What-chews-on-bones refuses to pause ... it's only a matter of time. This is what keeps me going: I hold on to Padma. Padma is what matters - Padma-muscles, Padma's hairy forearms, Padma my own pure lotus ... who, embarrassed, commands: 'Enough. Start. Start now.'
Yes, it must start with the cable. Telepathy set me apart; telecommunications dragged me down ...
Amina Sinai was cutting verrucas out of her feet when the telegram arrived ...
once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: my mother, right ankle on left knee, was scooping1 corn-tissue out of the sole of her foot with a sharp-ended nail file on September 9th, 1962. And the time? The time matters, too. Well, then: in the afternoon. No, it's important to be more ... At the stroke of three o'clock, which, even in the north, is the hottest time of day, a bearer brought her an envelope on a silver dish. A few seconds later, far away in New Delhi, Defence Minister Krishna Menon (acting2 on his own initiative, during Nehru's absence at the Commonwealth3 Prime Ministers'
Conference) took the momentous4 decision to use force if necessary against the Chinese army on the Himalayan frontier. The Chinese must be ejected from the Thag La ridge5,' Mr Menon said while my mother tore open a telegram. 'No weakness will be shown.' But this decision was a mere6 trifle when set beside the implications of my mother's cable; because while the eviction7 operation, code-named LEGHORN, was doomed8 to fail, and eventually to turn India into that most macabre9 of theatres, the Theatre of War, the cable was to plunge10 me secretly but surely towards the crisis which would end with my final eviction from my own inner world. While the Indian XXXIII Corps11 were acting on instructions passed from Menon to General Thapar, I, too, had been placed in great danger; as if unseen forces had decided12 that I had also overstepped the boundaries of what I was permitted to do or know or be; as though history had decided to put me firmly in my place. I was left entirely13 without a say in the matter; my mother read the telegram, burst into tears and said, 'Children, we're going home!' ... after which, as I began by saying in another context, it was only a matter of time.
What the telegram said: PLEASE COME QUICK SINAISAHIB SUFFERED HEARTBOOT GRAVELY ILL SALAAMS14 ALICE PEREIRA.
'Of course, go at once, my darling,' my aunt Emerald told her sister, 'But what, my God, can be this heartboot?'
It is possible, even probable, that I am only the first historian to write the story of my undeniably exceptional life-and-times. Those who follow in my footsteps will, however, inevitably15 come to this present work, this source-book, this Hadith or Purana or Grundrisse, for guidance and inspiration. I say to these future exegetes: when you come to examine the events which followed on from the 'heartboot cable', remember that at the very eye of the hurricane which was unleashed16 upon me - the sword, to switch metaphors17, with which the coup18 de grace was applied19 - there lay a single unifying20 force. I refer to telecommunications.
Telegrams, and after telegrams, telephones, were my undoing21; generously, however, I shall accuse nobody of conspiracy22; although it would be easy to believe that the controllers of communication had resolved to regain23 their monopoly of the nation's air-waves.... I must return (Padma is frowning) to the banal24 chain of cause-and-effect: we arrived at Santa Cruz airport, by Dakota, on September 16th; but to explain the telegram, I must go further back in time.
If Alice Pereira had once sinned, by stealing Joseph D'Costa from her sister Mary, she had in these latter years gone a long way towards attaining25 redemption; because for four years she had been Ahmed Sinai's only human companion. Isolated26 on the dusty hillock which had once been Methwold's Estate, she had borne enormous demands on her accommodating good nature. He would make her sit with him until midnight while he drank djinns and ranted27 about the injustices28 of his life; he remembered, after years of forgetfulness, his old dream of translating and re-ordering the Quran, and blamed his family for emasculating him so that he didn't have the energy to begin such a task; in addition, because she was there, his anger often directed itself at her, taking the form of long tirades29 filled with gutter30-oaths and the useless curses he had devised in the days of his deepest abstraction. She attempted to be understanding: he was a lonely man; his once-infallible relationship with the telephone had been destroyed by the economic vagaries31 of the times; his touch in financial matters had begun to desert him ... he fell prey32, too, to strange fears. When the Chinese road in the Aksai Chin region was discovered, he became convinced that the yellow hordes33 would be arriving at Methwold's Estate in a matter of days; and it was Alice who comforted him with ice-cold Coca-Cola, saying, 'No good worrying. Those Chinkies are too little to beat our jawans.
