Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible1 it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably2 seems more and more incredible. Suppose yourself in a large cinema, sitting at first in the back row, and gradually moving up, row by row, until your nose is almost pressed against the screen. Gradually the stars' faces dissolve into dancing grain; tiny details assume grotesque4 proportions; the illusion dissolves - or rather, it becomes clear that the illusion itself is reality ... we have come from 1915 to 1956, so we're a good deal closer to the screen... abandoning my metaphor5, then, I reiterate6, entirely7 without a sense of shame, my unbelievable claim: after a curious accident in a washing-chest, I became a sort of radio.
... But today, I feel confused. Padma has not returned - should I alert the police? Is she a Missing Person? - and in her absence, my certainties are falling apart. Even my nose has been playing tricks on me - by day, as I stroll between the pickle-vats tended by our army of strong, hairy-armed, formidably competent women, I have found myself failing to distinguish lemon-odours from lime. The workforce8 giggles9 behind its hands: the poor sahib has been crossed in - what? - surely not love? ... Padma, and the cracks spreading all over me, radiating like a spider's web from my navel; and the heat... a little confusion is surely permissible10 in these circumstances. Re-reading my work, I have discovered an error in chronology. The assassination11 of Mahatma Gandhi occurs, in these pages, on the wrong date. But I cannot say, now, what the actual sequence of events might have been; in my India, Gandhi will continue to die at the wrong time.
Does one error invalidate the entire fabric12? Am I so far gone, in my desperate need for meaning, that I'm prepared to distort everything - to re-write the whole history of my times purely14 in order to place myself in a central role?
Today, in my confusion, I can't judge. I'll have to leave it to others. For me, there can be no going back; I must finish what I've started, even if, inevitably, what I finish turns out not to be what I began ...
Ye Akashvani hai. This is All-India Radio.
Having gone out into the boiling streets for a quick meal at a nearby Irani cafe, I have returned to sit in my nocturnal pool of Anglepoised light with only a cheap transistor15 for company. A hot night; bubbling air filled with the lingering scents16 of the silenced pickle-vats; voices in the dark. Pickle-fumes, heavily oppressive in the heat, stimulate17 the juices of memory, accentuating18 similarities and differences between now and then ... it was hot then; it is (unseasonably) hot now. Then as now, someone was awake in the dark, hearing disembodied tongues. Then as now, the one deafened19 ear. And fear, thriving in the heat... it was not the voices (then or now) which were frightening. He, young-Saleem-then, was afraid of an idea - the idea that his parents' outrage20 might lead to a withdrawal21 of their love; that even if they began to believe him, they would see his gift as a kind of shameful22 deformity ... while I, now, Padma-less, send these words into the darkness and am afraid of being disbelieved. He and I, I and he ... I no longer have his gift; he never had mine. There are times when he seems a stranger, almost ... he had no cracks. No spiders' webs spread through him in the heat.
Padma would believe me; but there is no Padma. Then as now, there is hunger. But of a different kind: not, now, the then-hunger of being denied my dinner, but that of having lost my cook.
And another, more obvious difference: then, the voices did not arrive through the oscillating valves of a transistor (which will never cease, in our part of the world, to symbolize23 impotence - ever since the notorious free-transistor sterilization24 bribe25, the squawking machine has represented what men could do before scissors snipped26 and knots were tied) ... then, the nearlynineyearold in his midnight bed had no need of machines.
Different and similar, we are joined by heat. A shimmering27 heat-haze, then and now, blurs28 his then-time into mine ... my confusion, travelling across the heat-waves, is also his.
What grows best in the heat: cane-sugar; the coconut29 palm; certain millets such as bajra, ragi and jowar; linseed, and (given water) tea and rice. Our hot land is also the world's second largest producer of cotton - at least, it was when I learned geography under the mad eye of Mr Emil Zagallo, and the steelier gaze of a framed Spanish conquistador. But the tropical summer grows stranger fruit as well: the exotic flowers of the imagination blossom, to fill the close perspiring30 nights with odours as heavy as musk31, which give men dark dreams of discontent... then as now, unease was in the air. Language marchers demanded the partition of the state of Bombay along linguistic32 boundaries - the dream of Maharashtra was at the head of some processions, the mirage33 of Gujarat led the others forward. Heat, gnawing34 at the mind's divisions between fantasy and reality, made anything seem possible; the half-waking chaos35 of afternoon siestas36 fogged men's brains, and the air was filled with the stickiness of aroused desires.
What grows best in the heat: fantasy; unreason; lust37.
In 1956, then, languages marched militantly38 through the daytime streets; by night, they rioted in my head. We shall be watching your life with the closest attention; it will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own.
It's time to talk about the voices.
But if only our Padma were here ...
