Context

Saman Rushde was born on |une 19, 1947, to an amuent famy n Bombay, Inda.
Rushdes brth concded wth a partcuary mportant moment n Indan hstory:
after neary one hundred years of coona rue, the Brtsh occupaton of the South
Asan subcontnent was comng to an end. Amost exacty three months after
Rushdes brth, Pakstan and Inda acheved ther ong-awated ndependence when,
at the stroke of mdnght on August 14 and 15, respectvey, power was transferred
from Great Brtan to the soveregn governments of each country. The perod that
mmedatey foowed ndependence proved tumutuous. Potca and soca tensons
between Hndus and Musms caused not ony the dvson of Inda nto two separate
countres-a caamtous event referred to as Partton-but aso wde-scae rots that
camed hundreds of thousands of ves. The voence that accompaned
ndependence was a preude to the mutpe wars, coups, and governmenta abuses
that pagued the area n the years that foowed.
The potca upheava and constant threat of voence that marked the rst three
decades of ndependence forms the backdrop forMidnights Children, Rushdes
most ceebrated nove. Lke Rushde hmsef, Saeem, the narrator of Midnights
Children, s born on the eve of ndependence, and the events of hs fe cosey
parae events n the deveopment of both Inda and Pakstan. Most of Rushdes
noves concern themseves, to some extent, wth the character and hstory of these
two ma|or South Asan natons and descrbe the varous, often voent strugges
between dherent regons, casses, anguages, and geographca regons. In the
thrty years foowng ndependence, Inda and Pakstan fought three separate wars:
two over Kashmr, and one over the creaton of an ndependent Bangadesh. The
wars produced mons of refugees, camed thousands of ves, and ed to a neary
permanent state of tenson between the two countres.
Rased n a we-to-do Musm househod, Rushde was gven an exceent educaton.
After graduatng from the Unversty of Oxford n 1968, he moved brey to Pakstan,
where hs famy had mmgrated after Partton, before returnng to Engand to work
as an actor and copywrter. Soon after, Rushde pubshed hs rst
nove, Grimus (1975). A bend of scence and terary cton, Grimus, though
generay gnored by crtcs, nonetheess marked the debut of a new terary taent
that ncorporated myth, magc, and fantasy nto hs narratves. Sx years ater,
Rushde pubshed Midnights Children, whch won the Booker Prze n 1981, and was
ater deemed the best Booker-wnnng nove from the rst twenty-ve years of the
competton, earnng the tte "Booker of Bookers." Heraded by crtcs as an
enormous terary achevement, the nove nstanty earned Rushde comparson wth
some of the words greatest contemporary wrters. However, Rushdes great
nternatona fame s many owed to hs 1988 nove The Satanic Verses and the
controversy that foowed ts pubcaton. Musm regous cercs and potcans
deemed The Satanic Verses sacregous and ohensve for ts harsh, crtca portraya
of Isam and for ts ess-than-reverent treatment of the Prophet Mohammed. The
nove was banned n Rushdes natve Inda and prompted the theocratc Iranan
government to ssue a fatwa-a regous rung-cang for hs death n 1989.
Rushde spent the next nne years vng n secrecy, under the protecton of
bodyguards and the Brtsh government. Fearfu for hs fe, Rushde nonetheess
contnued to wrte and pubsh books, most notaby Haroun and the Sea of
Stories (1990) and the Moors Last Sigh (1995), as we as two works of
noncton, The Jaguar Smile (1987) and Imaginary Homelands (1991). When the
Iranan government fted the fatwa n 1998, Rushde was abe to en|oy a return to a
moderatey norma fe and eventuay setted n New York Cty.
Rushdes work, and Midnights Children n partcuar, s often assocated wth
severa categores of terary cton, ncudng magca reasm, postcoona cton,
and postmodern terature. Hs work s often compared to, and admttedy
nuenced by, noves ke Gunter Grasss Tin Drum and Gabre Garca
Mrquezs One Hundred ears of Solitude. Equay sgncant as the ncorporaton of
mythca and fantastca eements nto hs cton s Rushdes unquey Indan
perspectve on the Engsh anguage. Rushdes noves hum wth an ecectc mx of
prose styes, whch echo the rhythm and sang of Engsh as t s cooquay spoken
n Inda. Famar Engsh words get combned n new and unusua ways, and ong,
unbroken sentences run on freey, sometmes spannng a page or more. The
nspraton Rushde draws from both ancent and contemporary Indan cuture s aso
notabe n hs cton. Eements taken from tradtona Indan mythoogy and regon
thread themseves through the nove, as do the artstc conventons of modern
Boywood, the vgorous, popust cnema ndustry based n Bombay. In ts sheer
exuberance and sprawng range of cutura sources, as we as ts attempt to
ncude as much of Indas vast cutura dentty and contemporary hstory as
possbe, Midnights Childrens as compete a reecton of the fe and character of
the subcontnent as any snge nove coud possby provde.
Plot Overview
Saeem Sna, the narrator of Midnights Children, opens the nove by expanng that
he was born on mdnght, August 15, 1947, at the exact moment Inda ganed ts
ndependence from Brtsh rue. Now nearng hs thrty-rst brthday, Saeem
beeves that hs body s begnnng to crack and fa apart. Fearng that hs death s
mmnent, he grows anxous to te hs fe story. Padma, hs oya and ovng
companon, serves as hs patent, often skeptca audence.
Saeems story begns n Kashmr, thrty-two years before hs brth, n 1915. There,
Saeems grandfather, a doctor named Aadam Azz, begns treatng Naseem, the
woman who becomes Saeems grandmother. For the rst three years Aadam Azz
treats her, Naseem s aways covered by a sheet wth a sma hoe n t that s
moved to expose the part of her that s sck. Aadam Azs sees hs future wfes face
for the rst tme on the same day Word War I ends, n 1918. Aadam Azz and
Naseem marry, and the coupe moves to Agra, where Aadam-a doctor whose oss
of regous fath has ahected hm deepy-sees how protests n the name of
ndependence get voenty suppressed. Aadam and Naseem have three daughters,
Aa, Mumtaz, and Emerad, and two sons, Mustapha and Hanf. Aadam becomes a
foower of the optmstc actvst Man Abduah, whose ant-Partton stance
eventuay eads to hs assassnaton. Foowng Abduahs death, Aadam hdes
Abduahs frghtened assstant, Nadr Khan, despte hs wfes opposton. Whe
vng n the basement, Nadr Khan fas n ove wth Mumtaz, and the two are
secrety marred. However, after two years of marrage, Aadam nds out that hs
daughter s st a vrgn, as Nadr and Mumtaz have yet to consummate ther
marrage. Nadr Khan s sent runnng for hs fe when Mumtazs sster, Emerad, tes
Ma|or Zukar-an omcer n the Pakstan army, soon to be Emerads husband-
about hs hdng pace n the house. Abandoned by her husband, Mumtaz agrees to
marry Ahmed Sna, a young merchant who unt then had been courtng her sster,
Aa.
Mumtaz changes her name to Amna and moves to Deh wth her new husband.
Pregnant, she goes to a fortune-teer who devers a cryptc prophecy about her
unborn son, decarng that the boy w never be oder or younger than hs country
and camng that he sees two heads, knees and a nose. After a terrorst
organzaton burns down Ahmeds factory, Ahmed and Amna move to Bombay.
They buy a house from a departng Engshman, Wam Methwod, who owns an
estate at the top of a h. Wee We Wnky, a poor man who entertans the fames
of Methwods Estate, says that hs wfe, Vanta, s aso expectng a chd soon.
Unbeknownst to Wee We Wnky, Vanta had an ahar wth Wam Methwod, and
he s the true father of her unborn chd. Amna and Vanta both go nto abor, and,
at exacty mdnght, each woman devers a son. Meanwhe, a mdwfe at the
nursng home, Mary Perera, s preoccuped wth thoughts of her radca socast
over, |oseph DCosta. Wantng to make hm proud, she swtches the nametags of
the two newborn babes, thereby gvng the poor baby a fe of prvege and the rch
baby a fe of poverty. Drven by a sense of gut afterward, she becomes an ayah, or
nanny, to Saeem.
Because t occurs at the exact moment Inda gans ts ndependence, the press
herads Saeems brth as hugey sgncant. Young Saeem has an enormous
cucumberke nose and bue eyes ke those of hs grandfather, Aadam Azz. Hs
mschevous sster, ncknamed the Brass Monkey, s born a few years ater.
Overwhemed by the expectatons ad on hm by the prophecy, and rdcued by
other chdren for hs huge nose, Saeem takes to hdng n a washng chest. Whe
hdng one day, he sees hs mother sttng down on the toet; when Amna dscovers
hm, she punshes Saeem to one day of sence. Unabe to speak, he hears, for the
rst tme, a babbe of voces n hs head. He reazes he has the power of teepathy
and can enter anyones thoughts. Eventuay, Saeem begns to hear the thoughts of
other chdren born durng the rst hour of ndependence. The 1,001 mdnghts
chdren-a number reduced to 581 by ther tenth brthday-a have magca
powers, whch vary accordng to how cose to mdnght they were born. Saeem
dscovers that Shva, the boy wth whom he was swtched at brth, was born wth a
par of enormous, powerfu knees and a gft for combat.
One day, Saeem oses a porton of hs nger n an accdent and s rushed to the
hospta, where hs parents earn that accordng to Saeems bood type, he coudnt
possby be ther boogca son. After he eaves the hospta, Saeem s sent to ve
wth hs Unce Hanf and Aunt Pa for a whe. Shorty after Saeem returns home to
hs parents, Hanf commts sucde. Whe the famy mourns Hanfs death, Mary
confesses to havng swtched Saeem and Shva at brth. Ahmed-now an acohoc
-grows voent wth Amna, promptng her to take Saeem and the Brass Monkey to
Pakstan, where she moves n wth Emerad. In Pakstan, Saeem watches as
Emerads husband, Genera Zukar, stages a coup aganst the Pakstan
government and ushers n a perod of marta aw.
Four years ater, after Ahmed suhers a heart faure, Amna and the chdren move
back to Bombay. Inda goes to war wth Chna, whe Saeems perpetuay
congested nose undergoes a medca operaton. As a resut, he oses hs teepathc
powers but, n return, gans an ncredbe sense of sme, wth whch he can detect
emotons.
Saeems entre famy moves to Pakstan after Indas mtary oss to Chna. Hs
younger sster, now known as |ama Snger, becomes the most famous snger n
Pakstan. Aready on the brnk of run, Saeems entre famy-save |ama and
hmsef-des n the span of a snge day durng the war between Inda and Pakstan.
Durng the ar rads, Saeem gets ht n the head by hs grandfathers sver spttoon,
whch erases hs memory entrey.