Better you drink your Coke; nothing is going to change.'
In the end he wore her out; she stayed with him, finally, only because she demanded and received large pay increases, and sent much of the money to Goa, for the support of her sister Mary; but on September 1st, she, too, succumbed34 to the blandishments of the telephone.
By then, she spent as much time on the instrument as her employer, particularly when the Narlikar women called up. The formidable Narlikars were, at that time, besieging35 my father, telephoning him twice a day, coaxing36 and persuading him to sell, reminding him that his position was hopeless, flapping around his head like vultures around a burning godown ... on September 1st, like a long-ago vulture, they flung down an arm which slapped him in the face, because they bribed37 Alice Pereira away from him. Unable to stand him any more, she cried, 'Answer your own telephone! I'm off.'
That night, Ahmed Sinai's heart began to bulge38. Overfull of hate resentment39 self-pity grief, it became swollen40 like a balloon, it beat too hard, skipped beats, and finally felled him like an ox; at the Breach41 Candy Hospital the doctors discovered that my father's heart had actually changed shape - a new swelling42 had pushed lumpily out of the lower left ventricle. It had, to use Alice's word, 'booted'.
Alice found him the next day, when, by chance, she returned to collect a forgotten umbrella; like a good secretary, she enlisted43 the power of telecommunications, telephoning an ambulance and tele-gramming us. Owing to censorship of the mails between India and Pakistan, the 'heartboot cable' took a full week to reach Amina Sinai.'Back-to-Bom!' I yelled happily, alarming airport coolies. 'Back-to-Born!' I cheered, despite everything, until the newly-sober Jamila said, 'Oh, Saleem, honestly, shoo!' Alice Pereira met us at the airport (a telegram had alerted her); and then we were in a real Bombay black-and-yellow taxi, and I was wallowing in the sounds of hot-channa-hot hawkers, the throng44 of camels bicycles and people people people, thinking how Mumbadevi's city made Rawalpindi look like a village, rediscovering especially the colours, the forgotten vividness of gulmohr and bougainvillaea, the livid green of the waters of the Mahalaxmi Temple 'tank', the stark46 black-and-white of the traffic policemen's sun umbrellas and the blue-and-yellowness of their uniforms; but most of all the blue blue blue of the sea ... only the grey of my father's stricken face distracted me from the rainbow riot of the city, and made me sober up.
Alice Pereira left us at the hospital and went off to work for the Narlikar women; and now a remarkable47 thing happened. My mother Amina Sinai, jerked out of lethargy and depression and guilt48-fogs and verruca-pain by the sight of my father, seemed miraculously49 to regain her youth; with all her old gifts of assiduity restored, she set about the rehabilitation51 of Ahmed, driven by an unstoppable will. She brought him home to the first-floor bedroom in which she had nursed him through the freeze; she sat with him day and night, pouring her strength into his body. And her love had its reward, because not only did Ahmed Sinai make a recovery so complete as to astound52 Breach Candy's European doctors, but also an altogether more wonderful change occurred, which was that, as Ahmed came to himself under Amina's care, he returned not to the self which had practised curses and wrestled53 djinns, but to the self he might always have been, filled with contrition54 and forgiveness and laughter and generosity55 and the finest miracle of all, which was love. Ahmed Sinai had, at long last, fallen in love with my mother.
And I was the sacrificial lamb with which they anointed their love.
They had even begun to sleep together again; and although my sister - with a flash of her old Monkey-self - said, 'In the same bed, Allah, Mi-Mi, how dirty!', I was happy for them; and even, briefly56, happier for myself, because I was back in the land of the Midnight Children's Conference. While newspaper headlines marched towards war, I renewed my acquaintance with my miraculous50 fellows, not knowing how many endings were in store for me.
On October 9th - INDIAN ARMY POISED57 FOR ALL-OUT EFFORT - I felt able to convene58 the Conference (time and my own efforts had erected59 the necessary barrier around Mary's secret). Back into my head they came; it was a happy night, a night for burying old disagreements, for making our own all-out effort at reunion. We repeated, over and over again, our joy at being back together; ignoring the deeper truth - that we were like all families, that family reunions are more delightful60 in prospect61 than in reality, and that the time comes when all families must go their separate ways. On October 15th-UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON INDIA - the questionsI'd been dreading62 and trying not to provoke began: Why is Shiva not here? And: Why have you closed off part of your mind?
