Midnights Children

mirror of our own,” the Prime Minister wrote, obliging me scientifically to face the question:
In what sense?
How, in what terms, may the career of a single individual be said to impinge on the fate of a nation? I must answer in adverbs and hyphens: I was linked to history both literally and metaphorically, both actively and passively, in what our (admirably modern) scientists might term “modes of connection” composed of “dualistically-combined configurations” of the two pairs of opposed adverbs given above. This is why hyphens are necessary: actively-literally, passively-metaphorically, actively-metaphorically and passively-literally, I was inextricably entwined with my world.
    Sensing Padma’s unscientific bewilderment, I revert to the inexactitudes of common speech: By the combination of “active” and “literal” I mean, of course, all actions of mine which directly—
literally
—affected, or altered the course of, seminal historical events, for instance the manner in which I provided the language marchers with their battle-cry. The union of “passive” and “metaphorical” encompasses all socio-political trends and events which, merely by existing, affected me metaphorically—for example, by reading between the lines of the episode entitled “The Fisherman’s Pointing Finger,” you will perceive the unavoidable connection between the infant state’s attempts at rushing towards full-sized adulthood and my own early, explosive efforts at growth … Next, “passive” and “literal,” when hyphenated, cover all moments at which national events had a direct bearing upon the lives of myself and my family—under this heading you should file the freezing of my father’s assets, and also the explosion at Walkeshwar Reservoir, which unleashed the great cat invasion. And finally there is the “mode” of the “active-metaphorical,” which groups together those occasions on which things done by or to me were mirrored in the macrocosm of public affairs, and my private existence was shown to be symbolically at one with history. The mutilation of my middle finger was a case in point, because when I was detached from my fingertip and blood (neither Alpha nor Omega) rushed out in fountains, a similar thing happened to history, and all sorts of everywhichthing began pouring out all over us; but because history operates on a grander scale than any individual, it took a good deal longer to stitch it back together and mop up the mess.
    “Passive-metaphorical,” “passive-literal,” “active-metaphorical”: the Midnight Children’s Conference was all three; but it never became what I most wanted it to be; we never operated in the first, most significant of the “modes of connection.” The “active-literal” passed us by.
    Transformation without end: nine-fingered Saleem has been brought to the doorway of the Breach Candy Hospital by a squat blonde nurse whose face is frozen into a smile of terrifying insincerity. He is blinking in the hot glare of the outside world, trying to focus on two swimming shadow-shapes coming towards him out of the sun; “See?” the nurse coos, “See who’s come to get you, then?” And Saleem realizes that something terrible has gone wrong with the world, because his mother and father, who should have come to collect him, had apparently been transformed
en route
into his ayah Mary Pereira and his Uncle Hanif.
    Hanif Aziz boomed like the horns of ships in the harbor and smelled like an old tobacco factory. I loved him dearly, for his laughter, his unshaven chin, his air of having been put together rather loosely, his lack of co-ordination which made his every movement fraught with risk. (When he visited Buckingham Villa my mother hid the cut-glass vases.) Adults never trusted him to behave with proper decorum (“Watch out for the Communists!” he bellowed, and they blushed), which was a bond between himself and all children—other people’s children, since he and Pia were childless. Uncle Hanif who would one day, without warning, take a walk off the roof of his home.
    … He wallops me in the back, toppling me forwards into Mary’s arms. “Hey, little wrestler! You look fine!” But Mary, hastily, “But so thin, Jesus! They haven’t been feeding you properly? You want cornflour pudding? Banana mashed with milk? Did they give you chips?” … while Saleem is looking round at this new world in which everything seems to be going too fast; his voice,