Midnight's Children

By the winter of 1948, worrying signs and omens are seemingly everywhere. Comets explode, snakes escape captivity, and flowers bleed while Saleem grows quickly. A scientist named Dr. Schaapsteker moves to the estate. He is a snake venom specialist, and his arrival causes many rumors to spread among the staff. As Saleem’s family are struggling following the government crackdown on Muslims, they rent the top floor of their house to Dr. Schaapsteker. Amina decides to write to her parents explaining their difficult situation. A few days later, Aadam Aziz and Naseem arrive. Naseem takes over the running of the household, and her bad temperament can be detected in the food she makes. Amina feels revived, but she worries about money. She takes a small amount she has saved and goes to a horse race. She wins her first bet and continues to win over the coming months. The “fever of a reckless scheme” (122) excites her. Using her winnings, she pays their neighbor Ismail to petition the government to release Ahmed’s assets and uses the rest to help the family. Between the winnings and the rent from Dr. Schaapsteker, the family is able to survive. Even though he was just a baby, Saleem believes he is responsible for his mother’s unexpected lucky streak.

One of Saleem’s favorite board games is Snakes and Ladders, a “perfect balance of rewards and penalties” (123). Even as a child, he believes the game provides an insight into the trials and travails of life. However, the game lacks life’s more ambiguous aspects. Saleem describes the fate of Hanif, Amina’s brother, as an example of how lives follow the pattern of Snakes and Ladders. Rather than move to Pakistan, Hanif moved to Bombay following the partition. Desperate to pursue his “childhood dream” (124) of being in the movie industry, Hanif married a beautiful and well-known actress named Pia even though Naseem did not approve of her. Hanif became one of the youngest directors in the history of Indian cinema with a series of commercial productions. The premier of his first film is interrupted by the news of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. When the news breaks, Amina and Ahmed run home. They are afraid the Hindus of India will accuse the Muslim community of murdering Gandhi. They board up their home, fearing violence. However, the assassin is eventually revealed as a Hindu. Life slowly returns to normal, proving Saleem’s point about Snakes and Ladders.

In the family home, Mary continues her long-running dispute with Musa. He fears that Mary’s closeness to Saleem threatens his status as the most senior family servant. Musa is worried the dispute will end with him being fired. He steals a number of valuable items from the house, but he is caught before he can escape. He admits to the theft and calls for the gods to strike him down with leprosy. Musa leaves the house in shame, and, Saleem reminds the reader, he continues down the path that will one day cause him to destroy the world. Musa is also a victim of Snakes and Ladders, Saleem suggests. Mary wakes up one night and sees a strange figure moving across the rooftops. The police arrive and shoot the figure. When they view the body, however, Mary realizes the dead man is her one-time lover, Joseph D’Costa, who has been building bombs and hiding them in the clocktower on the estate. He was a wanted terrorist. Around this time, the infant Saleem becomes very ill. As the family worry that Saleem will die, Dr. Schaapsteker offers the family an experimental cure for typhoid made from snake venom. The medicine works, and Saleem lives; he will grow up knowing that snakes are neither good nor evil. Thanks to Ismail Ibrahim’s petitions (funded by Amina’s secret gambling profits), Ahmed’s assets are unfrozen by the government. Saleem’s sister is born and nicknamed the Brass Monkey because of her auburn hair. Even from a young age, making noise is the only way she knows to “get any attention in her life” (130). 

Padma and Saleem disagree about his writing when he compares his stories to the religious Hindu text Ramayana. The argument prompts her to stay away from him for several days, and Saleem misses her. Desperate to finish his work, however, Saleem picks up his story in 1956. The Brass Monkey, now a young girl, burns shoes because she is desperate for attention. The incident is the latest in a long history of mischief, including lies and heated arguments with her loved ones. Amina punishes her daughter by forcing her to be silent. Though this punishment worked on Saleem, it allowed the Brass Monkey more time to plot her next arson attack. Saleem begins to understand, “at the age of nearlynine” (133), the expectations placed upon him by his auspicious birth. Whenever he worries about failing his family, he hides in his mother’s laundry basket or distracts himself with stories. He starts school with similarly aged boys from the Methwold estate, including Sonny Ibrahim, Cyrus, Eyeslice, and Hairoil. As a youngster, he experienced a growth spurt, which has slowed down. However, his nose has not stopped growing, and the other children mock his constantly-running nose. Saleem seeks refuge in his mother’s laundry basket once again. There, his mind can roam free. In the future, Amina will have a vision of the washing basket at the moment she dies under a collapsing roof in Pakistan. Saleem remembers how his mother began to feel so guilty he believed a black fog was settling around her, almost completely hiding her below the neck. Amina’s guilt compels other people to confess their sins to her. Saleem reveals the real reason for his mother’s guilt, unknown to the family at the time, was the regular telephone calls from her first husband, Nadir Khan.