On October 20th, the Indian forces were defeated - thrashed - by the Chinese at Thag La ridge. An official Peking statement announced: In self-defence, Chinese frontier guards were compelled to strike back resolutely63. But when, that same night, the children of midnight launched a concerted assault on me, I had no defence. They attacked on a broad front and from every direction, accusing me of secrecy64, prevarication65, high-handedness, egotism; my mind, no longer a parliament chamber66, became the battleground on which they annihilated67 me. No longer 'big brother Saleem', I listened helplessly while they tore me apart; because, despite all their sound-and-fury, I could not unblock what I had sealed away; I could not bring myself to tell them Mary's secret. Even Parvati-the-witch, for so long my fondest supporter, lost patience with me at last. 'O, Saleem,' she said, 'God knows what that Pakistan has done to you; but you are badly changed.'
Once, long ago, the death of Mian Abdullah had destroyed another Conference, which had been held together purely68 by the strength of his will; now, as the midnight children lost faith in me, they also lost their belief in the thing I had made for them. Between October 20th and November 2Oth, I continued to convene - to attempt to convene - our nightly sessions; but they fled from me, not one by one, but in tens and twenties; each night, less of them were willing to tune69 in; each week, over a hundred of them retreated into private life. In the high Himalayas, Gurkhas and Rajputs fled in disarray70 from the Chinese army; and in the upper reaches of my mind, another army was also destroyed by things - bickerings, prejudices, boredom71, selfishness - which I had believed too small, too petty to have touched them.
(But optimism, like a lingering disease, refused to vanish; I continued to believe - I continue now - that what-we-had-in-common would finally have outweighed72 what-drove-us-apart. No: I will not accept the ultimate responsibility for the end of the Children's Conference; because what destroyed all possibility of renewal73 was the love of Ahmed and Amina Sinai.)
... And Shiva? Shiva, whom I cold-bloodedly denied his birthright? Never once, in that last month, did I send my thoughts in search of him; but his existence, somewhere in the world, nagged74 away at the corners of my mind.
Shiva-the-destroyer, Shiva Knoc-knees ... he became, for me, first a stabbing twinge of guilt; then an obsession75; and finally, as the memory of his actuality grew dull, he became a sort of principle; he came to represent, in my mind, all the vengefulness and violence and simultaneous-love-and-hate-of-Things in the world; so that even now, when I hear of drowned bodies floating like balloons on the Hooghly and exploding when nudged by passing boats; or trains set on fire, or politicians killed, or riots in Orissa or Punjab, it seems to me that the hand of Shiva lies heavily over all these things, dooming76 us to flounder endlessly amid murder rape77 greed war - that Shiva, in short, has made us who we are. (He, too, was born on the stroke of midnight; he, like me, was connected to history. The modes of connection - if I'm right in thinking they applied to me - enabled him, too, to affect the passage of the days.)
I'm talking as if I never saw him again; which isn't true. But that, of course, must get into the queue like everything else; I'm not strong enough to tell that tale just now.
The disease of optimism, in those days, once again attained78 epidemic79 proportions; I, meanwhile, was afflicted80 by an inflammation of the sinuses.
Curiously81 triggered off by the defeat of Thag La ridge, public optimism about the war grew as fat (and as dangerous) as an overfilled balloon; my long-suffering nasal passages, however, which had been overfilled all their days, finally gave up the struggle against congestion82. While parliamentarians poured out speeches about 'Chinese aggression83' and 'the blood of our martyred jawans', my eyes began to stream with tears; while the nation puffed84 itself up, convincing itself that the annihilation of the little yellow men was at hand, my sinuses, too, puffed up and distorted a face which was already so startling that Ayub Khan himself had stared at it in open amazement85. In the clutches of the optimism disease, students burned Mao Tse-Tung and Chou En-Lai in effigy86; with optimism-fever on their brows, mobs attacked Chinese shoemakers, curio dealers87 and restaurateurs. Burning with optimism, the Government even interned88 Indian citizens of Chinese descent - now 'enemy aliens' - in camps in Rajasthan. Birla Industries donated a miniature rifle range to the nation; schoolgirls began to go on military parade. But I, Saleem, felt as if I was about to die of asphyxiation89. The air, thickened by optimism, refused to enter my lungs.