Reeved of hs memory, Saeem s reduced to an anmastc state. He nds hmsef
conscrpted nto mtary servce, as hs keen sense of sme makes hm an exceent
tracker. Though he doesnt know exacty how he came to |on the army, he suspects
that |ama sent hm there as a punshment for havng faen n ove wth her. Whe
n the army, Saeem heps que the ndependence movement n Bangadesh. After
wtnessng a number of atroctes, however, he ees nto the |unge wth three of hs
feow soders. In the |unge of the Sundarbans, he regans a of hs memory except
the knowedge of hs name. After eavng the |unge, Saeem nds Parvat-the-wtch,
one of mdnghts chdren, who remnds hm of hs name and heps hm escape back
to Inda. He ves wth her n the magcans ghetto, aong wth a snake charmer
named Pcture Sngh.
Dsapponted that Saeem w not marry her, Parvat-the-wtch has an ahar wth
Shva, now a famous war hero. Thngs between Parvat and Shva qucky sour, and
she returns to the magcans ghetto, pregnant and st unmarred. There, the
ghetto resdents shun Parvat unt Saeem agrees to marry her. Meanwhe, Indra
Gandh, the prme mnster of Inda, begns a sterzaton campagn. Shorty after
the brth of Parvats son, the government destroys the magcans ghetto. Parvat
des whe Shva captures Saeem and brngs hm to a forced sterzaton camp.
There, Saeem dvuges the names of the other mdnghts chdren. One by one, the
mdnghts chdren are rounded up and sterzed, ehectvey destroyng the powers
that so threaten the prme mnster. Later, however, Indra Gandh oses the rst
eecton she hods.
The mdnghts chdren, ncudng Saeem, are a set free. Saeem goes n search of
Parvats son, Aadam, who has been vng wth Pcture Sngh. The three take a trp
to Bombay, so Pcture Sngh can chaenge a man who cams to be the words
greatest snake charmer. Whe n Bombay, Saeem eats some chutney that tastes
exacty ke the ones hs ayah, Mary, used to make. He nds the chutney factory
that Mary now owns, at whch Padma stands guardng the gate. Wth ths meetng,
Saeems story comes fu crce. Hs hstorca account nay compete, Saeem
decdes to marry Padma, hs steadfast over and stener, on hs thrty-rst brthday,
whch fas on the thrty-rst annversary of Indas ndependence. Saeem
propheses that he w de on that day, dsntegratng nto mons of specks of dust.
Character List
Saleem Sinai - The narrator and protagonst of the nove. Born at the moment of
Indas ndependence and bessed wth the powers of teepathy and an uncanny
sense of sme, Saeem tes hs extraordnary fe story as hs body begns to
crumbe, an account that sgncanty paraes the hstory of postcoona Inda. As a
narrator, Saeem can be both unreabe and sef-centered at tmes.
Aadam Aziz - Saeems grandfather. Aadam s the patrarch of the famy, a doctor
and skeptc whose oss of fath eaves what he refers to as a "hoe" nsde of hm.
Aadam fas n ove wth hs wfe, Naseem, after ony beng aowed to see her
through a hoe n a perforated sheet.
Ahmed Sinai - Saeems father. A shrewd busnessman who s nonetheess
destned for faure, Ahmed spends much of hs marrage ghtng hs wfe and hs
acoho addcton.
Mumtaz (Amina Sinai) - Saeems mother, and the daughter of Aadam Azz. Born
Mumtaz, she changes her name to Amna after her marrage to Ahmed. A ovng,
devoted mother, she nherts her fathers skeptcsm and her mothers
determnaton. Despte beng marred to Ahmed, she s never abe to forget her rst
husband, Nadr Khan.
Mary Pereira - Saeems ayah and surrogate mother. Mary s responsbe for
swtchng Saeem and Shva at brth out of a msguded sense of soca |ustce. In
order to compensate for her crme, she dedcates her fe to rasng Saeem.
Shiva - Saeems archrva. Shva s born at exacty the same moment as Saeem.
Whe Saeem s rased n a ovng, weathy househod, Shva s rased n ab|ect
poverty by a snge father. He s bessed wth a par of preternaturay strong knees
and an amazng prowess n war. Shva s named after the Hndu god of destructon,
who s aso the god assocated wth procreaton.
Parvati-the-witch - A rea wtch, and, ke Saeem, one of the chdren born at the
moment of Indas ndependence. Parvat s Saeems cosest ay as a chd and ater
becomes hs wfe. Despte her fantastc powers, she s unabe to make Saeem fa n
ove wth her and, as a resut, embarks on an ahar wth Shva that resuts n a chd.
In the Hndu regon, Parvat s the consort of Shva.
Padma - Saeems devoted caretaker and future wfe. Padma s as strong and
down-to-earth as Saeem s weak and dreamy. She provdes Saeem wth a skeptca
yet patent audence.
Naseem hani - Saeems grandmother, and Aadam Azzs wfe. After marrage,
Naseem becomes known as Reverend Mother, n part because of her regous
devoton. As her husband wthers away wth age, Reverend Mother grows
ncreasngy arge and powerfu.
!illiam Methwold - Saeems boogca father. An Engshman, Wam Methwod
seduces women wth hs perfecty parted har, whch s actuay a wg. He owns
Methwods Estate, a porton of whch he ses to Ahmed Sna. He sees hs departure
from Inda as markng the tragc end of an era.
Alia - Saeems aunt, and a sster of Amna. After Ahmed Sna re|ects her for her
sster, Aa harbors a feong btterness and determnaton to destroy her sster and
her ssters famy.
"ani# - Saeems unce, and a brother of Amna. Hanf was once one of the most
promsng m drectors n Inda. However, hs dream to create art free from
meodrama and superstton fas, and, as hs career fas apart, he commts sucde.
Nadir $han - Amnas rst husband. As a young man, Nadr Khan s the persona
assstant to Man Abduah, as we as a bad poet. He fas n ove wth Amna but s
forced to dvorce her on account of hs mpotence. He ater changes hs name to
Oasm Khan and becomes a communst.
Musta%ha - Saeems unce, and a brother of Amna. Mustapha s the dea,
obedent cv servant. He s so passve, hes neary nconsequenta-a fate he takes
out on hs chdren by constanty beatng them unt they have no personaty eft.
&merald - Saeems aunt, and a sster of Amna. Emerad marres Ma|or Zukar
and en|oys an opuenty comfortabe festye. Sesh and sef-absorbed, she ony
reuctanty comes to her ssters ad.
eneral 'ul()ar - Emerads husband, and an mportant gure n the Pakstan
army. Genera Zukar heps orchestrate a coup aganst the Pakstan government
and makes money by smuggng tems nto the country. Hs constant abuse of hs
son, Zafar, eventuay provokes Zafar nto kng hm.
'a#ar - The son of Genera Zukar and Emerad. Zafar wets hmsef throughout hs
fe and s rdcued and abused by hs father as a resut.
Aadam Sinai - The boogca son of Shva and Parvat-the-wtch. Saeem rases
Aadam as f he were hs own chd. Aadam s |ust three years od at the noves
concuson.
Picture Sin*h - A snake charmer, and the eader of the magcans ghetto.
Charmng and dpomatc, Pcture Sngh s Saeems cosest frend. He s undone by
hs desre to prove hmsef the words greatest snake harmer.
!ee !illie !in)ie - Shvas father. Wee We Wnke s a poor man who earns a
vng by sngng for the weathy fames of Methwods Estate.
+anita - Saeems boogca mother. Vanta des durng abor.
&vie Lilith ,urns - A voent, tough Amercan gr. Eve s brey the eader of the
chdren vng on Methwods Estate, and she s Saeems rst ove.
Sonny -.rahim - One of the chdren vng on Methwods Estate. Sonny s
Saeems best frend. He s aso n ove wth Saeems sster, the Brass Monkey.
/ose%h 01Costa - A soca radca who ater becomes a ghost. |oseph DCostas
potca beefs nspre Marys decson to swtch Shva and Saeem, and hs ghost
ater compes her to confess her crme.
Commander Sa.armati - A hgh-rankng omca n the Indan navy. After earnng
that hs wfe, La, has had an ahar, Commander Sabarmat shoots her, ks her
over, and then surrenders. He temporary becomes a natona hero.
"omi Catrac) - A m magnate, and resdent of Methwods Estate. Hom Catrack
has an ahar wth La, the wfe of Commander Sabarmat, and s subsequenty
murdered by the commander.
Lila Sa.armati - The wfe of Commander Sabarmat. Las husband shoots her n
the stomach for havng an ahar.
0octor Narli)ar - A doctor, and Ahmeds busness partner. Dr. Narkar devses a
scheme for recamng and from the ocean but des before he can mpement t.
Alice Pereira - Marys sster. Ace eventuay works for Ahmed Sna and s
responsbe for Marys chutney factory.
2aroo34 Shaheed4 and Ayoo.a - Three soders assgned to work wth Saeem n
the Pakstan army. Each one s eventuay ked durng the war.
Narli)ar !omen - An unnamed, unnumbered group of "grossy competent"
women who take over Dr. Narkars ahars after hs death.
Mian A.dullah - A potca gure before ndependence. Man Abduah s the
founder of the Free Isam Convocaton, an organzaton dedcated to resstng the
partton of Inda aong regous nes.
hani - Naseems father. Ghan s a bnd, weathy andowner.
5ai - An od boatman from Kashmr. Ta s a mysterous, ancent, and wse gure
who remans resentfu of the words encroachment nto hs terrtory unt hs death.
6amram Seth - A prophet who predcts Saeems future whe Amna s pregnant.
Analysis o# Ma7or Characters
Saleem Sinai
Saeem Sna s the protagonst and narrator of Midnights Children. He s born,
aong wth one other chd, at the exact moment of Indas ndependence. Hs
dentty, however, s swtched at brth. As a resut, he s rased by a prosperous
famy n Bombay, whe hs counterpart and future rva, Shva, s rased n poverty.
Saeem has the powers of teepathy and a preternaturay acute sense of sme,
whch aow hm to nd the other chdren of mdnght and create the Mdnghts
Chdrens Conference. As he approaches hs thrty-rst brthday, he says he s
nearng death. Hs body s teray fang apart, and ts ony a matter of tme before
he crumbes nto dust. Drven by a desre to beat hs boogca cock, Saeem
narrates hs fe story to hs devoted and ovng caretaker, Padma. Hs tae, whch
begns wth hs grandfather Aadam and s at tmes unreabe and contrved,
represents not ony hs ndvdua fe story but aso the entre hstory of postcoona
Inda. A the ma|or events n hs fe correspond to mportant potca events n
Indan hstory, eadng hm to compare hs narratve to regous texts. Gven hs
fantastc brth and extraordnary powers, the prme mnster of Inda, Indra Ghand,
seeks to destroy hm aong wth the other mdnghts chdren.
