |
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moles
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| 防波堤( mole的名词复数 )； 鼹鼠； 痣； 间谍 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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nadir
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| n.最低点，无底 | |
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fattening
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| adj.（食物）要使人发胖的v.喂肥( fatten的现在分词 )；养肥（牲畜）；使（钱）增多；使（公司）升值 | |
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bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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disintegrates
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| n.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的名词复数 )v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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traitorously
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| 叛逆地，不忠地 | |
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dodgers
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| n.躲闪者，欺瞒者( dodger的名词复数 ) | |
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seeps
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| n.（液体）渗( seep的名词复数 )；渗透；渗出；漏出v.（液体）渗( seep的第三人称单数 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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cremated
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| v.火葬，火化（尸体）( cremate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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nurture
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| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
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44
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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46
coconuts
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| n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 )；椰肉，椰果 | |
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coconut
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| n.椰子 | |
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48
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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49
profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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50
teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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51
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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52
Saturn
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| n.农神，土星 | |
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53
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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deplores
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的第三人称单数 ) | |
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55
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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56
scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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57
pregnancy
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| n.怀孕，怀孕期 | |
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58
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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adhesive
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| n.粘合剂；adj.可粘着的，粘性的 | |
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61
dents
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| n.花边边饰；凹痕( dent的名词复数 )；凹部；减少；削弱v.使产生凹痕( dent的第三人称单数 )；损害；伤害；挫伤（信心、名誉等） | |
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62
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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66
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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fictional
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| adj.小说的，虚构的 | |
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68
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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obliterate
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| v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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73
unleash
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| vt.发泄，发出；解带子放开 | |
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74
jutting
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| v.（使）突出( jut的现在分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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75
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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76
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79
hoops
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| n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓 | |
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nostalgia
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| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
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81
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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balk
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| n.大方木料；v.妨碍；不愿前进或从事某事 | |
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shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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88
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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writhes
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的第三人称单数 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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glistens
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的第三人称单数 ) | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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101
fabulous
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| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
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102
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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103
pacifying
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| 使（某人）安静( pacify的现在分词 )； 息怒； 抚慰； 在（有战争的地区、国家等）实现和平 | |
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104
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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105
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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106
villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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107
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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108
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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109
warden
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| n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人 | |
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110
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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111
salutes
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| n.致敬，欢迎，敬礼( salute的名词复数 )v.欢迎，致敬( salute的第三人称单数 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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112
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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113
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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114
mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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115
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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116
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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117
cleaving
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| v.劈开，剁开，割开( cleave的现在分词 ) | |
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118
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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119
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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120
timing
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| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
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121
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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122
emaciated
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| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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123
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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124
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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125
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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126
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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127
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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128
tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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129
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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130
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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131
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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132
thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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133
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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134
berates
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| v.严厉责备，痛斥( berate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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135
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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136
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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137
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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138
earthenware
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| n.土器，陶器 | |
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139
blistering
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| adj.酷热的；猛烈的；使起疱的；可恶的v.起水疱；起气泡；使受暴晒n.[涂料] 起泡 | |
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140
smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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141
tryst
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| n.约会；v.与…幽会 | |
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142
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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143
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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144
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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145
squats
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| n.蹲坐，蹲姿( squat的名词复数 )；被擅自占用的建筑物v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的第三人称单数 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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146
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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147
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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148
awakens
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的第三人称单数 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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149
bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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150
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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151
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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152
synchronous
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| adj.同步的 | |
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153
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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154
condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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155
accordions
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| n.手风琴( accordion的名词复数 ) | |
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156
authenticity
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| n.真实性 | |
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157
wails
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| 痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 ) | |
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158
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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159
peeved
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| adj.恼怒的，不高兴的v.（使）气恼，（使）焦躁，（使）愤怒( peeve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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160
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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161
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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162
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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163
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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164
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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165
aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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166
dented
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| v.使产生凹痕( dent的过去式和过去分词 )；损害；伤害；挫伤（信心、名誉等） | |
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167
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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168
mildew
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| n.发霉；v.（使）发霉 | |
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169
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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170
captioned
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| a.标题项下的； 标题所说的 | |
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