Ahmed and Amina Sinai were amongst the worst victims of the renewed disease of optimism; having already contracted it through the medium of their new-born love, they entered into the public enthusiasm with a will. When Morarji Desai, the urine-drinking Finance Minister, launched his 'Ornaments90 for Armaments'
appeal, my mother handed over gold bangles and emerald ear-rings; when Morarji floated an issue of defence bonds, Ahmed Sinai bought them in bushels. War, it seemed, had brought a new dawn to India; in the Times of India, a cartoon captioned91 'War with China' showed Nehru looking at graphs labelled 'Emotional Integration92', 'Industrial Peace' and 'People's Faith in Government' and crying, 'We never had it so good!' Adrift in the sea of optimism, we - the nation, my parents, I - floated blindly towards the reefs.
As a people, we are obsessed93 with correspondences. Similarities between this and that, between apparently94 unconnected things, make us clap our hands delightedly when we find them out. It is a sort of national longing95 for form - or perhaps simply an expression of our deep belief that forms lie hidden within reality; that meaning reveals itself only in flashes. Hence our vulnerability to omens96 ... when the Indian flag was first raised, for instance, a rainbow appeared above that Delhi field, a rainbow of saffron and green; and we felt blessed.
Born amidst correspondence, I have found it continuing to hound me ... while Indians headed blindly towards a military debacle, I, too, was nearing (and entirely without knowing it) a catastrophe97 of my own.
Times of India cartoons spoke98 of 'Emotional Integration'; in Buckingham Villa45, last remnant of Methwold's Estate, emotions had never been so integrated. Ahmed and Amina spent their days like just-courting youngsters; and while the Peking People's Daily complained, 'The Nehru Government has finally shed its cloak of non-alignment', neither my sister nor I were complaining, because for the first time in years we did not have to pretend we were non-aligned in the war between our parents; what war had done for India, the cessation of hostilities99 had achieved on our two-storey hillock. Ahmed Sinai had even given up his nightly battle with the djinns.
By November 1st - INDIANS ATTACK UNDER COVER OF ARTILLERY100 - my nasal passages were in a state of acute crisis. Although my mother subjected me to daily torture by Vick's Inhaler and steaming bowls of Vick's ointment102 dissolved in water, which, blanket over head, I was obliged to try and inhale101, my sinuses refused to respond to treatment. This was the day on which my father held out his arms to me and said, 'Come, son - come here and let me love you.' In a frenzy103 of happiness (maybe the optimism disease had got to me, after all) I allowed myself to be smothered104 in his squashy belly105; but when he let me go, nose-goo had stained his bush-shirt. I think that's what finally doomed me; because that afternoon, my mother went on to the attack. Pretending to me that she was telephoning a friend, she made a certain telephone call. While Indians attacked under cover of artillery, Amina Sinai planned my downfall, protected by a lie.
Before I describe my entry into the desert of my later years, however, I must admit the possibility that I have grievously wronged my parents. Never once, to my knowledge, never once in all the time since Mary Pereira's revelations, did they set out to look for the true son of their blood; and I have, at several points in this narrative106, ascribed this failure to a certain lack of imagination - I have said, more or less, that I remained their son because they could not imagine me out of the role. And there are worse interpretations108 possible, too - such as their reluctance109 to accept into their bosom110 an -urchin who had spent eleven years in the gutter; but I wish to suggest a nobler motive111: maybe, despite everything, despite cucumber-nose stainface chinlessness horn-temples bandy-legs finger-loss monk's-tonsure and my (admittedly unknown to them) bad left ear, despite even the midnight baby-swap of Mary Pereira... maybe, I say, in spite of all these provocations112, my parents loved me. I withdrew from them into my secret world; fearing their hatred113, I did not admit the possibility that their love was stronger than ugliness, stronger even then blood. It is certainly likely that what a telephone call arranged, what finally took place on November 21st, 1962, was done for the highest of reasons; that my parents ruined me for love.