Padma
Padma s Saeems ovng companon and caretaker, and she w become hs ance
at the end of the nove. She s the audence for Saeems narratve. Wth strong,
hary forearms, a name assocated wth dung, and a cynca and often mpatent ear,
Padma represents the antthess to Saeems magca, exuberant, freewheeng
narraton. She hurres the narratve aong, mporng Saeem to get on wth the pot
rather than veerng oh nto tangents, and often she expresses doubts as to the
veracty of Saeems account. As a rhetorca devce, Padma aows Rushde the
chance to acknowedge expcty any doubts or frustratons the reader may fee n
response to the nove. She s the practca voce of crtcsm. Because she s there to
counteract ts most extreme tendences, she supports the noves more wfuy
excessve ndugences. Saeems frequent nterruptons, dgressons, and sef-
obsesson are a, to some degree, made possbe by Padmas expressons of doubt
and frustraton: the two sdes work together to create a hostc readng experence.
By expcty takng nto account the dmcutes of the narratve, Rushde s abe to
move beyond them.
Shiva
Born at the stroke of mdnght and named after the Hndu god of destructon, Shva
s Saeems rva and counterpart. Swtched at brth wth Saeem, Shva s robbed of
hs amuent brthrght and rased n ab|ect poverty. Bessed wth a par of enormous
and powerfu knees, Shva s a gfted warror and, therefore, a fo for the more md-
mannered Saeem. Shva represents the aternate sde of Inda: poor, Hndu, and as
aggressve as Saeem s passve. As a young chd, he s the eader of a street gang
and possby a murderer. He s drven by a determnedy ndvduast perspectve
and grows up unabe to form any human attachments. Athough he s a voent
character, he s, nonetheess, a tragc gure, damaged and shaped by the forces of
hstory and cass. Durng the 1971 war between Inda and Pakstan, Shva ves up to
hs name and becomes a war hero, eventuay promoted to the rank of ma|or. Aong
wth hs mtary reputaton, Shva aso becomes a noted over among the women of
Indan hgh socety, srng a number of egtmate chdren. In the end, Shva hunts
Saeem down and turns hm over to one the camps opened durng Indra Gandhs
state of Emergency, where Saeem, aong wth the other mdnghts chdren, s
admnstered an operaton that renders hm stere. In ths way, Shva manages to
ehectvey destroy the chdren of mdnght.
5he !idow
Indra Gandh was the prme mnster of Inda from 1966-1977, then agan from
1980-1984, a term that ended wth her assassnaton. Indra was the daughter of
|awahara Nehru, Indas rst prme mnster, and the wdow of Feroze Gandh, an
Indan |ournast and potcan. Though Mahatma Gandh was a famy frend and
potca ay, the two are not reated.
In her rst term, varous potca and economc reforms made Indra Gandh hghy
popuar, as dd an Indan vctory n the 1971 conct wth Pakstan over the creaton
of an ndependent Bangadesh state. However, n 1971, Gandh was aso found
guty of eecton fraud. Rather than face charges, Gandh decared a State of
Emergency, tghtenng her hod over the government and usherng n a perod of
drastcay reduced cv bertes, as we as a severe crackdown on potca
opposton. The emergency asted nneteen months, after whch Gandh-ms|udgng
the extent of the popuatons resentment-hed an open eecton and ost. She
stepped down but was reeected to omce n 1980. Four years ater, after a
dsastrous seres of events nvovng Skh actvsts, Indra Gandh was assassnated
by her Skh bodyguards. Her son, Ra|v Gandh, succeeded her and was aso
assassnated whe n omce, n 1991. The Gandh famy, however, contnues to be a
centra force n Indan potcs.
Long before Indra Gandh enters Saeems story n a drect fashon, vague
references to "the Wdow" hnt at her eventua roe n the destructon of the
mdnghts chdren. Her actua presence n the story s bref, but t s nonetheess of
great sgncance. Throughout the nove, Saeems persona fe constanty reects
Indas potca turmo. Fnay, wth the arrva of Indra Gandh and the State of
Emergency, Rushde fuses the two narratves wth a snge crss. The reforms of the
emergency, whch ncuded a wdespread campagn of forced sterzaton, were
wdey seen as massve abuses of government power and human rghts. The naton
of Inda s metaphorcay thrown nto perpetua darkness |ust as Saeems wfe,
Parvat-the-wtch, s ked and the magcans ghetto destroyed. By makng Indra
Gandhs campagn responsbe for the destructon of the ctona mdnghts
chdren, Rushde hods her accountabe for destroyng the promse and hope of a
new future for Inda.
5he ,rass Mon)ey (/amila Sin*er)
Saeems younger sster, ntay known as the Brass Monkey, s born nto the word
wth tte fanfare. She eventuay grows up to become the most famous snger n
Pakstan, adored throughout the country. As a chd, Saeem notes that the Brass
Monkey earned at an eary age that f she wanted attenton, she woud have to
make a ot of nose, whch s precsey what she does. She becomes a mschevous
chd who garners attenton by destroyng thngs and remans unabe to accept ove
throughout her adut fe. The payfu and mpsh nature of her youth s ost amost
mmedatey upon her arrva n Pakstan. There, n a regousy devout country, she
succumbs to the aws of devoton and patrotsm, |ust as her brother becomes more
nvested n the profane eements of fe. She goes through extraordnary engths to
keep hersef veed, and her voce s descrbed as beng "pure," reectng the deas
of a country that vaues whoesomeness n ts women. Despte her devoton, |ama
Snger retans eements of her former sef. She rebes aganst her detary constrants
by secrety eatng eavened bread, baked by Cathoc nuns, and she openy crtczes
the Pakstan army when they abuse her brother.
5hemes
5he Sin*le and the Many
Born at the dawn of Indan ndependence and destned, upon hs death, to break
nto as many peces as there are ctzens of Inda, Saeem Sna manages to
represent the entrety of Inda wthn hs ndvdua sef. The noton that a snge
person coud possby embody a teemng, dverse, muttudnous naton ke Inda
encapsuates one of the noves fundamenta concerns: the tenson between the
snge and the many. The dynamc reatonshp between Saeems ndvdua fe and
the coectve fe of the naton suggests that pubc and prvate w aways nuence
one another, but t remans uncear whether they can be competey equated wth
one another. Throughout the nove, Saeem strugges to contan a of Inda wthn
hmsef-to cram hs persona story wth the themes and stores of hs country-ony
to dsntegrate and coapse at the end of hs attempt.
Potcay speakng, the tenson between the snge and the many aso marks the
naton of Inda tsef. One of the fastest growng natons n the word, Inda has
aways been an ncredby dverse. Its consttuton recognzes twenty-two omca
anguages, and the popuaton practces regons as vared as Hndusm, Isam,
Chrstanty, Skhsm, and Buddhsm, among many others. Indan cuture s smary
hybrd, havng been nuenced by countess other cutures over the menna of ts
deveopment. At the same tme, however, mantanng Indas sprawng dversty n
a peacefu fashon has often proved dmcut: Indas dvson nto the Isamc naton
of Pakstan and the secuar, but mosty Hndu naton of Inda-a process known as
Partton-remans the most strkng exampe of the desre to contan and reduce
Indas puraty. In Midnights Children, the chd Saeem watches as protestors
attempt to do dvde the cty of Bombay aong ngustc nes, another attempt to
categorze and cordon oh mutpcty.
Saeem, a character who contans a muttude of experences and senstvtes,
stands n stark contrast to the protestors who demand ther own anguage-based
regon, the strct monothesm of Pakstan, and Indra Gandhs represson of
contradctory dssenson. Hs powers of teepathy aow hm to transcend the
barrers of anguage, whe he hmsef-wth hs Engsh bood, poor background,
weathy upbrngng, and ecectc regous nueces-reects Indas dversty and
range. The Mdnght Chdrens Conference that he convenes s, n ts nta phase, a
mode for purasm and a testmony to the potenta power nherent wthn
coexstng dversty, whch s a natura and dentve eement of Indan cuture.
In Midnights Children, the desre for snguarty or purty-whether of regon or
cuture-breeds not ony ntoerance but aso voence and represson.
5he 8nrelia.ility o# Memory and Narrative
Factua errors and dubous cams are essenta aspects of Saeems fantastc
narratve. He wfuy acknowedges that he mspaced Gandhs death, an obvousy
semna moment n Indas hstory, as we as wfuy msremembers the date of an
eecton. He frets over the accuracy of hs story and worres about future errors he
mght make. Yet, at the same tme, after acknowedgng hs error, Saeem decdes to
mantan hs verson of events, snce thats how they appeared to occur to hm and
now there can be no gong back. Despte ts potenta hstorca naccuraces,
Saeem sees hs story as beng of equa mportance as the words most mportant
regous texts. Ths s not ony hs story but aso the story of Inda. The errors n hs
story, n addton to castng a shadow of doubt over some of what he cams, pont
to one of the noves essenta cams: that truth s not |ust a matter of verabe
facts. Genune hstorca truth depends on perspectve-and a wngness to beeve.
Saeem notes that memory creates ts own truth, and so do narratves. Regous
texts and hstory books ake stake ther cam n truth not ony because they are
supported by facts but aso because they have been coded and accepted upon,
whether by tme or fath. The verson of hstory Saeem ohers comes tered
through hs perspectve, |ust as every other verson of hstory comes tered
through some aternate perspectve. For Saeem, hs verson s as true as anythng
ese that coud be wrtten, not |ust because ths s the way he has arranged t, but
because ths s the verson he beeves.
0estruction vs9 Creation
The batte between Saeem and Shva reects the ancent, mythoogca batte
between the creatve and destructve forces n the word. The enmty and tenson
between the two begn at the moment of ther smutaneous brths. The reference to
Shva, the Hndu god of both destructon and procreaton, reects not ony the
tenson between destructon and creaton but aso the nextrcaby bound nature of
these two forces. Saeem, as the narrator of Midnights Children, s responsbe for
creatng the word we, as readers, are engaged n. He represents Brahma, the god
of creaton. What Saeem creates, however, s not fe, but a story. By deverng
Saeem nto the hands of the Wdow, Shva s responsbe for the destructon of the
mdnghts chdren, and yet, by fatherng Aadam and hundreds of other chdren, he
ensures the contnuaton of ther egacy.
Moti#s
Sna)es
Begnnng wth the snake venom that saves Saeems young fe, snakes pay an
ambguous and compcated roe n the nove. Saeem often refers to hs favorte
chdhood board game, Snakes and Ladders. In the games smpe formua of good
and ev, Saeem earns an mportant esson: for every up, there s a down, and for
every down, there s an up. Mssng from the board game, however, s the ambguty
between good and ev that he ater detects as a natura part of fe. Generay
consdered to represent ev, snakes are, n fact, much more compcated than that
smpe generazaton mght mpy. Whe venom has the power to k, t aso has the
abty to brng fe, and t does so not once but twce n the nove. Snake venom
represents the power of Shva, who s both destroyer and procreator n the Hndu
pantheon. In Midnights Children, snakes are aso assocated wth Pcture Sngh,
Saeems cosest frend, whose career s both dependent upon and destroyed by
snakes.