I was wrong about the Archangels, of course. My father's hand - walloping my ear in (conscious? unintentional?) imitation of another, bodiless hand, which once hit him full in the face - at least had one salutary effect: it obliged me to reconsider and finally to abandon my original, Prophet-apeing position. In bed that very night of my disgrace, I withdrew deep inside myself, despite the Brass39 Monkey, who filled our blue room with her pesterings: 'But what did you do it for, Saleem? You who're always too good and all?' ... until she fell into dissatisfied sleep with her mouth still working silently, and I was alone with the echoes of my father's violence, which buzzed in my left ear, which whispered, 'Neither Michael nor Anael; not Gabriel; forget Cassiel, Sachiel and Samael! Archangels no longer speak to mortals; the Recitation was completed in Arabia long ago; the last prophet will come only to announce the End.' That night, understanding that the voices in my head far outnumbered the ranks of the angels, I decided41, not without relief, that I had not after all been chosen to preside over the end of the world. My voices, far from being scared, turned out to be as profane42, and as multitudinous, as dust.
Telepathy, then; the kind of thing you're always reading about in the sensational43 magazines. But I ask for patience - wait. Only wait. It was telepathy; but also more than telepathy. Don't write me off too easily.
Telepathy, then: the inner monologues44 of all the so-called teeming45 millions, of masses and classes alike, jostled for space within my head. In the beginning, when I was content to be an audience - before I began to act - there was a language problem. The voices babbled46 in everything from Malayalam to Naga dialects, from the purity of Luck-now Urdu to the Southern slurrings of Tamil. I understood only a fraction of the things being said within the walls of my skull47. Only later, when I began to probe, did I learn that below the surface transmissions - the front-of-mind stuff which is what I'd originally been picking up - language faded away, and was replaced by universally intelligible48 thought-forms which far transcended49 words ... but that was after I heard, beneath the polyglot50 frenzy51 in my head, those other precious signals, utterly52 different from everything else, most of them faint and distant, like far-off drums whose insistent53 pulsing eventually broke through the fish-market cacophony54 of my voices... those secret, nocturnal calk, like calling out to like ... the unconscious beacons55 of the children of midnight, signalling nothing more than their existence, transmitting simply: 'I.' From far to the North, 'I.' And the South East West: 'I.' 'I.' 'And I.'
But I mustn't get ahead of myself. In the beginning, before I broke through to more-than-telepathy, I contented56 myself with listening; and soon I was able to 'tune57' my inner ear to those voices which I could understand; nor was it long before I picked out, from the throng58, the voices of my own family; and of Mary Pereira; and of friends, classmates, teachers. In the street, I learned how to identify the mind-stream of passing strangers - the laws of Doppler shift continued to operate in these paranormal realms, and the voices grew and diminished as the strangers passed.
All of which I somehow kept to myself. Reminded daily (by the buzzing in my left, or sinister59, ear) of my father's wrath60, and anxious to keep my right ear in good working order, I sealed my lips. For a nine-year-old boy, the difficulties of concealing62 knowledge are almost insurmountable; but fortunately, my nearest and dearest were as anxious to forget my outburst as I was to conceal61 the truth.
'O, you Saleem! Such things you talked yesterday! Shame on you, boy: you better go wash out your mouth with soap!'... The morning after my disgrace, Mary Pereira, shaking with indignation like one of her jellies, suggested the perfect means of my rehabilitation63. Bowing my head contritely64, I went, without a word, into the bathroom, and there, beneath the amazed gaze of ayah and Monkey, scrubbed teeth tongue roofofmouth gums with a toothbrush covered in the sharp foul65 lather66 of Coal Tar3 Soap. The news of my dramatic atonement rushed rapidly around the house, borne by Mary and Monkey; and my mother embraced me, 'There, good boy; we'll say no more about it,' and Ahmed Sinai nodded gruffly at the breakfast table, 'At least the boy has the grace to admit when he's gone too far.'
As my glass-inflicted cuts faded, it was as though my announcement was also erased67; and by the time of my ninth birthday, nobody besides myself remembered anything about the day when I had taken the name of Archangels in vain. The taste of detergent68 lingered on my tongue for many weeks, reminding me of the need for secrecy69.
Even the Brass Monkey was satisfied by my show of contrition70 - in her eyes, I had returned to form, and was once more the goody-two-shoes of the family. To demonstrate her willingness to re-establish the old order, she set fire to my mother's favourite slippers71, and regained72 her rightful place in the family doghouse. Amongst outsiders, what's more - displaying a conservatism you'd never have suspected in such a tomboy - she closed ranks with my parents, and kept my one aberration73 a secret from her friends and mine.
In a country where any physical or mental peculiarity74 in a child is a source of deep family shame, my parents, who had become accustomed to facial birthmarks, cucumber-nose and bandy legs, simply refused to see any more embarrassing things in me; for my part, I did not once mention the buzzings in my ear, the occasional ringing bells of deafness, the intermittent75 pain. I had learned that secrets were not always a bad thing.