The day of November 20th was a terrible day; the night was a terrible night...
six days earlier, on Nehru's seventy-third birthday, the great confrontation114 with the Chinese forces had begun; the Indian army - JAWANS SWING INTO ACTION! - had attacked the Chinese at Walong. News of the disaster of Walong, and the rout115 of General Kaul and four battalions116, reached Nehru on Saturday 18th; on Monday 20th, it flooded through radio and press and arrived at Methwold's Estate.
ULTIMATE PANIC IN NEW DELHI! INDIAN FORCES IN TATTERS! That day - the last day of my old life - I sat huddled117 with my sister and parents around our Telefunken radiogram, while telecommunications struck the fear of God and China into our hearts. And my father now said a fateful thing: 'Wife,' he intoned gravely, while Jamila and I shook with fear, 'Begum Sahiba, this country is finished.
Bankrupt. Funtoosh.' The evening paper proclaimed the end of the optimism disease: PUBLIC MORALE118 DRAINS AWAY. And after that end, there were others to come; other things would also drain away.
I went to bed with my head full of Chinese faces guns tanks ... but at midnight, my head was empty and quiet, because the midnight Conference had drained away as well; the only one of the magic children who was willing to talk to me was Parvati-the-witch, and we, dejected utterly119 by what Nussie-the-duck would have called 'the end of the world', were unable to do more than simply commune in silence.
And other, more mundane120 drainages: a crack appeared in the mighty121 Bhakra Nangal Hydro-Electric Dam, and the great reservoir behind it flooded through the fissure122 ... and the Narlikar women's reclamation123 consortium, impervious124 to optimism or defeat or anything except the lure107 of wealth, continued to draw land out of the depths of the seas ... but the final evacuation, the one which truly gives this episode its title, took place the next morning, just when I had relaxed and thought that something, after all, might turn out all right ...
because in the morning we heard the improbably joyous125 news that the Chinese had suddenly, without needing to, stopped advancing; having gained control of the Himalayan heights, they were apparently content; CEASEFIRE! the newspapers screamed, and my mother almost fainted in relief. (There was talk that General Kaul had been taken prisoner; the President of India, Dr Radhakrishan, commented, 'Unfortunately, this report is completely untrue.')
Despite streaming eyes and puffed-up sinuses, I was happy; despite even the end of the Children's Conference, I was basking126 in the new glow of happiness which permeated127 Buckingham Villa; so when my mother suggested, 'Let's go and celebrate! A picnic, children, you'd like that?' I naturally agreed with alacrity128. It was the morning of November 21st; we helped make sandwiches and parathas; we stopped at a fizzy-drinks shop and loaded ice in a tin tub and Cokes in a crate129 into the boot of our Rover; parents in the front, children in the back, we set off. Jamila Singer sang for us as we drove.
Through inflamed130 sinuses, I asked: 'Where are we going? Juhu? Elephanta? Marve?
Where?' And my mother, smiling awkwardly: 'Surprise; wait and see.' Through streets filled with relieved, rejoicing crowds we drove ... 'This is the wrong way,' I exclaimed; 'This isn't the way to a beach?' My parents both spoke at once, reassuringly131, brightly: 'Just one stop first, and then we're off; promise.'
Telegrams recalled me; radiograms frightened me; but it was a telephone which booked the date time place of my undoing ... and my parents lied to me.
... We halted in front of an unfamiliar132 building in Carnac Road. Exterior133: crumbling134. All its windows: blind. 'You coming with me, son?' Ahmed Sinai got out of the car; I, happy to be accompanying my father on his business, walked jauntily135 beside him. A brass136 plate on the doorway137: Ear Nose Throat Clinic. And I, suddenly alarmed: 'What's this, Abba? Why have we come ...' And my father's hand, tightening138 on my shoulder - and then a man in a white coat - and nurses - and 'Ah yes Mr. Sinai so this is young Saleem - right on time - fine, fine'; while I, 'Abba, no - what about the picnic -'; but doctors are steering139 me along now, my father is dropping back, the man in the coat calls to him, 'Shan't be long - damn good news about the war, no?' And the nurse, 'Please accompany me for dressing140 and anaesthesia.'