Lea)in*
Throughout the nove, the past nds ways to mysterousy nsnuate tsef nto the
present, |ust as Saeems persona compusons and concerns nd themseves
nexpcaby repcated n natona, potca events. Perhaps nspred by hs own
constanty runnng nose, Saeem uses the termlea!ing to descrbe ths
phenomenon. The nes separatng past, present, and future-as we as the nes
separatng the persona and the potca, the ndvdua and the state-are
ncredby porous. When Saeem begns havng dreams about Kashmr, for exampe,
the strrng mages of hs dreams seems to seep nto the natona conscousness,
and Inda and Pakstan begn to batte over possesson of the beautfu regon.
InMidnights Children, the nterpay between persona and pubc, past and present,
remans ud and dynamc, ke eakng qud.
2ra*mentation
Saeem cams that, much ke hs narratve, he s physcay fang apart. Hs body s
rdded wth cracks, and, as a resut, the past s spng out of hm. Hs story, spread
out over sxty-three years, s a fragmented narratve, oscatng back and forth
between past and present and frequenty broken up further by Saeems
nter|ectons. In addton to the narratve and physca fragmentaton, Inda tsef s
fragmented. Torn apart by Partton, t s dvded nto two separate countres, wth
the east and west sectons of Pakstan on ether sde of Inda. Ths dvson s taken
even further when East and West Pakstan are recassed as two separate
countres, Pakstan and Bangadesh. Wthn Inda, anguage marchers agtate for
further parttons based upon ngustc nes. New natonates are created, and wth
them come new forms of cutura dentty that reect the constant dvsons.
Sym.ols
5he Silver S%ittoon
The sver spttoon gven to Amna as part of her dowry by the Ran of Cooch Naheen
s responsbe for Saeems oss of memory. Even when he has amnesa, however,
Saeem contnues to chersh the spttoon as f he st understands ts hstorca
vaue. Foowng the destructon of hs famy, the sver spttoon s the ony tangbe
remnant of Saeems former fe, and yet t too s eventuay destroyed when
Saeems house n the ghetto s torn down. Spttoons, once used as part of a
chershed game for both od and young, graduay fe out of use: the od men no
onger spt ther bete |uce nto the street as they te stores, nor do the chdren
dart n between the streams as they sten. The spttoon s the symbo of a vanshng
era, whch, n retrospect, seemed smper and easer. And so, athough Saeem may
not be abe to reca the specc assocaton between the spttoon and hs famy,
the spttoon mantans ts symboc quaty as both a contaner of memory and
source of amnesa.
5he Per#orated Sheet
The perforated sheet through whch Aadam Azz fas n ove wth hs future wfe
performs severa dherent symboc functons throughout the nove. Unabe to see
hs future wfe as a whoe, Aadam fas n ove wth her n peces. As a resut, ther
ove never has a cohesve unty that hods them together. Ther ove s fragmented,
|ust as ther daughter Amnas attempts to fa n ove wth her husband are aso
fragmented. Haunted by the memory of her prevous husband, Amna embarks on a
campagn to fa n ove wth her new husband n sectons, |ust as her father once
fe n ove wth her mother. Despte her best attempts, Amna and Ahmeds ove
aso acks the competon and unty necessary for genune ove to thrve. The hoe of
the perforated sheet represents a porta for vson but aso a vod that goes uned.
The perforated sheet makes one na appearance wth |ama Snger: n an attempt
to preserve her purty, she shrouds hersef competey, except for a snge hoe for
her ps. The perforated sheet, n addton to preservng her purty, aso reduces to
her to nothng more than a voce. The sheet becomes a ve that separates her from
the rest of the word and reects her nabty to accept ahecton.
$nees and Nose
The seer, Ramram, predcts the brth of "knees and nose," whch represent Shva
and Saeem, respectvey. In addton to symbozng each boys speca power,
knees and nose aso pay another roe. When Aadam Azz rst knees down to pray,
hs knees touch the oor and hs nose hts the ground. Knees and nose, n ths
nstance, represent an act of prayer, as we as the submsson and humty
necessary fath. After httng hs nose on the ground, however, Aadam re|ects that
submsson, and a hoe opens up nsde of hm. Knees and nose aso become
sgncant wth Farooqs death va a snper buet. Shot, Farooq rst drops to hs
knees, then hts hs nose on the ground. |ust as Aadam bowed before god, Farooq
bows before death. Shva s suspected of kng a strng of prosttutes wth hs
powerfu knees, whe Saeem uses hs nose to dscover the most decrept prosttute
n the cty. Knees and nose-|ust ke Shva and Saeem, destructon and creaton,
fath and humty-are nextrcaby reated.
-m%ortant :uotations &x%lained
;9 "I tod you the truth," I say yet agan, "Memorys truth, because memory has ts
own speca knd. It seects, emnates, aters, exaggerates, mnmzes, gores, and
ves aso; but n the end t creates ts own reaty, ts heterogeneous but usuay
coherent versons of events; and no sane human beng ever trusts someone eses
verson more than hs own."
Ths quotaton occurs n Book Two, n the chapter "At the Poneer Caf." Saeem has
nterrupted hs story n order to defend ts accuracy to Padma. Throughout hs story,
Saeem has appeared anxous about hs hstorca nconsstences. He s aso acutey
aware of how fantastc and far-fetched hs narratve sounds to the skeptca,
pragmatc Padma. After he emerges from hs fever-nduced dream, t becomes
especay mportant for Saeem to assert the veracty of hs story. For Saeem,
everythng he says s true-not necessary because t happened that way, but
because he remembers t that way. An event from a persons past gans meanng for
that persons present exstence ony when t becomes tered through memory and
becomes part of the overa story of that persons fe. Ony then can connectons be
made and concusons drawn, and events and nstances accrue sgncance. Saeem
has rearranged hstory not ony because he has forgotten the proper order of
events, but aso because by dong so hs story gans greater depth and meanng.
Saeems rearrangement of facts serves a greater truth as he creates a new pattern
through whch to nterpret both hs own hstory and that of Inda tsef.
<9 I have been ony the humbest of |uggers-wth-facts; and that, n a country
where the truth s what t s nstructed to be, reaty qute teray ceases to exst, so
that everythng becomes possbe except what we are tod s the case.
Ths quotaton occurs n Book Two, at the end of the chapter tted "|ama Snger."
Reectng on hs tme n Pakstan, Saeem makes an expct argument aganst the
strct potca contro and regous dogmatsm of the Pakstan government. In a
naton dened by one omca perspectve, wth a government that voenty re|ects
any threat to ts snguarty, reaty cannot exst, snce reaty s nherenty composed
of mutpe perspectves. Reaty s not |ust composed of a snge truth, as the
repressve ruers of Pakstan woud have the peope beeve. Les become necessary
to ve n a pace ke Pakstan, n order to mantan the cton of snguarty. Saeem
argues that athough hs narratve may pay fast and oose wth hstorca facts, hs
story s st more truthfu and authentc than the Pakstan governments, because
hs tae ceebrates and wecomes puraty, a mutpcty of perspectves, and the
possbty of contradcton.
=9 Let me state ths qute unequvocay: t s my rm convcton that the hdden
purpose of the Indo-Pakstan war of 1965 was nothng more nor ess than the
emnaton of my benghted famy from the face of the earth.
Ths quotaton occurs n Book Two, n the chapter "How Saeem Acheved Purty."
Throughout the teng of hs story, Saeem often paces hmsef at the center of
ma|or potca events. Whe we can detect a stran of narcsssm n Saeems desre
to see hmsef as ether the centra cause or prmary vctm of varous hstorca
events, hs fe does converge wth natona hstory on countess occasons. If we
consder that Saeem-born at the dawn of Indas ndependence, and destned to
break nto as many peces as Inda has ctzens-represents the entre popuaton of
Inda, t makes sense that hs fe seems drecty mpacted by natona events.
Thngs that happen on a natona or goba scae w aways ahect the coectve fe
of a natons peope.
By camng that the purpose of the Indo-Pakstan war was to emnate hs famy,
Saeem draws crtca attenton to the fact that the war was |usted n regous
terms. The Indan presence n Kashmr was represented as a knd of deement, and
the Pakstan government camed that Pakstan needed to recam Kashmr for the
good of the country. Saeem cams that he and hs grotesque famy aso needed to
be ceansed n order for the naton to be pured. The absurdty of Saeems cam
that an entre war mght be fought n order to murder a famy of cvans hghghts
the absurdty of Pakstans cam.
>9 Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum tota of everythng that went before
me, of a I have been seen done, , of everythng done-to-me.
Ths quotaton appears n Book Three, at the end of the chapter "Sam and the
Tger." Saeem has |ust nshed recang the rage he fet upon reazng the
fundamenta unfarness of fe. Ths passage s a perfect expresson of Saeems
narratve. He begns hs fe story thrty-two years before hs brth, and from that
moment, consders everythng that has happened as beng somehow reated to hs
fe. There s a connecton between past and present, between the state and the
ndvdua. Hstory s never past. It pays an actve roe n shapng the present, and
Saeems story s an attempt to capture that dynamc reatonshp.
?9 Futty of statstcs: durng 1971, ten mon refugees ed across the borders of
East Pakstan-Bangadesh nto Inda-but ten mon (ke a numbers arger than
one thousand and one) refuses to be understood.
Ths quotaton appears n Book Three, n the chapter "The Buddha." Saeem, now n
the servce of the Pakstan Army, nds hmsef adng the voent represson of the
Bangadesh ndependence movement. In a nove aready rdded wth voence and
massve causates, ths s a bunt acknowedgement of the fact that there s no way
to express the scae of voence and suherng that s occurrng. Even Saeems rst
hand account of the atroctes he wtnesses becomes suhused wth a sense that
what he sees s ncomprehensbe. The human mnd cannot grasp tragedes of ths
scae, and we requre a mcrocosmc representaton of the vctms-mdnghts
chdren-to attach ndvdua denttes to hstorca reates. One thousand and one
s the argest number that can be understood, accordng to Saeem, and so rather
than try and represent the oss of hope for an entre generaton, Rushde has hm
oher us the representatve destructon of these chdren.