While hiding in the washing basket one day, Saleem overhears his mother “crying in the bathroom” (139) after receiving another telephone call. He hears her calling out Nadir’s name as her hands move strangely. Saleem’s runny nose gives away his hiding place. Amina punishes Saleem for eavesdropping. She sentences him to an entire day of silence. During his silent day, Saleem begins to hear voices in his head. At first, he compares his experience to the voices of God heard by Moses and Mohammed. When he tells his family “the Archangels have started to talk” (142) to him, they believe he is making a blasphemous joke and become angry. Ahmed beats Saleem across the ear, causing him to partially lose his hearing. Later, however, Amina has a dream in which she remembers the cryptic words the prophet Ramram told her: “Washing will hide him […] voices will guide him” (143). She takes pity on her son and asks him about the voices. Saleem lies, claiming he was only joking. Amina will die nine years later and will never know the truth about the voices in her son’s head.

With Padma now absent, Saleem is worried about the accuracy of his story. He believes “reality is a question of perspective” (144). He has made some mistakes, he admits, including the date of Mahatma Gandhi’s death. However, he promises to continue and mentions that Padma has still not returned to him. The Saleem of the present, he says, is very similar to the Saleem of the past. The voices may be gone from his head, but he still feels the heat.

In 1956, people protest through the streets of Bombay, demanding the city be partitioned in a similar fashion to India and Pakistan. The protestors want the city divided along linguistic lines, with the Marathi speakers sent to one part and the Gujrati speakers sent to another. During this time, Saleem is still hearing voices in his head. They speak different languages with different voices. Saleem draws the comparison between the linguistic battles fought inside and outside his head. He has come to understand the voices do not belong to angels. Instead, people are communicating with him telepathically. Behind their unintelligible languages, he can understand a purer form of thought. Saleem knows the voices belong to the other children born at midnight on August 15, 1947; these are the so-called Midnight’s Children. As the voices grow stronger, he hears them saying “I” (146). Worried about his family’s reaction, he tells no one because such peculiarities can be seen as a “deep family shame” (147). Just like India was beginning to develop a Five Year Plan for its economy, Saleem develops a Five Year Plan for his issue. Rather than striving to improve himself or his country, however, he uses the voices to cheat at his schoolwork or investigate his family’s thoughts. He overhears his father lusting after secretaries and his mother thinking about Nadir Khan. He regrets he may have wasted his gift.

Saleem hides at the top of an old clocktower where Joseph stored his bombs to practice his new ability. The heightened position boosts his telepathy skills, allowing him to hear thoughts from people across the country. He hears the thoughts of taxi drivers, politicians, and celebrities, such as “film stars and cricketers” (150). Though he believes he knows everything, he does not notice the murder of Dr. Narlikar by the protesters demanding the linguistic partition of the city. Dr. Narlikar is thrown into the sea with his tetrapods, ending his life and ending Ahmed’s attempt to dry out the ocean for land. Dr. Narlikar’s female family members take over his business and his estate. The “Narlikar women” (154) force Ahmed out of the burgeoning land reclamation business. During this time, Ahmed grows increasingly pale, just like many businessmen in India.