But imagine the confusion inside my head! Where, behind the hideous76 face, above the tongue tasting of soap, hard by the perforated eardrum, lurked77 a not-very-tidy mind, as full of bric-a-brac as nine-year-old pockets ... imagine yourself inside me somehow, looking out through my eyes, hearing the noise, the voices, and now the obligation of not letting people know, the hardest part was acting78 surprised, such as when my mother said Hey Saleem guess what we're going for a picnic to the Aarey Milk Colony and I had to go Ooo, exciting!, when I had known all along because I had heard her unspoken inner voice And on my birthday seeing all the presents in the donors79' minds before they were even unwrapped And the treasure hunt ruined because there in my father's head was the location of each clue every prize And much harder things such as going to see my father in his ground-floor office, here we are, and the moment I'm in there my head is full of godknowswhat rot because he's thinking about his secretary, Alice or Fernanda, his latest Coca-Cola girl, he's undressing her slowly in his head and it's in my head too, she's sitting stark80 naked on a cane-bottomed chair and now getting up, crisscross marks all across her rump, that's my father thinking, MY FATHER, now he's looking at me all funny What's the matter son don't you feel well Yes fine Abba fine, must go now GOT TO GET AWAY homework to do, Abba, and out, run away before he sees the clue on your face (my father always said that when I was lying there was a red light flashing on my forehead)... You see how hard it is, my uncle Hanif comes to take me to the wrestling, and even before we've arrived at Vallabhbai Patel Stadium on Hornby Vellard I'm feeling sad
We're walking with the crowds past giant cardboard cut-outs of Dara Singh and Tagra Baba and the rest and his sadness, my favourite uncle's sadness is pouring into me, it lives like a lizard81 just beneath the hedge of his jollity, concealed82 by his booming laugh which was once the laugh of the boatman Tai, we're sitting in excellent seats as floodlights dance on the backs of the interlocked wrestlers and I am caught in the unbreakable grip of my uncle's grief, the grief of his failing film career, flop84 after flop, he'll probably never get a film again But I mustn't let the sadness leak out of my eyes He's butting85 into my thoughts, hey phaelwan, hey little wrestler83, what's dragging your face down, it looks longer than a bad movie, you want channa? pakoras? what? And me shaking my head, No, nothing, Hanif mamu, so that he relaxes, turns away, starts yelling Ohe come on Dara, that's the ticket, give him hell, Dara yara! And back home my mother squatting86 in the corridor with the ice-cream tub, saying with her real outside-voice, You want to help me make it, son, your favourite pistachio flavour, and I'm turning the handle, but her inside-voice is bouncing against the inside of my head, I can see how she's trying to fill up every nook and cranny of her thoughts with everyday things, the price of pom-fret, the roster87 of household chores, must call in the electrician to mend the ceiling-fan in the dining-room, how she's desperately88 concentrating on parts of her husband to love, but the unmentionable word keeps finding room, the two syllables89 which leaked out of her in the bathroom that day, Na Dir Na Dir Na, she's finding it harder and harder to put down the telephone when the wrong numbers come MY MOTHER I tell you when a boy gets inside grown-up thoughts they can really mess him up completely And even at night, no respite90, I wake up at the stroke of midnight with Mary Pereira's dreams inside my head Night after night
Always at my personal witching-hour, which also has meaning for her Her dreams are plagued by the image of a man who has been dead for years, Joseph D'Costa, the dream tells me the name, it is coated with a guilt91 I cannot understand, the same guilt which seeps92 into us all every time we eat her chutneys, there is a mystery here but because the secret is not in the front of her mind I can't find it out, and meanwhile Joseph is there, each night, sometimes in human form, but not always, sometimes he's a wolf, or a snail93, once a broomstick, but we (she-dreaming, I-looking in) know it's him, baleful implacable accusative, cursing her in the language of his incarnations, howling at her when he's wolf-Joseph, covering her in the slime-trails of Joseph-the-snail, beating her with the business end of his broomstick incarnation ... and in the morning when she's telling me to bathe clean up get ready for school I have to bite back the questions, I am nine years old and lost in the confusion of other people's lives which are blurring94 together in the heat.
To end this account of the early days of my transformed life, I must add one painful confession95: it occurred to me that I could improve my parents' opinion of me by using my new faculty96 to help out with my schoolwork - in short, I began to cheat in class. That is to say, I tuned97 in to the inner voices of my schoolteachers and also of my cleverer classmates, and picked information out of their minds. I found that very few of my masters could set a test without rehearsing the ideal answers in their minds - and I knew, too, that on those rare occasions when the teacher was preoccupied98 by other things, his private love-life or financial difficulties, the solutions could always be found in the precocious99, prodigious100 mind of our class genius, Cyrus-the-great. My marks began to improve dramatically - but not overly so, because I took care to make my versions different from their stolen originals; even when I telepathi-cally cribbed an entire English essay from Cyrus, I added a number of mediocre101 touches of my own. My purpose was to avoid suspicion; I did not, but I escaped discovery. Under Emil Zagallo's furious, interrogating103 eyes I remained innocently seraphic; beneath the bemused, head-shaking perplexity of Mr Tandon the English master I worked my treachery in silence - knowing that they would not believe the truth even if, by chance or folly104, I spilled the beans.