$ey 2acts
narrator Saeem Sna
%oint o# view Ths nove s narrated n the rst person. The narrator s sub|ectve,
though he cams omnscence as he specuates on the motves and thoughts of a
the ma|or characters
tone Urgent; ronc; satrca
tense Saeem, age thrty, generay narrates n the present tense. Most of the
events he descrbes, however, occur n the past, at whch pont Saeem swtches to
the past tense.
settin* (time) From 1915 to 1977
settin* (%lace) Inda, Pakstan, and Bangadesh
%rota*onist Saeem Sna
ma7or con@ict The batte between Saeem, who represents creaton, and hs
archrva, Shva, who represents destructon, encapsuates the ma|or concts of the
nove.
risin* action The brth of Parvat and Shvas son, whch occurs at the same
moment that Prme Mnster Indra Gandh decares a State of Emergency.
climax Shva and the armys destructon of the magcans ghetto, where Saeem
has been vng wth hs wfe and her son
#allin* action After hs home s destroyed and hs wfe s ked, Saeem s taken
to the Wdows hoste, where heand the rest of the mdnghts chdren are sterzed.
themes The snge and the many; truth of memory and narratve; destructon vs.
creaton
moti#s Snakes; eakng; fragmentaton
sym.ols Sver spttoon; the perforated sheet; knees and nose
#oreshadowin* Ramrams prophesy of Saeems brth; Saeems fever nduced
dream of the Wdow

,oo) OneA
SummaryA 5he Per#orated Sheet
Saeem Sna opens the nove by expanng the exact date and tme of hs brth:
August 15, 1947, at mdnght. Saeems brth concdes precsey wth the moment
Inda omcay gans ts ndependence from Brtan. Thus, as Saeem notes, hs
mracuousy tmed brth tes hm to the fate of the country. He s thrty-one years
od now and fees that tme s runnng out for hm. Saeems beeves hs fe s
endng and he must te a of the stores trapped nsde of hm before he des.
Saeem begns the story wth hs grandfather, Aadam Azz, on an eary sprng
mornng n Kashmr. Saeem descrbes Kashmr as a pace of ncredbe beauty and
notes that, n 1915, Kashmr was st prstne, ookng |ust as t had durng the tme
of the Mugha Empre. At ths pont n the story, Kashmr s free of the soders,
camouaged trucks, and mtary |eeps that w come to characterze t n ater
years.
Whe prayng, Aadam bumps hs nose aganst the hard ground, and three drops of
bood fa from hs nose. As a resut, he vows never agan to bow before man or god,
and consequenty a "hoe" opens up nsde of hm. Aadam has recenty returned
home from Germany, after ve years of medca study. Whe Aadam was away, hs
father had a stroke, and hs mother took over hs dutes n the famy gem busness.
As Aadam stands on the edge of a ake, Ta, an od boatman, comes rowng toward
hm. Saeem descrbes Aadams features, partcuary hs promnent nose. Saeem
aso descrbes the engmatc Ta and the oca rumors that surround hm.
Tas boat draws coser. He shouts out to Aadam that the daughter of Ghan the
andowner has faen . Here, Saeem nterrupts hs narratve to note that most of
what matters n our ves takes pace n our absence, but he reassures us that he
has the abty to see thngs he ddnt actuay wtness. In ths way, he s abe to
descrbe Aadam takng care of hs mother, attendng to the andowners daughter,
and beng ferred across the ake by Ta, a at the same tme.
At the andowners opuent house, Aadam reazes that the od man, Ghan, s bnd.
Whe watng to see the patent, Aadam gets nervous and consders eeng, but
then he has a vson of hs mother and decdes to stay. Aadam s taken n to see the
patent, who s anked by two extremey muscuar women hodng a whte bed
sheet over her ke a curtan. In the center of the sheet s a hoe, approxmatey
seven nches n dameter. Ghan tes Aadam that, for modestys sake, he can ony
examne hs daughter through the seven-nch hoe.
SummaryA Mercurochrome
Saeem sts at hs desk, wrtng. Padma, descrbed as a great comfort despte her
nabty to read, cooks for Saeem and presses hm to eat. Saeem returns to hs
story, sayng that hs grandfathers premonton to run away was we founded,
because, n the ensung months and years, Aadam fe under the spe of the
perforated coth. The soated parts of Naseems body that Aadam has seen begn to
haunt hm, and hs mother notes that Ghan s usng the nesses as a poy, to
arrange a marrage between hs daughter and Aadam. Saeem notes that hs
grandfather fe n ove through a hoe n a sheet and that ths ove ed n the hoe
eft by Aadams renuncaton of hs fath.
Naseem experences numerous aments over the next few years, and, n each case,
Aadam examnes her by movng the sheet so that the hoe exposes the ahected
area. However, as Naseem never deveops pans n her head, Aadam never ays
eyes upon her face. On the day Word War I ends, Naseem nay compans of a
headache, and the doctor receves permsson to see her face, at whch pont he
fas even further n ove wth her. In that same year, Doctor Azzs father des,
foowed shorty by hs mother. Ise, Aadams anarchst frend from Germany, comes
to vst hm and dever the news that ther frend Oskar has ded. Agra Unversty
ohers Aadam a |ob, and he decdes to eave Kashmr and proposes to Naseem. Ise
drowns hersef n the ake that same day, n a spot where, as Ta once tod the
young Aadam, foregn women often come to drown themseves wthout ther
knowng why.
Padma, who has brought n Saeems dnner, nterrupts the narratve and demands
he read her what he has wrtten. When Saeem returns to the story, t s August 6,
1919, and Aadam and Naseem are n the cty of Amrtsar. Mahatma Gandh has
ssued a ca for a day of mournng-Harta-on August 7, to protest the Brtsh
presence. On the day of Harta, rots break out, and Aadam treats the wounded wth
Mercurochrome, whch eaves boodke red stans on hs cothng. Sx days ater, a
peacefu protest erupts, n voaton of the marta aw reguatons. The crowd moves
nto a compound, where Brgader R. E. Dyer and hs troops eventuay surround
them. Aadams nose begns to tch furousy. As the brgader ssues a command,
Aadam sneezes voenty, fang to the ground and thereby mssng a buet amed
n hs drecton. The troops contnue to re nto the crowd. Of the 1,650 rounds red,
1,516 nd ther mark.
Before concudng the chapter and gong to bed, Saeem dscovers a crack n hs
wrst. He then tes how Ta, the boatman, ded n 1947, protestng Inda and
Pakstans dspute over Kashmr. Ta waked to where the troops were statoned,
ntendng to gve them a pece of hs mnd, and was shot dead.
Analysis
Saeems account of hs grandfather, Aadam Azz, resembes the story found n the
bbca book of Geness. Aadams name suggests the bbca Adam, the words rst
man. Adam and hs consort, Eve, ved n the Garden of Eden, and Aadams
hometown n Kashmr s smary descrbed as a ush, beautfu ocae. The story of
Adam, Eve, and ther eventua expuson from Eden provdes Chrstans wth an
naugura narratve, from whch they can trace the deveopment of the word.
Smary, the story of Aadam and Naseem n Kashmr provdes Saeem wth an
orgna myth that heps shape and gve meanng to the rest of hs story. Rushdes
use of the bbca tae demonstrates hs wngness to ncorporate and transform
varous terary tradtons nto hs own narratve.
Aadams frend Ta pays an mportant roe n the noves eary deveopment of
certan symbos and themes. Athough most of the oca peope attrbute hs
seemngy nonsensca statements to derum, nsanty, or stupdty, Ta utmatey
demonstrates great wsdom. Regardng Aadams promnent nose, Ta warns the boy
to trust the noses feengs, as the nose w ndcate when somethng s wrong.
Here, Ta audes to the mportant roe noses w pay not ony n Aadams fe but n
future generatons of hs famy. Tas comments aso ntroduce the dea that sensory
experence and nstnctua behavor are nked enttes. Most mportant, however,
Tas warnng suggests the ways n whch persona and pubc concerns code, a
domnant theme of the nove.
ThroughoutMidnights Children, Indan and goba potcs resonate n the ves of the
characters, often to an mprobabe degree. As Saeems grandparents fa n ove,
we wtness the rst occason n whch a great event n word hstory corresponds to
a persona event n the ves of Saeems famy: Word War I ends on the same day
that Aadam nay sees Naseems face. Rushde nks the two events to ustrate the
ways n whch humans rey on ther ndvdua experences to make sense of huge,
abstract hstorca events. Sometmes, pubc hstory and prvate hstory reate n
parae but apparenty unconnected ways. Aadam doesnt see Naseems
face "ecause the war has ended, but the two events seem nked, because each
herads a ma|or transton. Sometmes, however, pubc and prvate hstores
ntersect drecty, as when Aadam partcpates n the prondependence rots and,
mracuousy, manages to avod beng shot. The prondependence rots are
sgncant for the naton, but they gan an added sgncance for Saeems famy,
snce Aadams experence there provdes one more promnent exampe of the
mportant roe of noses pay n Midnights Children.
From the very rst passages of Midnights Children, Rushde estabshes the noves
unque narratve voce. Saeem narrates n the rst person, often addressng the
audence drecty and nformay. He aso wrtes n a prose stye that fees
spontaneous and mprovsed, as f he were wrtng hs thoughts down as fast as he
can, wthout stoppng to revse or edt.Midnights Children doesnt represent a coo,
composed account of past events, nor does t resembe an ob|ectve voce
recoectng events from a dstant vantage pont. Saeem rambes and veers oh,
rephrases and reworks, much as one does n coversaton. Ths prose stye s referred
to as stream of conscousness, and, n ts mmedacy, t reects Saeems desperate,
urgent need to nsh hs tae before he des.
The prose stye aso makes the nove resembe a sesson of ora storyteng, a
feature hghghted by the presence of Padma, Saeems fathfu stener and the
readers stand-n wthn the pages of Midnights Children. At tmes, Padma pays the
roe of a passve audence member, whe at other moments she actvey nter|ects,
makng comments and suggestons and cang Saeem to task for some of hs more
excessve ghts of fancy. In ths way, actng on our behaf, Padma pays the roe of
skeptc and crtc. Through Padma, Rushde can antcpate and acknowedge the
readers potenta frustratons. By preemptvey addressng any doubts and
concerns we mght have, Rushde s then free to pursue the narratve as he sees t.
SummaryA "it-the-S%ittoon
Saeem cams that hs body-worn down by tme, hstory, and fatgue-w soon
break nto hundreds of mons of peces. He descrbes how he makes hs vng
makng chutney and other condments and how Padma prepares hs food and bed n
the factory. Beng mpotent, Saeem cant respond to Padmas sexua advances.
Saeem returns to hs famy hstory, |umpng ahead to the summer of 1942. Aadam
and Naseem now ve on Cornwas Road, n Agra, and have ve chdren: Aa,
Mumtaz, Hanf, Mustapha, and Emerad. Naseem has become a formdabe gure
wth age and s now generay referred to as Reverend Mother. She has aso
deveoped a verba habt of referrng to thngs as #hatsitsname. Saeem recounts a
story of how, n the eary 1930s, Naseem became furous wth Aadam for dsmssng
the chdrens regon tutor, whom he fet was teachng the chdren to hate peope
of other faths. Incensed, Naseem refuses to feed Aadam, watng unt hes amost
dead of hunger before she reents.