Tricked! Tricked, Padma! I told you: once, picnics tricked me; and then there was a hospital and a room with a hard bed and bright hanging lamps and me crying, 'No no no,' and the nurse, 'Don't be stupid now, you're almost a grown man, lie down,' and I, remembering how nasal passages had started everything in my head, how nasal fluid had been sniffed141 upupup into somewhere-that-nosefluid-shouldn't-go, how .the connection had been made which released my voices, was kicking yelling so that they had to hold me down, 'Honestly,' the nurse said, 'such a baby, I never saw.'
And so what began in a washing-chest ended on an operating table, because I was held down hand-and-foot and a man saying 'You won't feel a thing, easier than having your tonsils out, get those sinuses fixed142 in no time, complete clear-out,' and me 'No please no,' but the voice continued, 'I'll put this mask on you now, just count to ten.'
Count. The numbers marching one two three.
Hiss143 of released gas. The numbers crushing me four five six.
Faces swimming in fog. And still the tumultuous numbers, I was crying, I think, the numbers pounding seven eight nine.
Ten.
'Good God, the boy's still conscious. Extraordinary. We'd better try another - can you hear me? Saleem, isn't it? Good chap, just give me another ten!' Can't catch me. Multitudes have teemed144 inside my head. The master of the numbers, me.
Here they go again 'leven twelve.
But they'll never let up until... thirteen fourteen fifteen ... O God O God the fog dizzy and falling back back back, sixteen, beyond war and pepperpots, back back, seventeen eighteen nineteen.
Twen There was a washing-chest and a boy who sniffed too hard. His mother undressed and revealed a Black Mango. Voices came, which were not the voices of Archangels. A hand, deafening145 the left ear. And what grew best in the heat: fantasy, irrationality146, lust147. There was a clocktower refuge, and cheatery-in-class. And love in Bombay caused a bicycle-accident; horn-temples entered forcep-hollows, and five hundred and eighty-one children visited my head. Midnight's children: who may have been the embodiment of the hope of freedom, who may also have been freaks-who-ought-to-be-finished-off.
Parvati-the-witch, most loyal of all, and Shiva, who became a principle of life.
There was a question of purpose, and the debate between ideas and things. There were knees and nose and nose and knees.
Quarrels, began, and the adult world infiltrated148 the children's; there was selfishness and snobbishness149 and hate. And the impossibility of a third principle; the fear of coming-to-nothing-after-all began to grow. And what nobody said: that the purpose of the five hundred and eighty-one lay in their destruction; that they had come, in order to come to nothing. Prophecies were ignored when they spoke to this effect.
And revelations, and the closing of a mind; and exile, and four-years-after return; suspicions growing, dissension breeding, departures in twenties and tens. And, at the end, just one voice left; but optimism lingered - what-we-had-in-common retained the possibility of overpowering what-forced-us-apart.
Until: Silence outside me. A dark room (blinds down). Can't see anything (nothing there to see).
Silence inside me. A connection broken (for ever). Can't hear anything (nothing there to hear).
Silence, like a desert. And a clear, free nose (nasal passages full of air).
Air, like a vandal, invading my private places.
Drained. I have been drained. The parahamsa, grounded.
(For good.)
O, spell it out, spell it out: the operation whose ostensible150 purpose was the draining of my inflamed sinuses and the once-and-for-all clearing of my nasal passages had the effect of breaking whatever connection had been made in a washing-chest; of depriving me of nose-given telepathy; of banishing151 me from the possibility of midnight children.
Our names contain our fates; living as we do in a place where names have not acquired the meaninglessness of the West, and are still more than mere sounds, we are also the victims of our titles. Sinai contains Ibn Sina, master magician, Sufi adept152; and also Sin the moon, the ancient god of Hadhramaut, with his own mode of connection, his powers of action-at-a-distance upon the tides of the world. But Sin is also the letter S, as sinuous153 as a snake; serpents lie coiled within the name. And there is also the accident of transliteration - Sinai, when in Roman script, though not in Nastaliq, is also the name of the place-of-revelation, of put-off-thy-shoes, of commandments and golden calves154; but when all that is said and done; when Ibn Sina is forgotten and the moon has set; when snakes lie hidden and revelations end, it is the name of the desert - of barrenness, infertility155, dust; the name of the end.
