Midnight's Children

Saleem admits there was “no last, elusive quarry” (301). Saleem leads his unit into the Sundarbans, knowing they will not find anyone in the jungle. He wanted to help his fellow soldiers escape the brutality of the war. Padma is pleased that Saleem and the soldiers deserted. However, the jungle presents different problems. They become lost while riding a boat and, as rain begins to fill the hull, they pull to the shore. Now lost in the jungle, their lives become a daze of desperate survival. They deal with monsoons, leeches, and heavy fruit falling from the treetops. They are convinced that they are “going to die” (303). They see ghosts of those they have arrested or killed. After the nightmares, they become overcome with nostalgia. Whereas the others see moments from the past, Saleem has no memories to which he can return. He sits beneath a tree; the other soldiers nickname him “Buddha,” and his pose is remarkably similar to the legend of the religious figure. After a snake bites Saleem on the heel, he spends two days close to death. During this time, his memories return. He tells his life story to the soldiers but still cannot remember his name. When the ghosts of the past reappear, the group puts mud in their ears so they cannot hear “the lamentations of families” (305) whose relations they killed. They wander through the jungle until they reach an ancient Hindu temple dedicated to Kali, a many-limbed goddess of death, time, and change. They enter the temple, where they see four attractive women who lead them into the night. After several nights with the “soft women of their most contented dreams” (306), Saleem notices that he and his friends are becoming increasingly hollow and transparent. The women vanish, and the soldiers find four old skeletons in the temple. They realize the temple is close to collapse. They run away, back to the boat, where a great wave carries them down river. The “tidal wave” (307) carries them out of the jungle in October 1971.

After leaving the jungle, Saleem and his unit learns the Bangladeshi army is waging a guerilla war against the Pakistani invasion. They have “little option” (307) other than to attempt to rejoin the Pakistan army. When they reach “an entirely deserted village of thatched huts” (307), the other men begin to panic. Saleem desperately tries to remember his name. The sense of unfairness makes him cry, and when Ayooba comforts him, a sniper shoots Ayooba. Saleem, Farooq, and Shaheed escape on stolen bicycles. They continue to flee, and, by December, they reach a battlefield outside Dacca. The ground is strewn with dead bodies. Nearby, a desperate peasant sells looted equipment. According to the peasant, India has joined the war. The Indian army, the man explains, is led by a man with huge, powerful knees, and the war will be over in “one-two weeks” (310). A sniper shoots and kills Farooq. Saleem runs but becomes tangled in the “small pyramid” (311) of corpses. He notices the bodies resemble his friends from his childhood: Hairoil, Sonny, and Eyeslice. Sonny talks briefly to Saleem and then dies. Saleem believes the war has occurred solely to bring him back to his friends.

Tiger Niazi is the officer in charge of Pakistan’s military in the war against Bangladesh. On December 15, 1971, he finally surrenders to Sam Manekshaw, his counterpart in the Indian army and his “old chum” (312). India was forced into the war because 10 million people had fled over the border. The refugee crisis was costly for the Indian government. However, the Indian government was also desperate to prevent the secular, socialist guerilla movement named Mukti Bahini from taking power in Bangladesh. They feared any “disturbances” (312) in Bangladesh might spill over into Bengal.

Saleem and Shaheed arrive in Dacca. While entering the city, Saleem saw the atrocities of the Pakistan Army once again. He cannot believe that his own army “behaved so badly” (313). As Saleem explores an empty house, Shaheed is mortally wounded by a grenade. He asks Saleem to take him to a nearby mosque. Saleem carries his friend inside and then sees a trail of ants follow the trail of Shaheed’s blood. The ants begin to eat Shaheed. As Shaheed screams, the mosque’s loudspeaker broadcasts “the terrible agony of war” (314).

The Indian Army arrives in Dacca, preceded by a group of magicians. One of the magicians is a seven-foot-tall snake charmer named Picture Singh; another is Parvati, the member of the Midnight’s Children with powers of a witch. Parvati spots Saleem. When he hears her call his name, he recovers his missing identity. The magicians perform for the people of Dacca. While Tiger Niazi and Sam Manekshaw reunite as old friends in difficult circumstances, Saleem and Parvati do the same. Niazi and Manekshaw discuss their time together in the Indian Army; Niazi denies the accusations of war crimes against him and his army, suggesting that Manekshaw received some “damn bad intelligence” (316) and that there was terrible violence on both sides. Parvati helps Saleem escape by placing him in a magic basket. While traveling inside the magic basket, Saleem reflects on his life. He is filled with a burning rage at the death and suffering he has seen and blindly accepted. Saleem stops his story to assure his audience this violent rage has been drained from him by the Widow, but, at the time, the anger felt restorative. Once again, he can “feel” (320).