Back n 1942, Aadam has agned hmsef wth a charsmatc man named Man
Abduah, aso known as the Hummngbrd. Abduah heads the Free Isam
Convocaton, whch opposes the creaton of a separate Musm state. One day,
durng a vst to a unversty campus wth hs persona secretary, Nadr Khan, Man
Abduah s attacked by a band of assassns. When the assassns begn to cut hm
wth ther knves, Abduah starts to hum, the ptch growng ncreasngy hgher. One
of the kers eyes shatters and fas out of ts socket; the surroundng wndows
shatter as we. Dogs throughout Bombay hear the Hummngbrd and rush to the
scene, n|urng the assassns to such a degree that the murders are rendered
unrecognzabe. Man Abduah des, but Nadr Khan manages to escape and, ndng
Rashd the rckshaw boy n the ed surroundng Doctor Azzs house, peads wth
Rashd to notfy Aadam of the stuaton.
SummaryA 8nder the Car%et
The perod of optmsm that Man Abduah nspred ends wth hs assassnaton. The
Ran of Cooch Naheen, one of Abduahs aes, takes to her bed, whe Aadam puts
hs energy nto treatng the poor. One day, whe usng the bathroom, Aadam s
started to nd Nadr Khan hdng n the aundry bn. Aadam agrees to provde hm
sanctuary, despte hs wfes protests and concerns for ther daughters purty. In
retaaton, Naseem promses never to speak agan, and sence descends upon the
house.
Severa sutors ne up for the three Azz daughters, ncudng Ma|or Zukar, an
omca n the Pakstan army; Nadr Khan, who ves hdden n the Azz basement;
and Ahmed Sna. Mumtaz, Aadams favorte daughter and the darkest-sknned of a
the chdren, tends to Nadr Khan. The two fa n ove wthout ever exchangng a
word, and Nadr asks Aadam for hs daughters hand n marrage. The famy
arranges a secret marrage between the two. Afterward, Mumtaz happy moves nto
the basement, returnng to the upper oors by day to preserve the secrecy of her
husbands conceament.
The Ran of Cooch Naheen des, her skn havng turned competey whte, and
bequeaths a sver spttoon to the Azz famy. Mumtaz fas , and, whe gvng her
a check-up, Aadam dscovers that after two years of marrage Mumtaz remans a
vrgn. Upon hearng the news, Naseem ends her three years of sence, reeasng a
torrent of abusve words at her husband. Saeem notes that ths occurred on the
same day that Amerca dropped the atomc bomb on |apan: August 9, 1945.
Emerad runs out of the house and tes her sutor, Ma|or Zukar, that Nadr Khan s
vng n her basement. Nadr Khan ees, eavng a note for Mumtaz that reads, "I
dvorce you."
Emerad goes on to marry Ma|or Zukar. At Emerads weddng, Mumtaz and Ahmed
Sna-who had prevousy been courtng Aa, the edest daughter-have a
conversaton. They eventuay marry, and Mumtaz changes her name to Amna
Sna.
Analysis
In these chapters, the prvate fe of Saeem Sna once agan concdes wth the
pubc fe of Inda. Saeem cams that hs body s fang apart and that hes
destned to crumbe nto approxmatey 630 mon partces of "anonymous" dust.
At the tme of Midnights Childrens pubcaton, Indas popuaton stood at about
630 mon. Born at the moment of Indas ndependence, Saeem symbozes
modern Inda and conceves of hmsef as a physca embodment of Indas hstory.
By camng that he w crumbe nto 630 mon peces, Saeem suggests that when
hs body fas apart, he w reease a of Inda. Wth the noton that, n hs ndvdua
body, Saeem contans a physca representaton of every snge "anonymous"
Indan ctzen, Rushde takes a symboc metaphor-Saeem as modern Inda-and
makes t concrete. Saeems body dsntegraton aso reects the terary
fragmentaton of the nove as t skps haphazardy through tme. Because Saeems
body seems doomed to coapse from the begnnng, we mght wonder whether the
narratve s destned to fa apart as we. Saeems constant peas for hs story to be
taken serousy cast further doubt on the truthfuness of hs account-and make
Saeem an ncreasngy unreabe narrator.
Once agan, Padma urges the narratve forward, and we |ump to 1942 and what
Saeem refers to as "the optmstc epdemc." The word e$idemicsuggests that the
hope nspred by Man Abduah s contagous, out of the ordnary, and potentay
dangerous. In the eary 1940s, tme has not ony put a stran on Aadam and
Naseems reatonshp but on the country as we. Regous strfe s begnnng to
the ar, and that tenson takes voent shape n the form of the crescent knves that
k Man Abduah. The shape of the knves s partcuary sgncant, snce they
reca the crescent moon and star, whch together serve as a symbo of the Isamc
fath. The knves sence Man Abduahs optmstc hum and symbocay destroy
any hope for a uned Inda, postndependence. The tenson between regous
purasm and dogmatsm can aso be seen n Aadams reatonshp wth hs wfe,
whose new name testes, n part, to her stubborn regous devoton. Reverend
Mother remans dogmatc n her fath, so much so that she s ready to watch her
husband de of starvaton n order to defend her prncpes. And yet Saeem
comments that hs grandmother, despte her convctons, remans adrft n the
unverse. Her constant use of the word #hatsitsname suggests that Reverend
Mother has ncreasng dmcuty pnnng down names to ob|ects or, by extenson,
meanng to reaty.
At ths pont, members of Saeems extended famy, ncudng hs parents, aunts,
and unces, have a entered the story. The sver spttoon of the Ran of Cooch
Naheen, the mpotence of Nadr Khan, and the steey determnaton of Reverend
Mother each pay an mportant roe as the narratve progresses. That Reverend
Mother breaks her sence on the same day the Unted States drops the atomc
bomb on |apan not ony repeats the contnued theme of persona hstory
ntersectng wth potca hstory, but t aso ustrates the sgncance of ndvdua
events n the hstory of a famy.
SummaryA A Pu.lic Announcement
Saeem begns descrbng the potca events of 1947. He nterrupts hs story at one
pont to compan that a Dr. N. O. Baga has dsmssed hs cams to have cracks n
hs body. He returns to hs hstorca account and descrbes hs mother and fathers
departure from Agra and ther subsequent arrva n Deh. Amna remans n ove
wth her rst husband, Nadr Khan. However, wth her typca assduousness, she
trans hersef to fa n ove wth her new husband by focusng on one part of hs
body or personaty at a tme, echong the courtshp of her mother and father
through the perforated sheet. Wthout fuy beng aware of t, she sowy transforms
her new house nto the basement she used to ve n, and Ahmed graduay begns
to resembe Nadr Khan as he puts on weght and oses hs har.
One mornng, two of Ahmeds busness assocates, Mr. Mustapha Kema and Mr. S. P.
Butt, arrve at Ahmed and Amnas house. The men te Ahmed about a re at one of
hs warehouses, set by a radca ant-Musm organzaton named Ravana, after a
many-headed demon. On the street, a young man named Lfafa Das cas out for
peope to come "see the word" through hs peepshow box. The peepshow contans
as many postcard mages as Lfafa coud nd depctng goba scenes. As eager
young chdren surround hm, one gr starts a chant, scornng Lfafa as a Hndu.
Soon, others |on n, and a mob forms, accusng Lfafa of beng a rapst. Amna
brngs Lfafa nto her house, securng hs safety by announcng to the crowd that
they have to k her, a pregnant woman, before she et them harm hm. In
exchange for savng hs fe, Lfafa ohers to take Amna to see hs cousn, a great
seer who w te her unborn chds fortune. Musa, a househod servant, says
nothng, athough Saeem notes that Musa w eventuay be responsbe for
destroyng the word, abet by accdent.
SummaryA Many-headed Monsters
Saeem questons the roes that chance and provdence pay n determnng the
future. He wonders about hs fathers perspectve on fate as t reates to Saeems
own mpendng brth and consders the roe tme pays n the partton of Inda. He
notes that whats true snt necessary whats rea and brey ntroduces hs ayah,
or nanny, Mary Perera and the stores she tod hm durng hs chdhood.
Amna Sna sets oh to vst the seer as her husband sets oh, wth money hdden
under hs coat, to pay oh the Ravana. The narratve |umps back and forth between
these two candestne |ourneys. As Amna eaves the cty n a tax wth Lfafa, she
oses her "cty eyes" and becomes aware of the ab|ect poverty around her: the
beggars, crppes, and starvng chdren cutchng at her sars. Meanwhe, Ahmed,
surrounded by the stench of faure, s consumed by hs money probems and the
knowedge that he w never rearrange the Ouran n chronoogca order, as he has
aways wanted too. Saeem reates a host of dsappontments and mssed
opportuntes that w haunt hs unhappy father for the rest of hs fe, as we the
tragc deaths awatng Ahmeds companons, Mustapha Kema and S. P. Butt. Lfafa
reassures and comforts the frghtened Amna as they wak up dark steps, past
crppes, to the room where Lfafas cousn appears to be sttng sx nches above
the ground. Ahmed and hs companons foow the orders of the Ravana and depost
the money at an ancent fort overrun wth wd monkeys who are takng the budng
apart brck by brck. In the room wth the prophet, Ramram, Amna ets hm touch
her bey, at whch pont he fas nto a trance and begns to dever an amost
ncomprehensbe prophecy. He tes her that her son w never be oder or younger
than hs country and there w be two heads, knees, and a nose. He eventuay
coapses onto the oor, overwhemed by what he has seen. At the tempe, wd
monkeys attack the Ravana members assgned to coect the ransom, and Ahmed
and hs assocates begn scroungng to re-coect ther money. As a resut, the
Ravana burn down the mens warehouses. Ahmed decdes to get out of the eather
busness and move to Bombay, where and s cheap. On |une 4, as Ear Mountbatten
announces the partton of Inda nto two separate natons, Ahmed and Amna board
a tran for Bombay.
Analysis
Hstorca patterns become more apparent now, as Saeem reects on the ncdents
eadng up to Indas ndependence as we as on hs parents reatonshp. The roe
of the perforated sheet, whch rst appeared n the ove ahar between Aadam and
Naseem, seems to be reprsed between Ahmed and Amna. One person fas n ove
wth the other through a seres of soated gmpses, creatng ahecton n a
pecemea fashon. Ths approach fared poory for Aadam and Naseem, who, after
fang n ove wth each other n parts, faed to recognze each other as whoe
peope. Whether the same w be true of Ahmed and Amnas reatonshp remans
to be seen. However, as these patterns grow cearer, a sense of nevtabty begns
to emerge. Indan hstory seems to be movng nexoraby toward ndependence, and
the power of Amnas reenactment of the perforated sheet proves so great that t
seems to physcay transform Ahmed Sna nto Nadr Khan. However, |ust as the
forma patterns of the nove are becomng ncreasngy compex, Saeem casts
doubt over hs reabty as a narrator. Saeem tes us that Dr. N.O. Baga has
re|ected Saeems sef-dagnoss and that the doctor cannot nd any cracks on hs
body. Saeem takes the paraes between Inda and hs physca body as evdence of
the fact that he, as an ndvdua, represents the totaty of Indan hstory. If that
pece of evdence s questoned, t s possbe-and perhaps wse-to doubt a the
patterns and paraes that Saeem has so panstakngy nssted upon.