In Arabia - Arabia Deserta - at the time of the prophet Muhammad, other prophets also preached: Maslama of the tribe of the Banu Hanifa in the Yamama, the very heart of Arabia; and Hanzala ibn Safwan; and Khalid ibn Sinan. Maslama's God was ar-Rahman, 'the Merciful'; today Muslims pray to Allah, ar-Rahman. Khalid ibn Sinan was sent to the tribe of 'Abs; for a time, he was followed, but then he was lost. Prophets are not always false simply because they are overtaken, and swallowed up, by history. Men of worth have always roamed the desert.
'Wife,' Ahmed Sinai said, 'this country is finished.' After ceasefire and drainage, these words returned to haunt him; and Amina began to persuade him to emigrate to Pakistan, where her surviving sisters already were, and to which her mother would go after her father's death. 'A fresh start,' she suggested, 'Janum, it would be lovely. What is left for us on this God-forsaken hill?'
So in the end Buckingham Villa was delivered into the clutches of the Narlikar women, after all; and over fifteen years late, my family moved to Pakistan, the Land of the Pure. Ahmed Sinai left very little behind; there are ways of transmitting money with the help of multi-national companies, and my father knew those ways. And I, although sad to leave the city of my birth, was not unhappy about moving away from the city in which Shiva lurked156 somewhere like a carefully-concealed land-mine.
We left Bombay, finally, in February 1963; and on the day of our departure I took an old tin globe down to the garden and buried it amongst the cacti157. Inside it: a Prime Minister's-letter, and a jumbo-sized front-page baby-snap, captioned 'Midnight's Child' ... They may not be holy relics158 - I do not presume to compare the trivial memorabilia of my life with the Hazratbal hair of the Prophet, or the body of St Francis Xavier in the Cathedral of Bom Jesus - but they are all that has survived of my past: a squashed tin globe, a mildewed159 letter, a photograph. Nothing else, not even a silver spittoon. Apart from a Monkey-crushed planet, the only records are sealed in the closed books of heaven, Sidjeen and Illiyun, the Books of Evil and Good; at any rate, that's the story.
... Only when we were aboard S.S. Sabarmati, and anchored off the Rann of Kutch, did I remember old Schaapsteker; and wondered, suddenly, if anyone had told him we were going. I didn't dare to ask, for fear that the answer might be no; so as I thought of the demolition160 crew getting to work, and pictured the machines of destruction smashing into my father's office and my own blue room, pulling down the servants' spiral iron staircase and the kitchen in which Mary Pereira had stirred her fears into chutneys and pickles161, massacring the verandah where my mother had sat with the child in her belly like a stone, I ako had an image of a mighty, swinging ball crashing into the domain162 of Sharpsticker sahib, and of the old crazy man himself, pale wasted flick-tongued, being exposed there on top of a crumbling house, amid falling towers and red-tiled roof, old Schaapsteker shrivelling ageing dying in the sunlight which he hadn't seen for so many years.
But perhaps I'm dramatizing; I may have got all this from an old film called Lost Horizon, in which beautiful women shrivelled and died when they departed from Shangri-La.
For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake. We arrived in Karachi on February 9th - and within months, my sister Jamila had been launched on the career which would earn her the names of 'Pakistan's Angel' and 'Bulbul-of-the-Faith'; we had left Bombay, but we gained reflected glory. And one more thing: although I had been drained - although no voices spoke in my head, and never would again - there was one compensation: namely that, for the first time in my life, I was discovering the astonishing delights of possessing a sense of smell.