As Saleem’s story reaches its conclusion, he can feel himself being “hurried towards disintegration” (320). Padma hopes Saleem will be finished soon and asks him about taking a possible vacation to Kashmir. Saleem worries she is ignoring his imminent death and assuming they will be fine and healthy. He returns to his story. In 1971, India is governed by the New Congress Party of Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Prime Minister Nehru and the person who now holds a majority in India’s National Assembly. Feeling “transformed by rage” (321), Saleem wants to save India. He lives in a ramshackle home in the shadow of a mosque with the other magicians, including Picture Singh, Parvati, and an elderly woman named Resham Bibi, who tells Saleem he will destroy the world. Picture Singh, as the magicians’ charismatic leader, insists that Saleem should remain with them as his honored guest.

Saleem decides to leave because he cannot save India while living with the magicians; he has no documents, clothes, or money. He visits Mustapha Aziz, his uncle who works as a civil servant, to ask for help. At the same time, he is able to admit to himself he is afraid of Shiva and his “gigantic, prehensile knees” (324). In Dacca, Parvati saw Shiva driving a tank as a decorated military hero. She trusts Shiva and Saleem cannot convince her otherwise. Arriving at Mustapha’s house, Saleem is greeted with anger by his “mad aunt” (325) Sonia. She tells him he is the only surviving member of the family, so he must complete a 400-day period of mourning. She also tells him after Saleem vanished his sister Jamila criticized the Pakistan government and disappeared from public view. Now, most people believe she is dead, but Saleem hopes she is still alive.

After Saleem’s mourning period is over, he meets a man at his uncle’s house. Mustapha, a civil servant, has invited his colleague for dinner. The colleague may be related to Indira Gandhi. As the man eats, Saleem notices a secret folder in his uncle’s study. The folder is titled Project M.C.C. Saleem knows better than to dismiss his uncle as a traitor because he has also made mistakes in the past. Saleem explains that, though he was unaware at the time, the members of the Gandhi family have acquired the “power of replicating themselves” (328). Their supernatural ability explains their desire to impose strict birth control measures on the country. After the dinner with his colleague, Aziz looks at Saleem almost with fear.

The next day, Saleem sees Parvati outside his uncle’s house. He invites her into the house. When his aunt finds Parvati in Saleem’s bed, she throws Saleem and Parvati out of the house. Saleem is not upset because he did not want to remain at his uncle’s house. They return to the magicians’ ghetto. Saleem and Picture discuss the corruption problem in India; the magicians are “Communists, almost to a man” (330), and they disagree often over the administration of their community, though a solution is always found. Later, Parvati shows Saleem the true potential of her magic. She makes his hair grow, removes his birthmarks, and makes his bandy legs straight. She also reveals she is attracted to him and would like more from Saleem than his “willingness to be her audience” (333). Saleem tries and fails to sleep with Parvati; every time he lays down with her, her face turns into a horrific version of Jamila’s face. Eventually, Parvati gives up on the idea. Saleem decides to lie to her, telling Parvati that he is impotent. In doing so, he risks bringing upon himself “the curse” (335) which struck his father and Nadir Khan.

Saleem describes how Parvati convinced him to marry her on February 23, 1975. Padma does not react well to this twist in the story. However, Saleem tells her that “the death of my poor Parvati” (336) has always been a part of the story, as his life is defined and shaped by women. Nevertheless, Padma tells him that “that’s too much women” (337). He returns to the story and explains that Parvati listened to his story about impotence and decided to use her magic powers to help. She summons Shiva (now a Major in the Army) using magic; Shiva, unsure what is happening, feels a sudden urge to go to Parvati. After the war in Bangladesh, Shiva was praised as a hero and many “legends of Shiva’s awful exploits buzzed through the streets of the cities” (338). He is also rumored to be a seducer of women and a fantastic lover. Women from rich, powerful, and influential families flocked to meet him. Shiva’s romances resulted in a number of nonmarital children who are “the spawn of illicit midnights” (339). Shiva never stayed with a woman who bore his child. Shiva takes stock of his new life as a celebrity but only succeeds in becoming even more debauched.