The ncdent wth Lfafa Das represents another manfestaton of the tenson
between purasm and snguarty. Lfafas peepshow box teray symbozes the
concept of ookng at the word through a mutpcty of perspectves and
vewponts. The mob that surrounds hm, however, can ony see Lfafas regon and
neary ks hm because of ts snguar vew. The auson n these chapters to
Ravana, a many-headed demon from the Indan epc the %amayana, emphaszes
the frghtenng specter of mob mentaty. The ncdent wth the peepshow box
exempes the natonwde tenson aready threatenng to tear Inda apart aong
regous nes. That tearng w, of course, become tera once Inda gets dvded
nto the Hndu Inda and Musm Pakstan.
That Saeems brth shoud rst be procamed to an angry mob foreshadows the
ntensey pubc roe Saeem w pay for the rest of hs fe. Ths event aso provdes
a gmpse nto the word he w be born nto, a word dvded by regous tenson
and constanty threatened by outbreaks of voence. As the story draws coser to hs
brth and Indas ndependence, Saeem begns to cryptcay foreshadow many
forthcomng events. He ntroduces hs ayah, Mary Perera, and engmatcay refers
to Musas destructon of the word, as we as the roe of fate, chance, and es. The
prophecy of Ramram represents the most sgncant and expct exampe of
foreshadowng n these sectons: athough we can understand very tte of what he
says at ths pont, hs dvnaton w prove cruca.
Amnas experence wth Ramram ncudes a shockng, vvd portraya of the
desttuton and ab|ect poverty that amcts so much of Inda. In the word
ofMidnights Children, the magca and the squad are nterconnected. As Amna
encounters the mpovershed peope she had once gnored, Ahmed and hs busness
assocates carry huge bags of money earmarked for a terrorst ransom. When the
Ravana members drop the money, Saeem descrbes Ahmed and hs partners
scroungng through drt and feces to pck t up, |ust as starvng men, women, and
chdren beg Amna for spare change n order to survve. The narratve deberatey
oscates back and forth between these two scenes, cang attenton to the drastc
dvde that separates rch from poor n Inda.
SummaryA Methwold
Saeem descrbes the estate that once beonged to an Engshman, Wam
Methwod.
The estate s comprsed of four dentca houses, each bearng the name of a
dherent European paace. Saeems parents buy one of the houses, agreeng to the
condtons that they purchase everythng nsde the house and that the ega
transfer of property w not occur unt mdnght, August 15. Methwod says that hs
reasons for the condtons are aegorca, as he equates the sae of hs estate wth
the natona transfer of soveregn power.
Saeem sts the other nhabtants of Methwods Estate: Mr. Hom Catrack, a m
magnate who ves wth hs dot daughter; od man Ibrahm, hs sons, Isma and
Ishaq, and hs wfe, Nusse; the Dubashes, who become parents of Cyrus, Saeems
rst mentor; Doctor Narkar; and nay, Commander Sabarmat, hs wfe, La, and
ther two sons, who w grow up to be ncknamed Eyesce and Haro. As the
transfer of power draws coser, the nhabtants of Methwods Estate compan
ncessanty of havng to ve among Methwods thngs. As the nhabtants sette n,
they reman unaware of the fact that they have begun to mtate Methwods habts,
from the cockta hour he keeps to the accent wth whch he speaks.
The Times of India announces a prze for any chd born at the exact moment of
ndependence. St recang the prophets words, Amna decares that her son w
wn. The summer rans begn, and Amna grows so heavy she can scarcey move.
After the rans end, Wee We Wnke, a poor cown, returns to the estate to perform
for Methwod and the new fames. We Wnke tes the crowd that hs wfe s
expectng a chd soon as we. Saeem tes us that the chd actuay beongs to
Methwod, who seduced Wnkes wfe wth hs perfecty parted har. Saeems
narratve then |umps to a church, where a mdwfe named Mary Perera sts n a
confessona booth, teng the young prest about her reatonshp wth an ordery
named |oseph D Costa, who has taken to commttng acts of voence aganst the
Brtsh. Saeem says that on the nght of hs brth, ths woman made the most
mportant decson n the hstory of twenteth-century Inda. Back at Methwods
Estate, Musa s st "tckng ke a tme-bomb" as the hour approaches mdnght.
SummaryA 5ic)4 5oc)
On August 13, 1947, Bombay comes ave as the cty prepares for Indas mmnent
ndependence from the Brtsh. At mdnght, the naton of Pakstan w omcay be
created, a fu day before Inda w be decared ndependent. Voence breaks out on
the borders of Pun|ab and n Benga.
A seres of events occurs a at once, and Saeems narratve skps between them. At
Methwods Estate, Ahmed and Wam Methwod drnk cocktas n the courtyard.
Meanwhe, at the od house on Cornwas Road, n Agra, Aadam Azz rses from hs
bed and nostagcay pus out the perforated sheet, ony to dscover that moths
have eaten t. Back at Methwods Estate, Wee We Wnkes wfe, Vanta, goes nto
abor. Wam Methwod waks nto the courtyard of hs former compound, stands n
the exact center, and sautes the andscape. Shorty afterward, a sadhu&i, or hoy
man, enters the compound and sts under a drppng water tap. He procams that
he awats the brth of the One, the Mubarak. As soon as he says ths, Amna goes
nto abor. Once the sun has set, Methwod ends hs saute and pus oh hs
harpece. Amna and Vanta e n ad|acent rooms at the nursng home, and two
boys are born at mdnght. Upon hearng the news, Ahmed drops a char on hs toes.
In the ensung confuson, Mary Perera swtches the babes nametags n memory of
her revoutonary |oseph, gvng Saeem, boogcay the son of We Wnke and
Vanta, to Ahmed and Amna.
Padma nterrupts the story to ca Saeem a ar. He responds by sayng that even
after hs parents dscovered what Mary Perera had done, they coud not go back
and erase the past, so he remaned ther son. Saeem mentons a etter the prme
mnster sent when he was born, whch he bured n a cactus garden aong wth a
newspaper artce tted "Mdnghts Chd." He tes us that the newspapermen who
came to take pctures of hm gave hs mother a pathetc sum of one hundred
rupees.
Analysis
The sma-scae property transfer at Methwods Estate ceary corresponds to the
arger potca stuaton, as Great Brtan prepares tsef to transfer soveregn power
over Inda to the ndependent governments of Inda and Pakstan. Nether transfer s
compete or uncompcated. |ust as ndependent Inda must now dea wth the
cutura egacy of Brtsh coonasm, whch remans actve ong after the Brtsh
vacate the country, so too w the nhabtants of Methwods Estate have to ve wth
physca remnders of the estates former owner. The Brtsh contnue to exert a
powerfu nuence over ndependent Inda, as symbozed by the unconscous ways
the Methwod resdents begn conformng to Methwods customs. Methwods
nostaga for hs estate, n turn, echoes the wde-scae nostaga fet by the Brtsh
upon eavng the former crown of ther coona empre.
As the moment of Saeems brth approaches-ostensby the most sgncant event
of the nove thus far-the narratve seems to swe to the pont of breakng. Saeem
wants to take nto account everythng he can, because everythng, he beeves, has
been workng n tandem to arrve at ths exact moment. In order to understand the
sgncance of hs brth, Saeem remnds the reader of everythng that came before
t and a the famy hstory that went nto makng Saeem who he s. However, after
accumuatng a ths momentum, t becomes cear that the hstory s actuay
someone elses hstory-t beongs to Shva, the boy wth whom Saeem gets
swtched at brth. Thus the narrator snt actuay reated at a to the peope whose
stores he has been detang so metcuousy. Sgncanty, n ths same chapter,
Aadam dscovers that the sacred perforated sheet has been gnawed fu of moth
hoes. As one of the centra symbos of Saeems story, the parta damage of the
perforated sheet seems to bode poory for the truthfuness of the narratve as a
whoe.
However, Saeem remans the narrator of ths tae, and the story st fundamentay
beongs to hm. That Saeem has tod ths famys hstory as f t were hs own
hghghts one of the narratves centra themes: that truth s created and shaped,
not xed and statc. Regardess of whether he s Ahmed and Amnas boogca son,
they rase hm up n ther famy, and he en|oys a the prveges and probems that
brthrght entas. Saeem can rghtfuy cam the hstory he has tod as hs own,
because he beeves t to be so. The truth of the stuaton, therefore, seems reatve.
At the same tme, the fact that Wam Methwod, an Engshman, s reveaed to be
Saeems boogca father proves approprate, gven that Saeem sees hmsef as
the perfect embodment of modern Inda. The egacy of Brtsh coonasm has
undoubtedy shaped the newy ndependent Inda, |ust as Wam Methwod has
undenaby shaped Saeem. It s aso mportant to note that by swtchng the
nametags, Mary Perera makes a dstnct potca decson. Ahough her prmary
motvaton remans a romantc one, Mary nonetheess attempts to redress the vast
soca dvde that separates rch from poor. The chd of a poor woman who des n
abor and an Engsh father who has returned to Engand, Saeem turns out to be an
extraordnary apt representatve of the new Indan naton.
,oo) 5woA
SummaryA 5he 2isherman1s Pointin* 2in*er
Padma becomes upset at Saeem because he has used the word lo'e n reference to
her. Saeem returns to hs story and descrbes a pantng of Water Raegh that hung
above hs crb as a chd. In the pantng, a sherman ponts oh nto the dstance,
and Saeem specuates as to what hs nger mght be pontng at.
Amna and Ahmed brng Saeem home from the hospta. Saeem s not a beautfu
baby, but he s a arge one, wth an enormous cucumber nose and bue eyes that
the famy assumes came from hs grandfather. The resdents of the estate pass hm
around ke a do, and Mary and hs mother dote on hm. Wee We Wnke
contnues to come to the compound and sng, eventuay brngng hs son, Shva,
who has knobby knees and, accordng to Saeem, w ater be saved by a war. The
baby Saeem wtnesses a of the compound nhabtants prvate ves-ther ahars,
ghts, and habts. Saeem the grown-up narrator cams responsbty for amost
everythng that happens, ncudng hs fathers eventua acohosm. Feeng
negected by hs wfe, Ahmed begns to rt wth hs secretares and curse Amna.
He ater embarks on a scheme wth hs neghbor, Dr. Narkar, to recam and from
the ocean wth tetrapods. One day, Ahmed receves a etter from the government
sayng hs assets have been frozen, presumaby because of hs Musm fath. The
news gves hm a permanent ch and sends hm to bed, thereby aowng for the
concepton of Saeems sster, the Brass Monkey.