Let me sum up: at a crucial point in the history of our child-nation, at a time when Five Year Plans were being drawn105 up and elections were approaching and language marchers were fighting over Bombay, a nine-year-old boy named Saleem Sinai acquired a miraculous106 gift. Despite the many vital uses to which his abilities could have been put by his impoverished107, underdeveloped country, he chose to conceal his talents, frittering them away on inconsequential voyeurism108 and petty cheating. This behaviour - not, I confess, the behaviour of a hero - was the direct result of a confusion in his mind, which invariably muddled109 up morality - the desire to do what is right - and popularity - the rather more dubious110 desire to do what is approved of. Fearing parental111 ostracism112, he suppressed the news of his transformation113; seeking parental congratulations, he abused his talents at school. This flaw in his character can partially114 be excused on the grounds of his tender years; but only partially. Confused thinking was to bedevil much of his career.
I can be quite tough in my self-judgements when I choose.
What stood on the flat roof of the Breach115 Candy Kindergarten - a roof, you will recall, which could be reached from the garden of Buckingham Villa116, simply by climbing over a boundary wall? What, no longer capable of performing the function for which it was designed, watched over us that year when even the winter forgot to cool down - what observed Sonny Ibrahim, Eyeslice, Hairoil, and myself, as we played kabaddi, and French Cricket, and seven-tiles, with the occasional participation117 of Cyrus-the-great and of other, visiting friends: Fat Perce Fishwala and Glandy Keith Colaco? What was present on the frequent occasions when Toxy Catrack's nurse Bi-Appah yelled down from the top floor of Homi's home: 'Brats118! Rackety good-for-nothings! Shut your noise!' ... so that we all ran away, returning (when she vanished from our sight) to make mute faces at the window at which she'd stood? In short, what was it, tall and blue and flaking119, which oversaw120 our lives, which seemed, for a while, to be marking time, waiting not only for the nearby time when we would put on long trousers, but also, perhaps, for the coming of Evie Burns? Perhaps you'd like clues: what had once hidden bombs? In what had Joseph D'Costa died of snake-bite? ...
When, after some months of inner torment121, I at last sought refuge from grown-up voices, I found it in an old clocktower, which nobody bothered to lock; and here, in the solitude122 of rusting123 time, I paradoxically took my first tentative steps towards that involvement with mighty124 events and public lives from which I would never again be free ... never, until the Widow ...
Banned from washing-chests, I began, whenever possible, to creep unobserved into the tower of crippled hours. When the circus-ring was emptied by heat or chance or prying125 eyes; when Ahmed and Amina went off to the Willingdon Club for canasta evenings; when the Brass Monkey was away, hanging around her newly-acquired heroines, the Walsingham School for Girls' swimming and diving team ... that is to say, when circumstances permitted, I entered my secret hideout, stretched out on the straw mat I'd stolen from the servants' quarters, closed my eyes, and let my newly-awakened inner ear (connected, like all ears, to my nose) rove freely around the city - and further, north and south, east and west - listening in to all manner of things. To escape the intolerable pressures of eavesdropping126 on people I knew, I practised my art upon strangers. Thus my entry into public affairs of India occurred for entirely ignoble127 reasons - upset by too much intimacy128, I used the world outside our hillock for light relief.
The world as discovered from a broken-down clocktower: at first, I was no more than a tourist, a child peeping through the miraculous peepholes of a private 'Dilli-dekho' machine. Dugdugee-drums rattled129 in my left (damaged) ear as I gained my first glimpse of the Taj Mahal through the eyes of a fat Englishwoman suffering from the tummy-runs; after which, to balance south against north, I hopped130 down to Madurai's Meenakshi temple and nestled amongst the woolly, mystical perceptions of a chanting priest. I toured Connaught Place in New Delhi in the guise131 of an auto-rickshaw driver, complaining bitterly to my fares about the rising price of gasoline; in Calcutta I slept rough in a section of drainpipe. By now thoroughly132 bitten by the travel bug133, I zipped down to Cape102 Comorin and became a fisher-woman whose sari was as tight as her morals were loose ... standing40 on red sands washed by three seas, I flirted134 with Dravidian beachcombers in a language I couldn't understand; then up into the Himalayas, into the neanderthal moss-covered hut of a Goojar tribal135, beneath the glory of a completely circular rainbow and the tumbling moraine of the Kolahoi glacier136. At the golden fortress137 of Jaisalmer I sampled the inner life of a woman making mirrorwork dresses and at Khajuraho I was an adolescent village boy, deeply embarrassed by the erotic, Tahtric carvings138 on the Chandela temples standing in the fields, but unable to tear away my eyes ... in the exotic simplicities139 of travel I was able to find a modicum140 of peace. But, in the end, tourism ceased to satisfy; curiosity began to niggle; 'Let's find out,' I told myself, 'what really goes on around here.'