Shiva arrives in the magicians’ ghetto, and Parvati continues to work her magic on him, forcing him to take her back to his barracks and treat her as though she were his wife. They spend four months together, and Parvati becomes pregnant with Shiva’s child. When she “release[s]” (343) Shiva from her spell, he is angry. Not only has she tricked him, but her presence reminds him of “the slums of his childhood” (343). He returns Parvati to the magicians’ ghetto and then visits sex workers, eventually becoming the father of many nonmarital babies. These poor children match his earlier brood of rich nonmarital children.

Meanwhile, the political situation in India worsens. Workers and students take to the streets to protest government corruption. A new opposition party is formed, named The People’s Front. Parvati searches for Saleem and Picture Singh; she hopes her pregnancy means Saleem can no longer use his impotency as a reason not to marry her. When she finds Saleem and Picture, they are running away from the tear gas launched at them by the police during a protest. The other magicians shun Parvati because she is pregnant with Shiva’s child. Picture Singh asks Saleem to marry her to “preserve Parvati’s honor” (344); Saleem feels he cannot refuse the request, as Shiva’s son will be the “true grandchild” (344) of his parents. Parvati becomes a Muslim and changes her name to Laylah to marry Saleem. Likewise, Saleem is adopted by the magicians and becomes a part of their group.

As the protests become more intense, Parvati’s baby grows. During the afternoon of June 12, just as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is convicted of corruption, her labor begins. The labor lasts 13 days, and her continued pain correlates to the developing political situation. At midnight on June 25, a state of emergency is declared by the Prime Minister, who refuses to resign and seeks to gain control of the country. The decree allows her to arrest the leaders of the protests and censor criticism of the government in the press, starting a “continuous midnight which would not end for two long years” (347). Parvati’s child is born at the exact same moment. Saleem laughs when he sees the baby boy’s giant ears. He describes the baby’s “grave good nature” (348) and refusal to cry. Saleem thinks about the life of Indira Gandhi, who is not related to Mahatma Gandhi but is nevertheless a widow. She becomes the Widow who seizes control in a moment of political chaos, just as Saleem’s son is born.

Saleem confesses he is struggling to finish the story, but he insists he must finish as he “swore to tell it all” (350). At first, he tries to tell the story as though it were a dream, but Padma complains that his approach is too abstract. She tells Saleem to “just tell what happened” (353), so he returns to a more conventional narrative. At the end of 1975 and the beginning of 1976, he remembers a seemingly endless shadow falling across his life. He lives in the magicians’ ghetto with Parvati and their son, Aadam. At the same time, the Indian government is changing the constitution of the country to give Prime Minister Indira Gandhi limitless power. Saleem can smell danger everywhere. The Widow begins searching for Midnight’s Children. Saleem learns his uncle Mustapha has been assassinated.

Nadir Khan visits Saleem. Nadir tells Saleem to leave the magicians’ hiding place. However, he is too late. The next morning, a destruction crew arrives to flatten the area as part of a “public beautification program” (355), authorized by one of the Widow’s clones and the youth volunteer movement the Widow uses to wield power. The magicians are dragged into vans by soldiers; a rumor abounds that “sterilization is being performed” (356). The magicians try to fight back against the soldiers using magic. They succeed until more troops are called in. Saleem loses sight of Picture Singh and Parvati. Major Shiva arrives to arrest Saleem. While Saleem is locked inside a van, Parvati is killed. Saleem does not know whether Shiva killed her himself or whether he “left her to the bulldozers” (357). Just a few hours later, the magicians’ ghetto is flattened. Even Saleem’s spittoon is destroyed, but some of the magicians, including Picture Singh, supposedly escape.

Saleem is locked away in “the palace of the widows” (358) on the shore of the Ganges River. Through a means that Saleem cannot remember, he is forced to reveal the location of the other Midnight’s Children. He “cannot will not say how they made [him] spill the beans” (359). Saleem begins to hear voices from the walls of his cell, as though the children are talking to him as the “consequences of [his] shameful confessions” (360). He delivers a long, comprehensive apology to them, but they tell him that they are glad to be reunited. They insist they are not worried. Saleem calls on the Widow and her clones to “do their worst” (362).

