Midnights Children

far beyond the powers of medicine men to discern, much less to cure) will not be denied for long; and still so much remains to be told … Uncle Mustapha is growing inside me, and the pout of Parvati-the-witch; a certain lock of hero’s hair is waiting in the wings; and also a labor of thirteen days, and history as an analogue of a prime minister’s hair-style; there is to be treason, and fare-dodging, and the scent (wafting on breezes heavy with the ululations of widows) of something frying in an iron skillet … so that I, too, am forced to accelerate, to make a wild dash for the finishing line; before memory cracks beyond hope of reassembly, I must breast the tape. (Although already, already there are fadings, and gaps; it will be necessary to improvise on occasion.)
    Twenty-six pickle-jars stand gravely on a shelf; twenty-six special blends, each with its identifying label, neatly inscribed with familiar phrases: “Movements Performed by Pepperpots,” for instance, or “Alpha and Omega,” or “Commander Sabarmati’s Baton.” Twenty-six rattle eloquently when local trains go yellow-and-browning past; on my desk, five empty jars tinkle urgently, reminding me of my uncompleted task. But now I cannot linger over empty pickle-jars; the night is for words, and green chutney must wait its turn.
    … Padma is wistful: “O, mister, how lovely Kashmir must be in August, when here it is hot like a chilli!” I am obliged to reprove my plump-yet-muscled companion, whose attention has been wandering; and to observe that our Padma Bibi, long-suffering tolerant consoling, is beginning to behave exactly like a traditional Indian wife. (And I, with my distances and self-absorption, like a husband?) Of late, in spite of my stoic fatalism about the spreading cracks, I have smelled, on Padma’s breath, the dream of an alternative (but impossible) future; ignoring the implacable finalities of inner fissures, she has begun to exude the bitter-sweet fragrance of hope-for-marriage. My dung-lotus, who remained impervious for so long to the sneer-lipped barbs hurled by our workforce of downy-forearmed women; who placed her cohabitation with me outside and above all codes of social propriety, has seemingly succumbed to a desire for legitimacy … in short, although she has not said a word on the subject, she is waiting for me to make an honest woman of her. The perfume of her sad hopefulness permeates her most innocently solicitous remarks—even at this very moment, as she, “Hey, mister, why not—finish your writery and then take rest; go to Kashmir, sit quietly for some time—and maybe you will take your Padma also, and she can look after … ?” Behind this burgeoning dream of a Kashmiri holiday (which was once also the dream of Jehangir, the Mughal Emperor; of poor forgotten Ilse Lubin; and, perhaps, of Christ himself), I nose out the presence of another dream; but neither this nor that can be fulfilled. Because now the cracks, the cracks and always the cracks are narrowing my future towards its single inescapable fullpoint; and even Padma must take a back seat if I’m to finish my tales.
    Today, the papers are talking about the supposed political rebirth of Mrs. Indira Gandhi; but when I returned to India, concealed in a wicker basket, “The Madam” was basking in the fullness of her glory. Today, perhaps, we are already forgetting, sinking willingly into the insidious clouds of amnesia; but I remember, and will set down, how I—how she—how it happened that—no, I can’t say it, I must tell it in the proper order, until there is no option but to reveal … On December 16th, 1971,1 tumbled out of a basket into an India in which Mrs. Gandhi’s New Congress Party held a more-than-two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
    In the basket of invisibility, a sense of unfairness turned into anger; and something else besides—transformed by rage, I had also been overwhelmed by an agonizing feeling of sympathy for the country which was not only my twin-in-birth but also joined to me (so to speak) at the hip, so that what happened to either of us, happened to us both. If I, snot-nosed stain-faced etcetera, had had a hard time of it, then so had she, my subcontinental twin sister; and now that I had given myself the right to choose a better future, I was resolved that the nation should share it, too. I think that when I tumbled out into dust, shadow and amused cheers, I had already decided to save the country.
    (But