With the eclectic spirit of my nine years spurring me on, I leaped into the heads of film stars and cricketers - I learned the truth behind the Filmfare gossip about the dancer Vyjayantimala, and I was at the crease141 with Polly Umrigar at the Brabourne Stadium; I was Lata Mangeshkar the playback singer and Bubu the clown at the circus behind Civil Lines ... and inevitably, through the ramdom processes of my mind-hopping, I discovered politics.
At one time I was a landlord in Uttar Pradesh, my belly142 rolling over my pajama-cord as I ordered serfs to set my surplus grain on fire ... at another moment I was starving to death in Orissa, where there was a food shortage as usual: I was two months old and my mother had run out of breast-milk. I occupied, briefly143, the mind of a Congress Party worker, bribing144 a village schoolteacher to throw his weight behind the party of Gandhi and Nehru in the coming election campaign; also the thoughts of a Keralan peasant who had decided to vote Communist. My daring grew: one afternoon I deliberately145 invaded the head of our own State Chief Minister, which was how I discovered, over twenty years before it became a national joke, that Morarji Desai 'took his own water' daily ... I was inside him, tasting the warmth as he gurgled down a frothing glass of urine. And finally I hit my highest point: I became Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister and author of framed letters: I sat with the great man amongst a bunch of gaptoothed, stragglebeard astrologers and adjusted the Five Year Plan to bring it into harmonic alignment146 with the music of the spheres ... the high life is a heady thing. 'Look at me!' I exulted147 silently. 'I can go any place I want!'
In that tower which had once been filled choc-a-bloc with the explosive devices of Joseph D'Costa's hatred148, this phrase (accompanied by appropriate ticktock sound effects) plopped fully-formed into my thoughts: 'I am the tomb in Bombay .. .watch me explode!'
Because the feeling had come upon me that I was somehow creating a world; that the thoughts I jumped inside were mine, that the bodies I occupied acted at my command; that, as current affairs, arts, sports, the whole rich variety of a first-class radio station poured into me, I was somehow making them happen ...
which is to say, I had entered into the illusion of the artist, and thought of the multitudinous realities of the land as the raw unshaped material of my gift.
'I can find out any damn thing!' I triumphed, 'There isn't a thing I cannot know!'
Today, with the hindsight of the lost, spent years, I can say that the spirit of self-aggrandizement which seized me then was a reflex, born of an instinct for self-preservation. If I had not believed myself in control of the flooding multitudes, their massed identities would have annihilated149 mine ... but there in my clocktower, filled with the cockiness of my,glee, I became Sin, the ancient moon-god (no, not Indian: I've imported him from Hadhramaut of old), capable of acting-at-a-distance and shifting the tides of the world.
But death, when it visited Methwold's Estate, still managed to take me by surprise.
Even though the freezing of his assets had ended many years ago, the zone below Ahmed Sinai's waist had remained as cold as ice. Ever since the day he had cried out, 'The bastards150 are shoving my balls in an ice-bucket!', and Amina had taken them in her hands to warm them so that her fingers got glued to them by the cold, his sex had lain dormant151, a woolly elephant in an iceberg152, like the one they found in Russia in '56. My mother Amina, who had married for children, felt the uncreated lives rotting in her womb and blamed herself for becoming unattractive to him, what with her corns and all. She discussed her unhappiness with Mary Pereira, but the ayah only told her that there was no happiness to be gained from 'the mens'; they made pickles153 together as they talked, and Amina stirred her disappointments into a hot lime chutney which never failed to bring tears to the eyes.
Although Ahmed Sinai's office hours were filled with fantasies of secretaries taking dictation in the nude154, visions of his Fernandas or Poppys strolling around the room in their birthday suits with crisscross cane-marks on their rumps, his apparatus155 refused to respond; and one day, when the real Fernanda or Poppy had gone home, he was playing chess with Dr Narlikar, his tongue (as well as his game) made somewhat loose by djinns, and he confided156 awkwardly, 'Narlikar, I seem to have lost interest in you-know-what.'
A gleam of pleasure radiated from the luminous157 gynaecologist; the birth-control fanatic158 in the dark, glowing doctor leaped out through his eyes and made the following speech: 'Bravo!' Dr Narlikar cried, 'Brother Sinai, damn good show! You - and, may I add, myself - yes, you and I, Sinai bhai, are persons of rare spiritual worth! Not for us the panting humiliations of the flesh - is it not a finer thing, I ask you, to eschew159 procreation - to avoid adding one more miserable160 human life to the vast multitudes which are presently beggaring our country - and, instead, to bend our energies to the task of giving them more land to stand on? I tell you, my friend: you and I and our tetrapods: from the very oceans we shall bring forth161 soil!' To consecrate162 this oration163, Ahmed Sinai poured drinks; my father and Dr Narlikar drank a toast to their four-legged concrete dream.