Saleem enjoys a brief flash of optimism before an attractive woman comes to his cell on New Year’s Day. She introduces herself as the Widow’s Hand and tells him the people of India now worship the Prime Minister as a God. There is nothing and no one that can compete with her. The Widow’s Hand explains that the Midnight’s Children represented the only real threat to the Widow’s power. While jailed, Saleem and the Midnight’s Children are aggressively sterilized. The doctors go so far as to remove wombs and testicles because they leave “nothing to chance” (363); the procedures cause the Midnight’s Children to lose their magical powers. Saleem confesses he does not have any evidence that any of this took place. Saleem discovers that Shiva also underwent the sterilization process, though he did so voluntarily. Shiva laughs at the irony that he is named after a God of procreation and that he already has many children with many different women, both rich and poor. He believes they may be a new generation of similarly magical children, “begotten by midnight’s darkest child” (365). The Widow also imprisons Shiva. Eventually, one of Shiva’s former lovers comes to visit him and “sho[ots] the war hero through the heart” (365). He dies without knowing he was switched with Saleem in the maternity ward.

When the Prime Minister calls an election, she unexpectedly loses. Saleem is released, and he returns to Delhi where he walks through the streets until he finds Picture Singh, who is cradling a small 21-month-old baby with giant ears and “whose face is as serious as the grave” (366).

Saleem makes a confession: He “lied about Shiva’s death” (367). Shiva is still alive, and Saleem is scared of him. He lied because he has no idea what happened to Shiva and does not like living with the worry that Shiva will one day seek revenge. Saleem has become increasingly “assailed by the demented notion” (367) that Padma can change the inevitable. He agrees to her suggestion that they should get married on his birthday and then go together to Kashmir. Though he wishes she could help him avoid his inevitable disintegration, he knows his birthday is the day that he will die. Her willingness to marry him actually shows she has not understood his story.

Saleem continues his story where he left off: meeting Picture Singh and baby Aadam Sinai. Picture Singh describes how the breast milk of a washerwoman by the name of Durga saved the baby. Picture Singh and Durga are in a relationship, and Saleem is impressed that Durga has the strength to tame the tall magician. Durga is also the first person to prophesize Saleem’s death. Saleem passes a mirror and sees himself for the first time in many months. He has aged a great deal, though he now possesses a very relieved facial expression. He worries Durga may be right. Aadam still refuses to speak. Despite his silence, Aadam demands attention and demonstrates a “mute autocracy” (370). He weans himself from Durga’s milk. Picture Singh tells Saleem a man claims to be the best snake charmer in the world. Saleem accompanies Picture Singh on his journey to Bombay to challenge the man.

Saleem is shocked by the changes in Bombay. Picture Singh leads Saleem and Aadam to an exclusive club that only caters to “the cream of Bombay society” (374). They are led by a blind woman to a room and told to wait for the great snake charmer. The opponent is named the Maharaja of Cooch Naheen. He duels against Picture for a long time, as their snakes dance and twist. Eventually, Picture wins by knotting a cobra “around the Maharaja’s neck” (376). Picture Singh collapses from the effort, and Saleem carries him into a back room of the club, where “a congratulatory, reviving meal” (377) is given to them. When Saleem tastes the chutney, he instantly recognizes the flavor. Knowing he must find the source of the chutney, he walks across the city to the Braganza Pickle Factory and meets Padma inside. Padma is excited about her first appearance in the story, so Saleem continues. Mary Pereira is also with her, though she now calls herself Mrs. Branganza. She lives with the Narlikar women in their mansion on the Methwold estate in a room right where Saleem’s room once was. Mary credits her sister Alice with convincing the Narlikar women to invest in the chutney business. In the factory, Aadam says his first word: “abracadabra” (379). Saleem examines the jars of chutney. Taking the last jar, he decides to call it Abracadabra. The moment convinces Saleem he should stop talking about his past. These days, he manages the factory on Mary’s behalf. His sense of smell is a huge help, and he describes the chutney making process. He looks ahead to the day of his wedding when he knows his body will fail him. He will explode into millions of pieces of dust and disappear.