During the holy month of Ramzan, Saleem explains, he went to the movies with his sister while most people were fasting. Their favorite day is Sunday, which is when they attend the children’s movie viewing club. Saleem loves going to the movies, and he believes that Robert Taylor is “the world’s greatest movie star” (156). At the cinema, Saleem meets an American named Evelyn Lilith Burns and he falls in love with her. Evelyn also lives on the Methwold estate. However, she falls in love with Saleem’s friend Sonny who, in turn, loves Saleem’s sister, the Brass Monkey. They all attend the cinema together. Saleem describes Evelyn, including her straw-like hair, her braces, and her tough attitude. He credits her with inspiring him to refine his skills, and, as such, she is also responsible for shaping history. Evelyn first impresses the other children on the estate by performing gymnastics and riding a bicycle. In Saleem’s mind, he cannot remember Evelyn without also remembering her beloved bicycle. Saleem asks Sonny to ask Evelyn about him; he tries to ride a bicycle to impress Evelyn but crashes into Sonny, knocking their heads together. Saleem is embarrassed. He asks Rashid the rickshaw boy to teach him to ride a bicycle to impress Evelyn.

During this time, Saleem explains, India is organized into 14 states and six territories. The divisions are often made according to language, though Bombay remains one of the only truly multilingual states. The protests for linguistic partition in the city continue through 1957. Saleem watches a protest with the other children from the estate. Evelyn continues to ignore his attempts to ride a bicycle, so he becomes desperate. He uses his abilities to try to read her thoughts and finds an image of her standing in a doorway with a bloody knife in her hand and her mother with blood on her apron on a bed nearby. She feels his presence in his mind and panics, shouting at him to “get out” (164) and pushing him into the path of the protesters. As the protesters direct their energy at Saleem, he sings a playground rhyme in the Gujarati language, which makes them laugh and lose interest. They turn away from Saleem, picking up his mocking rhyme. When they meet a group of counter-protesters, they continue the rhyme, and a riot breaks out. In the violence, people are killed, and, eventually, Bombay is partitioned. Saleem claims he is the one responsible for instigating the violence that led to Bombay’s partitioning. The incident with Evelyn also allows him to understand that his presence can be felt when he goes deeply into someone’s mind. He never learns the meaning of the vision of Evelyn with a knife in her hand. 

Padma returns to Saleem and tries to use herbs and folk remedies to cure his impotence. However, her attempts make him ill. He slips into a delirious fever for a week. Still weak, he continues with his story. Saleem explains that 1,001 children were born in the hour after India’s independence at midnight on August 15, 1947. However, 420 of these children are dead by the time Saleem is aware of their existence. Each of the 581 remaining Midnight’s Children has a unique power, which Saleem explores while visiting their minds using his own telepathic powers. Those children who were born closest to midnight, he notes, have the strongest powers. Parvati, for example, has the powers of a witch and lives in “the ghetto of the magicians” (171). Shiva—Wee Willie Winkie’s son—was born at the same instant as Saleem. He has the power of destruction and war while Saleem has the power to “look into the hearts and minds of men” (171). Some children have two heads, and another has the horns of a bull. Not all the gifts are desirable. Many of the children are attacked or exploited because of their differences.

During this time, Ahmed becomes increasingly alienated from his family. He drinks heavily and spends more time alone to rue the “traitorous death of Doctor Narlikar” (172). However, his business continues to succeed, even though he has chased away all his secretaries. Mary Pereira recommends he hire her sister, Alice. Mary continues to be haunted by the death of her lover, Joseph D’Costa, whose death will stay with her until she confesses her crime of switching the babies in the maternity ward. When Saleem turns 10, many things happen. The government’s Five Year Plan is declared a failure, his mother blushes suspiciously when someone mentions communism, and he decides to create a group of his own. He names this group the Midnight Children’s Conference or M.C.C.

Two days after his fever breaks, Saleem shares the details of a nightmare in which a strange authoritarian woman named the Widow kills members of the Midnight Children’s Conference. He breaks from his story to talk to his son, who has been brought to the chutney factory by an unnamed person. He describes the chutney factory for his audience. Saleem hopes his story will benefit his son; many cultures and religions have stories as a form of education, he says, and he believes sharing his story will have a similar effect for his son. He discusses the important role that chutney has played in his life and the memories it evokes, particularly of Mary Pereira.