'Land, yes! Love, no!' Dr Narlikar said, a little unsteadily; my father refilled his glass.
By the last days of 1956, the dream of reclaiming164 land from the sea with the aid of thousands upon thousands of large concrete tetrapods - that same dream which had been the cause of the freeze -and which was now, for my father, a sort of surrogate for the sexual activity which the aftermath of the freeze denied him - actually seemed to be coming close to fruition. This time, however, Ahmed Sinai was spending his money cautiously; this time he remained hidden in the background, and his name appeared on no documents; this time, he had learned the lessons of the freeze and was determined165 to draw as little attention to himself as possible; so that when Dr Narlikar betrayed him by dying, leaving behind him no record of my father's involvement in the tetrapod scheme, Ahmed Sinai (who was prone166, as we have seen, to react badly in the face of disaster) was swallowed up by the mouth of a long, snaking decline from which he would not emerge until, at the very end of his days, he at last fell in love with his wife.
This is the story that got back to Methwold's Estate: Dr Narlikar had been visiting friends near Marine167 Drive; at the end of the visit, he had resolved to stroll down to Chowpatty Beach and buy himself some bhel-puri and a little coconut milk. As he strolled briskly along the pavement by the sea-wall, he overtook the tail-end of a language march, which moved slowly along, chanting peacefully. Dr Narlikar neared the place where, with the Municipal Corporation's permission, he had arranged for a single, symbolic168 tetrapod to be placed upon the sea-wall, as a kind of icon169 pointing the way to the future; and here he noticed a thing which made him lose his reason. A group of beggar-women had clustered around the tetrapod and were performing the rite13 of puja. They had lighted oil-lamps at the base of the object; one of them had painted the 铎-symbol on its upraised tip; they were chanting prayers as they gave the tetrapod a thorough and worshipful wash. Technological170 miracle had been transformed into Shiva-lingam; Doctor Narlikar, the opponent of fertility, was driven wild at this vision, in which it seemed to him that all the old dark priapic forces of ancient, procreative India had been unleashed171 upon the beauty of sterile172 twentieth-century concrete ... sprinting173 along, he shouted his abuse at the worshipping women, gleaming fiercely in his rage; reaching them, he kicked away their little dia-lamps; it is said he even tried to push the women.
And he was seen by the eyes of the language marchers.
The ears of the language marchers heard the roughness of his tongue; the marchers' feet paused, their voices rose in rebuke174. Fists were shaken; oaths were oathed. Whereupon the good doctor, made incautious by anger, turned upon the crowd and denigrated175 its cause, its breeding and its sisters. A silence fell and exerted its powers. Silence guided marcher-feet towards the gleaming gynaecologist, who stood between the tetrapod and the wailing176 women. In silence the marchers' hands reached out towards Narlikar and in a deep hush177 he clung to four-legged concrete as they attempted to pull him towards them. In absolute soundlessness, fear gave Dr Narlikar the strength of limpets; his arms stuck to the tetrapod and would not be detached. The marchers applied178 themselves to the tetrapod ... silently they began to rock it; mutely the force of their numbers overcame its weight. In an evening seized by a demonic quietness the tetrapod tilted179, preparing to become the first of its kind to enter the waters and begin the great work of land reclamation180. Dr Suresh Narlikar, his mouth opening in a voiceless A, clung to it like a phosphorescent mollusc ... man and four-legged concrete fell without a sound. The splash of the waters broke the spell.
It was said that when Dr Narlikar fell and was crushed into death by the weight of his beloved obsession181, nobody had any trouble locating the body because it sent light glowing upwards182 through the waters like a fire.
'Do you know what's happening?' 'Hey, man, what gives?' - children, myself included, clustered around the garden hedge of Escorial Villa, in which was Dr Narlikar's bachelor apartment; and a hamal of Lila Sabarmati's, taking on an air of grave dignity, informed us, 'They have brought his death home, wrapped in silk.'
I was not allowed to see the death of Dr Narlikar as it lay wreathed in saffron flowers on his hard, single bed; but I got to know all about it anyway, because the news of it spread far beyond the confines of his room. Mostly, I heard about it from the Estate servants, who found it quite natural to speak openly of a death, but rarely said much about life, because in life everything was obvious.
From Dr Narlikar's own bearer I learned that the death had, by swallowing large quantities of the sea, taken on the qualities of water: it had become a fluid thing, and looked happy, sad or indifferent according to how the light hit it.
Homi Catrack's gardener interjected: 'It is dangerous to look too long at death; otherwise you come away with a little of it inside you, and there are effects.'