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scooping
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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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3
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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4
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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5
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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6
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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7
eviction
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| n.租地等的收回 | |
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8
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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9
macabre
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| adj.骇人的，可怖的 | |
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10
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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11
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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12
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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13
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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14
salaams
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| （穆斯林的）额手礼，问安，敬礼( salaam的名词复数 ) | |
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15
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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16
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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17
metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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18
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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19
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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20
unifying
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| 使联合( unify的现在分词 )； 使相同； 使一致； 统一 | |
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21
undoing
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| n.毁灭的原因，祸根；破坏，毁灭 | |
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22
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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23
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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24
banal
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| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
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25
attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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26
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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27
ranted
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| v.夸夸其谈( rant的过去式和过去分词 )；大叫大嚷地以…说教；气愤地)大叫大嚷；不停地大声抱怨 | |
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28
injustices
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| 不公平( injustice的名词复数 )； 非正义； 待…不公正； 冤枉 | |
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29
tirades
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| 激烈的长篇指责或演说( tirade的名词复数 ) | |
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30
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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31
vagaries
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| n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况 | |
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32
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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33
hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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34
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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35
besieging
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的现在分词 ) | |
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36
coaxing
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的现在分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱；“锻炼”效应 | |
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37
bribed
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| v.贿赂( bribe的过去式和过去分词 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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38
bulge
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| n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀 | |
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39
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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40
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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41
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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42
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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43
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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44
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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45
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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46
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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47
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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48
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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49
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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50
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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51
rehabilitation
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| n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位 | |
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52
astound
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| v.使震惊，使大吃一惊 | |
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53
wrestled
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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54
contrition
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| n.悔罪，痛悔 | |
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55
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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56
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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57
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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58
convene
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| v.集合，召集，召唤，聚集，集合 | |
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59
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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60
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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61
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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62
dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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63
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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64
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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65
prevarication
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| n.支吾；搪塞；说谎；有枝有叶 | |
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66
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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67
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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68
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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69
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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70
disarray
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| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
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71
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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72
outweighed
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| v.在重量上超过( outweigh的过去式和过去分词 )；在重要性或价值方面超过 | |
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73
renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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74
nagged
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| adj.经常遭责怪的；被压制的；感到厌烦的；被激怒的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的过去式和过去分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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75
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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76
dooming
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| v.注定( doom的现在分词 )；判定；使…的失败（或灭亡、毁灭、坏结局）成为必然；宣判 | |
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77
rape
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| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
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78
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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79
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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80
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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81
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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82
congestion
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| n.阻塞，消化不良 | |
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83
aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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84
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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85
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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86
effigy
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| n.肖像 | |
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87
dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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88
interned
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| v.拘留，关押( intern的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
asphyxiation
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| n. 窒息 | |
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90
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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91
captioned
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| a.标题项下的； 标题所说的 | |
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92
integration
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| n.一体化，联合，结合 | |
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93
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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94
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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95
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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96
omens
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| n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 ) | |
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97
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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98
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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99
hostilities
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| n.战争；敌意(hostility的复数)；敌对状态；战事 | |
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100
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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101
inhale
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| v.吸入(气体等)，吸(烟) | |
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102
ointment
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| n.药膏，油膏，软膏 | |
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103
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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104
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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105
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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106
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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107
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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108
interpretations
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| n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解 | |
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109
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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110
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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111
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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112
provocations
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| n.挑衅( provocation的名词复数 )；激怒；刺激；愤怒的原因 | |
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113
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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114
confrontation
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| n.对抗，对峙，冲突 | |
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115
rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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116
battalions
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| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
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117
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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118
morale
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| n.道德准则，士气，斗志 | |
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119
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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120
mundane
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| adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的 | |
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121
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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122
fissure
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| n.裂缝；裂伤 | |
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123
reclamation
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| n.开垦；改造；（废料等的）回收 | |
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124
impervious
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| adj.不能渗透的，不能穿过的，不易伤害的 | |
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125
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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126
basking
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| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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permeated
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| 弥漫( permeate的过去式和过去分词 )； 遍布； 渗入； 渗透 | |
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128
alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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129
crate
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| vt.(up)把…装入箱中；n.板条箱，装货箱 | |
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130
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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131
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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132
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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133
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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134
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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135
jauntily
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| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
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136
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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137
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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138
tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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139
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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140
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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141
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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142
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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143
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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144
teemed
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| v.充满( teem的过去式和过去分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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145
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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146
irrationality
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| n. 不合理，无理性 | |
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147
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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148
infiltrated
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| adj.[医]浸润的v.（使）渗透，（指思想）渗入人的心中( infiltrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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149
snobbishness
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| 势利； 势利眼 | |
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150
ostensible
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| adj.(指理由)表面的，假装的 | |
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151
banishing
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的现在分词 ) | |
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152
adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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153
sinuous
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| adj.蜿蜒的，迂回的 | |
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154
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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155
infertility
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| n.不肥沃，不毛；不育 | |
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156
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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157
cacti
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| n.（复）仙人掌 | |
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158
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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159
mildewed
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| adj.发了霉的，陈腐的，长了霉花的v.（使）发霉，（使）长霉( mildew的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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160
demolition
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| n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹 | |
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161
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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domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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