At the age of 10, Saleem remembers how Purshottam the holy man died from a bout of “suicidal hiccups” (181). Saleem only talks with the Midnight Children’s Conference for one hour each day from midnight until one o’clock. Other times, he uses his powers to explore the world. One day, Saleem uses his telepathic powers to stow away in his mother’s car when she is visiting the store. He follows his mother to a small, dirty café. The café is a “notorious Communist Party hangout” (184), though it is also used as a recruiting spot for film extras every morning. Saleem watches his mother meet with her ex-husband, Nadir Khan, who now uses the pseudonym Qasim and plans to stand in an election as a representative of the Communist Party. He watches their interaction, noting the implied affection of each gesture, and wishes that he had not followed his mother. He now understands why his mother blushed at an earlier mention of the Communist Party. However, he never discusses the matter with her.

Saleem uses his powers to bring the Midnight’s Children together even though they do not all speak the same language. He develops a system to reach out to other children of midnight. He projects an image of himself into their minds; Saleem’s “alter ego” (188) Shiva immediately recognizes Saleem as the rich, privileged boy he once visited with his father. Shiva believes he and Saleem should be the leaders of the conference though he mocks Saleem’s attempts to do something meaningful with the other children. Saleem explains how Shiva’s name is appropriate: Shiva is the Hindu deity who represents destruction and war, one of the most powerful figures in Hinduism. Shiva has suffered during his life. His father Willie attempted to mutilate Shiva to make him a more sympathetic child beggar, but Shiva killed Willie using his supernaturally powerful knees. Shiva escaped and now lives on the streets.

During the 1957 election in India, the Communist Party wins many votes. However, Qasim Khan does not win the race in which he was standing. Shiva and a gang of street children are partly responsible for his loss. As Saleem tells the story, he realizes he has made a mistake. The 1957 election actually took place before he was 10 years old, and he worries such “small things” (189) may be a portent to larger ones.

Saleem reaches a complicated part of his story involving the downfall of Evelyn Burns. There is turmoil outside on the streets, he explains, and turmoil in his mind as he recalls the next period of his life. He is unsure of the title of the chapter, especially with so many things happening during this period. Bombay is about to be partitioned but is suffering from a terrible drought. The police investigate the murders of a number of sex workers, whose wounds suggest they have been bruised by Shiva and his very powerful knees. Stray cats invade the Methwold estate in search of water. Evelyn believes she can remove them, but she demands payment. She uses an air gun to “end the plague of pussies double-quick” (191). Her violent solution angers the Brass Monkey, who is a fervent animal lover. She attacks Evelyn, and the two girls fight. Evelyn’s father disapproves of her violence. He sends her away “for good” (192). Several months later, Saleem receives a letter from Evelyn in which she describes how an old woman complained about her treatment of the cats. Evelyn confesses that she stabbed the old woman. Saleem wonders whether his sister attacked Evelyn to protect Saleem from the violent young girl whom he loved.

Saleem has problems of his own. He has never trusted Shiva, and he dislikes “the roughness of his tongue, the crudity of his ideas” (192), but he cannot bring himself to kick Shiva out of the Midnight Children’s Conference. Kicking out Shiva, he believes, would “not have been fair” (193). He is thus engaged in a constant power struggle with Shiva for authority within the group. As Saleem’s powers increase, he can host a telepathic forum in which all the children gather together. Saleem promises to keep their names anonymous for the sake of the children’s privacy and safety. Slowly, Saleem becomes the reluctant leader of the conference. Among the children is a time-traveler named Soumitra. The other children ignore Soumitra’s warnings that their actions are pointless because they will be finished before they can start.

The geography teacher at Saleem’s school tears Saleem’s hair out while calling him “an animal” (197) because Saleem has gotten snot on the teacher’s hand when the teacher held his nose out of bigoted anger. Saleem’s hair will never grow in that spot again. Soon afterward, Saleem attends a school dance and tries to impress a girl but is interrupted by bullies. As Saleem tries to escape a classroom, one of the boys harassing him slams his body into the door, cutting off part of Saleem’s finger. Saleem is rushed to hospital, where his parents are needed to donate blood. Their donation reveals they do not share the same blood type as Saleem, suggesting they are not Saleem’s actual parents. Ahmed jumps to the conclusion that Amina was unfaithful. Looking back on the evening ”with the benefits of hindsight” (200), Saleem remembers sitting in the bed and seeing his father’s shocked expression.