We asked: effects? what effects? which effects? how? And Purushottam the sadhu, who had left his place under the Buckingham Villa garden tap for the first time in years, said: 'A death makes the living see themselves too clearly; after they have been in its presence, they become exaggerated.' This extraordinary claim was, in fact, borne out by events, because afterwards Toxy Catrack's nurse Bi-Appah, who had helped to clean up the body, became shriller, more shrewish, more terrifying than ever; and it seemed that everyone who saw the death of Dr Narlikar as it lay in state was affected183, Nussie Ibrahim became even sillier and more of a duck, and Lila Sabarmati, who lived upstairs from the death and had helped to arrange its room, afterwards gave in to a promiscuity184 which had always been lurking185 within her, and set herself on a road at whose end there would be bullets, and her husband Commander Sabarmati conducting the Colaba traffic with a most unusual baton186 ...
Our family, however, stayed away from the death. My father refused to go and pay his respects, and would never refer to his late friend by name, calling him simply: 'that traitor187'.
Two days later, when the news had been in the papers, Dr Narlikar suddenly acquired an enormous family of female relations. Having been a bachelor and misogynist188 all his life, he was engulfed189, in death, by a sea of giant, noisy, omnicompetent women, who came crawling out from strange corners of the city, from milking jobs at Amul Dairies and from the box-offices of cinemas, from street-side soda-fountains and unhappy marriages; in a year of processions the Narlikar women formed their own parade, an enormous stream of outsize womanhood flowing up our two-storey hillock to fill Dr Narlikar's apartment so full that from the road below you could see their elbows sticking out of the windows and their behinds overflowing190 on to the verandah. For a week nobody got any sleep because the wailing of the Narlikar women filled the air; but beneath their howls the women were proving as competent as they looked. They took over the running of the Nursing Home; they investigated all of Narlikar's business deals; and they cut my father out of the tetrapod deal just as coolly as you please.
After all those years my father was left with nothing but a hole in his pocket, while the women took Narlikar's body to Benares to have it cremated191, and the Estate servants whispered to me that they had heard how the Doctor's ashes were sprinkled on the waters of Holy Ganga at Manikarnika-ghat at dusk, and they did not sink, but floated on the surface of the water like tiny glowing firebugs, and were washed out to sea where their strange luminosity must have frightened the captains of ships.
As for Ahmed Sinai: I swear that it was after Narlikar's death and the arrival of the women that he began, literally192, to fade... gradually his skin paled, his hair lost its colour, until within a few months he had become entirely white except for the darkness of his eyes. (Mary Pereira told Amina: 'That man is cold in the blood; so now his skin has made ice, white ice like a fridge.') I should say, in all honesty, that although he pretended to be worried by his transformation into a white man, and went to see doctors and so forth, he was secretly rather pleased when they failed to explain the problem or prescribe a cure, because he had long envied Europeans their pigmentation. One day, when it was permissible to make jokes again (a decent interval193 had been allowed to elapse after Dr Narlikar's death), he told Lila Sabarmati at the cocktail194 hour: 'All the best people are white under the skin; I have merely given up pretending.' His neighbours, all of whom were darker than he, laughed politely and felt curiously195 ashamed.
Circumstantial evidence indicates that the shock of Narlikar's death was responsible for giving me a snow-white father to set beside my ebony mother; but (although I don't know how much you're prepared to swallow) I shall risk giving an alternative explanation, a theory developed in the abstract privacy of my clocktower... because during my frequent psychic196 travels, I discovered something rather odd: during the first nine years after Independence, a similar pigmentation disorder197 (whose first recorded victim may well have been the Rani of Cooch Naheen) afflicted198 large numbers of the nation's business community. All over India, I stumbled across good Indian businessmen, their fortunes thriving thanks to the first Five Year Plan, which had concentrated on building up commerce... businessmen who had become or were becoming very, very pale indeed! It seems that the gargantuan199 (even heroic) efforts involved in taking over from the British and becoming masters of their own destinies had drained the colour from their cheeks ... in which case, perhaps my father was a late victim of a widespread, though generally unremarked phenomenon. The businessmen of India were turning white.
That's enough to chew on for one day. But Evelyn Lilith Burns is coming; the Pioneer Cafe is getting painfully close; and - more vitally - midnight's other children, including my alter ego200 Shiva, he of the deadly knees, are pressing extremely hard. Soon the cracks will be wide enough for them to escape ...
By the way: some time around the end of 1956, in all probability, the singer and cuckold Wee Willie Winkie also met his death.
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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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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metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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reiterate
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| v.重申，反复地说 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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workforce
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| n.劳动大军，劳动力 | |
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giggles
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| n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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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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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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transistor
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| n.晶体管，晶体管收音机 | |
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scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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accentuating
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| v.重读( accentuate的现在分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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deafened
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| 使聋( deafen的过去式和过去分词 )； 使隔音 | |
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outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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symbolize
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| vt.作为...的象征，用符号代表 | |
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sterilization
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| n.杀菌，绝育；灭菌 | |
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bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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snipped
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| v.剪( snip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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blurs
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| n.模糊( blur的名词复数 )；模糊之物；（移动的）模糊形状；模糊的记忆v.（使）变模糊( blur的第三人称单数 )；（使）难以区分 | |
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coconut
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| n.椰子 | |
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perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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linguistic
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| adj.语言的，语言学的 | |
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mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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siestas
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| n.（气候炎热国家的）午睡，午休( siesta的名词复数 ) | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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militantly
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| 激进地，好斗地 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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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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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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monologues
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| n.（戏剧）长篇独白( monologue的名词复数 )；滔滔不绝的讲话；独角戏 | |
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45
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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46
babbled
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| v.喋喋不休( babble的过去式和过去分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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49
transcended
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| 超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的过去式和过去分词 )； 优于或胜过… | |
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50
polyglot
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| adj.通晓数种语言的；n.通晓多种语言的人 | |
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51
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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52
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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53
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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54
cacophony
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| n.刺耳的声音 | |
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55
beacons
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| 灯塔( beacon的名词复数 )； 烽火； 指路明灯； 无线电台或发射台 | |
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56
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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57
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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58
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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59
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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60
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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61
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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63
rehabilitation
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| n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位 | |
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contritely
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65
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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lather
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| n.(肥皂水的)泡沫，激动 | |
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67
erased
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| v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除 | |
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detergent
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| n.洗涤剂；adj.有洗净力的 | |
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69
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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contrition
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| n.悔罪，痛悔 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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aberration
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| n.离开正路，脱离常规，色差 | |
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74
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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donors
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| n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者 | |
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stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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82
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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wrestler
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| n.摔角选手，扭 | |
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flop
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| n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下 | |
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butting
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| 用头撞人（犯规动作） | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；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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roster
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| n.值勤表，花名册 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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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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snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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blurring
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| n.模糊，斑点甚多，（图像的）混乱v.（使）变模糊( blur的现在分词 )；（使）难以区分 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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tuned
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| adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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100
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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mediocre
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| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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103
interrogating
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| n.询问技术v.询问( interrogate的现在分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询 | |
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104
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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106
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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107
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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108
voyeurism
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| n.窥阴癖者 | |
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109
muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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110
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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111
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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112
ostracism
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| n.放逐；排斥 | |
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113
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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114
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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115
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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116
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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117
participation
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| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
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118
brats
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| n.调皮捣蛋的孩子( brat的名词复数 ) | |
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119
flaking
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| 刨成片，压成片； 盘网 | |
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120
oversaw
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| v.监督，监视( oversee的过去式 ) | |
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121
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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122
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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123
rusting
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| n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 ) | |
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124
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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125
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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126
eavesdropping
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| n. 偷听 | |
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127
ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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128
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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129
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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130
hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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131
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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132
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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133
bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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134
flirted
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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135
tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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136
glacier
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| n.冰川，冰河 | |
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137
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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138
carvings
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| n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物 | |
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139
simplicities
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| n.简单，朴素，率直( simplicity的名词复数 ) | |
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140
modicum
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| n.少量，一小份 | |
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141
crease
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| n.折缝，褶痕，皱褶；v.(使)起皱 | |
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142
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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143
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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144
bribing
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| 贿赂 | |
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145
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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146
alignment
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| n.队列；结盟，联合 | |
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147
exulted
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| 狂喜，欢跃( exult的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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148
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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149
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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150
bastards
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| 私生子( bastard的名词复数 )； 坏蛋； 讨厌的事物； 麻烦事 （认为别人走运或不幸时说）家伙 | |
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151
dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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152
iceberg
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| n.冰山，流冰，冷冰冰的人 | |
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153
pickles
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| n.腌菜( pickle的名词复数 )；处于困境；遇到麻烦；菜酱 | |
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154
nude
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| adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品 | |
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155
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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156
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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157
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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158
fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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159
eschew
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| v.避开，戒绝 | |
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160
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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161
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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162
consecrate
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| v.使圣化，奉…为神圣；尊崇；奉献 | |
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163
oration
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| n.演说，致辞，叙述法 | |
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164
reclaiming
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| v.开拓( reclaim的现在分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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165
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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166
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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167
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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168
symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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169
icon
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| n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像 | |
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170
technological
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| adj.技术的；工艺的 | |
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171
unleashed
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| v.把（感情、力量等）释放出来，发泄( unleash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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172
sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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173
sprinting
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| v.短距离疾跑( sprint的现在分词 ) | |
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174
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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175
denigrated
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| v.诋毁，诽谤( denigrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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176
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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177
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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178
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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179
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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180
reclamation
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| n.开垦；改造；（废料等的）回收 | |
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181
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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182
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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183
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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184
promiscuity
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| n.混杂，混乱；（男女的）乱交 | |
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185
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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186
baton
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| n.乐队用指挥杖 | |
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187
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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188
misogynist
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| n.厌恶女人的人 | |
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189
engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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190
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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191
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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192
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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193
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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194
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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195
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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196
psychic
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| n.对超自然力敏感的人；adj.有超自然力的 | |
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197
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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198
afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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199
gargantuan
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| adj.巨大的，庞大的 | |
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200
ego
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| n.自我，自己，自尊 | |
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