SummaryA Sna)es and Ladders
Durng the wnter of 1948, bad omens appear everywhere. To make ends meet, the
famy rents the top oor of the house to Dr. Schaapsteker, who has spent hs fe
studyng snakes. Amna wrtes her parents a etter, teng them of ther hard uck,
and Aadam and Reverend Mother arrve a few days ater. Reverend Mother takes
over the househod, and her temperament seeps nto the food she cooks. From ths,
Amna nds a new, courageous sprt. She takes the money from her dowry to the
racetrack, where she wns repeatedy. She takes some of the money and pays ther
neghbor, Isma, to ght the governments freezng of Ahmeds assets. Saeem
cams that, even though he was |ust a baby, he was responsbe for hs mothers
amazng success at the racetrack.
As a chd, Saeem oves to pay the board game Snakes and Ladders. For hm, the
game perfecty reects an essenta truth: for every "adder you cmb, a snake s
watng |ust around the corner," and vce versa. However, the game acks the
ambgutes that are part of fe. Saeem ohers Amnas brother Hanf as an exampe
of the rue of snakes and adders. Instead of movng to Pakstan, Hanf moved to
Bombay, to foow hs dream of makng moves. He marres a beautfu m star and
becomes the youngest m drector n Indan cnema hstory. On the openng nght
of hs m, however, the theater manager nterrupts the screenng to announce that
Mahatma Gandh has been ked. Amna and her husband run home and board up
the house, terred that f the ker turns out to be a Musm, voence w break out.
But the ker s reveaed to be a Hndu, and the famy returns to norma, thereby
ustratng Saeems pont that for every up there s a down, and for every down an
up.
Mary, the ayah, and Musa, the ongtme house bearer, engage n a hoste batte.
Musa, beevng hes about to be red, steas some of the famys vauabes. They
catch hm before he can escape, and Musa eaves the house ashamed. Saeem
remnds us that Musa w eventuay destroy everythng.
One nght, Mary Perera sees the gure of a man oatng across the rooftops. The
famy cas the poce. They execute a stng operaton and, n the process, shoot
and k the shadowy gure. The dead man s reveaed to be |oseph DCosta, Marys
former over, snce turned terrorst. Soon after, baby Saeem fas wth typhod.
The famy expects hm to de, unt Dr. Schaapsteker ohers a remedy made of snake
poson. The poson saves Saeems fe, endng Saeem "an eary awareness of the
ambguty of snakes." The government unfreezes Ahmeds assets. Saeems sster,
ncknamed the Brass Monkey because of the red-god har she sports at her brth,
arrves wth no fanfare. Saeem coses by notng that hs sster earned from an eary
age that f she wanted attenton, she woud have to make a ot of nose to get t.
Analysis
Saeem not ony cams that he was mmedatey conscous and sef-aware as an
nfant but aso that he was utmatey responsbe for the events that unfoded
durng hs eary chdhood. Saeem has paced hmsef at the center of hs word-hs
sgncance conrmed by a prme mnsters etter, a newspaper photo, and the
predctons of a hoy man. At the same tme, Saeem s perfecty aware of hs
features, partcuary hs enormous nose, whch he wngy descrbes as ugy.
Saeems features, however, are more than |ust hs own: he has hs grandfathers
nose and eyes, and yet he s not boogcay reated to Aadam Azz. He has two
brthmarks, whch he descrbes as beng on the west and east sdes of hs face, and
a nose shaped ke a cucumber. Hs face resembes, to some degree, a map of the
Indan subcontnent.
The baby Saeem s aready devourng the word wth hs gaze, n much the same
way that the narratve crams tsef wth ncredbe amounts of data and sensory
experence. Saeem takes responsbty for everythng, sayng "everythng that
happened, happened because of me." Lke the narratve, Saeem strugges to
contan everythng wthn hs grasp. From hs fathers acohosm to the petty ahars
of the estate, Saeem wants to cam t a as hs, no doubt n part to fu the
enormous weght and prophecy paced on hm snce brth. He has ped the
frustrated desres and faures of hs word onto hmsef. Rushde began the nove
wth references to Adam and the Garden of Eden, and here he draws paraes
between young Saeem and the Chrst chd, as both are presented as magca,
redemptve nfants whose powers had been prophesed ong before ther brths.
Saeems ayah, who represents as strongy a materna gure as Amna does, s
named Mary, ke |esus mother, and she has a ove nterest named |oseph, ke
|esuss father. When Amna goes to the racetrack, the baby Saeem cams to have
performed what coud be caed hs rst mrace: he mutpes.
Contnung to make use of myths, regons, and symbos, Rushde empoys a
chdhood board game, Snakes and Ladders, to renterpret the mage of the snake.
In the Bbe, the dev appears to Adam and Eve as a snake and tempts Eve to break
ther promse to God and eat from the Tree of Knowedge. Tradtonay, good and
ev, ke snakes and adders, are seen as opposng and separate forces. However, n
rea fe, these cear categores become confused, and the dstncton between them
can be ambguous. The fact that Dr. Schaapsteker coud save Saeems fe by usng
snake poson represents the noton that the ne separatng good and ev s never
as stark or cear as one mght ke.
SummaryA Accident in a !ashin*-chest
Padma has stormed out on Saeem because he compares the wrtng of hs narratve
to the recordng of the sacred Hndu text the %amayana by the eephant god
Ganesh.
Saeem contnues the story n the summer of 1956 when hs sster, the Brass
Monkey, began burnng shoes, perhaps to force peope to notce her. Starved for
attenton, she s a mschevous chd, prone to breakng wndows, spreadng es, and
ashng out at anyone who shows her ahecton.
By the tme he reaches the age of nne, Saeem becomes acutey aware of the
expectatons surroundng hm. In order to escape the fear of faure, he hdes n hs
mothers arge whte washng chest. He begns to attend schoo wth hs frends
from the compound, Eyesce, Haro, Sonny Ibrahm, and Cyrus-the-great. Hs eary
growth spurt has stopped, but hs nose, fu of snot, contnues to grow. He seeks
refuge from the nsuts and names n the washng chest, where hs magnaton s
free to roam. Years ater n Pakstan, |ust before a roof crushes hs mother, Amna,
she sees the washng chest one more tme n a vson. Saeem says that a back fog
of gut began to surround hs mother so that on some days t was mpossbe to see
her from the neck up. Her own sense of gut brngs other peopes confessons out.
Saeem says that the afternoon phone cas from her ex-husband, Nadr Khan, are
the rea reason for hs mothers gut.
One afternoon, whe Saeem seeks refuge n the washng chest, hs mother receves
another phone ca. Unaware of Saeem, she goes to the bathroom and begns to
sob, repeatng the name of her ex-husband. She takes oh her sars to use the
bathroom, unwttngy exposng her naked rump to Saeem. Hs nose twtches, he
snhs, and hs mother dscovers hm hdng n the washng chest. She punshes hm
to one day of sence. Durng that quet day, Saeem begns to hear voces rattng n
hs head, whch he compares to the dvne voces heard by Mohammed and Moses.
The next day, he tes the entre famy that anges are speakng to hm. Everyone
grows angry wth Saeem, and hs father hts hm so hard that Saeem permanenty
oses some hearng n hs eft ear. Later that evenng, however, Amna remembers
the words of Ramram, the prophet, who tod her, "washng w hde hm . . . .voces
w gude hm." She asks Saeem about the voces agan, but he cams t was a
|ust a |oke, and she des, nne years ater, wthout ever knowng the truth.
SummaryA All -ndia 6adio
Padmas contnued absence haunts Saeem, makng hm uncertan about the
accuracy of hs narratve. He acknowedges that he made a mstake about the date
of Gandhs death, but t no onger matters snce hs story w contnue nonetheess.
He sts the smartes between hmsef n the present and the Saeem of the past.
He says the voces are gone now, but the heat remans.
Durng the summer of 1956, anguage marches the cty streets, wth protesters
demandng that Bombay be parttoned aong ngustc nes, dvdng the Marath
speakers from the Gu|rat speakers. At the same tme, varous anguages and voces
Saeems head. The voces are not anges, but teepathy. Beneath the teemng
babbe of dherent anguages, Saeem says he coud hear a purer, ntegbe
thought-form, greater than words. Saeem aso hears the voce of the other
mdnghts chdren-ntay far-oh and fant-statng smpy, "I." St afrad of hs
fathers wrath, Saeem keeps these voces a secret. Saeem puts hs power n a
hstorca context, notng that at the tme of hs dscovery, Inda was deveopng ts
Fve-Year Pan. He aso expans that nstead of usng hs gft for the betterment of
the country, he cheated n hs casses, kept hs gft a secret, and essentay frttered
t away.
Saeem begns hdng n an od cocktower. There, he enters the thoughts of
strangers a across Inda, from move stars and potcans to cab drvers and
toursts. Despte hs beef that he can see and know everythng, Saeem fas to see
Dr. Narkars murder by a crowd of anguage marchers, who hur hm nto the sea,
aong wth hs concrete tetrapod. The doctors death ends hs fathers pan to
recam and from the ocean. A group of very competent femae reatons takes over
the doctors busnesses and possessons. Shorty after Dr. Narkars death, Ahmed
begns to grow paer and paer. Saeem traces the cause back to the Ran of Cooch
Naheen, who may, he specuates, have been the rst vctm of a dsease that turned
Indas busnessmen whte. He coses the chapter by notng what es ahead-
ncudng hs ater ego, Shva, and Eveyn Lth Burns-and by sayng, as an
afterthought, that Wee We Wnke, "n a probabty," met hs death at the end of
1956.
Analysis
By buryng hmsef n a aundry bn of drty cothes, Saeem s abe to take the rst
step toward reazng that mportant destny he has so desperatey onged for. That
Saeem can ony nd comfort n the company of drty cothes ndactes somethng
about hs sef-percepton: mocked and rdcued by hs cassmates, Saeem
nevtaby sees hmsef as soed. He nds comfort n the washng chest not ony
because t provdes soaton but aso because he sees a reecton of hmsef n the
staned cothes. He descrbes hs brth as crme-rdden and hs face as staned,
whch make hm a perfect match for hs hdng pace. At the same tme, there s a
drect causa nk between Saeems hdng n a basket of drty cothes and the
dscovery of what he ntay beeves to be hs god-gven powers. InMidnights
Children, the sacred and the profane are nextrcaby nked. Therefore, t seems
approprate that Saeem woud hear what he beeves to be anges whe watchng
hs mother naked and reevng hersef.
Saeem demonstrates hs exated sense of purpose, as we as hs wde-rangng
cutura nspraton, by comparng hmsef to the Hndu Ganesh, the Musm
Mohammed, and the |udeo-Chrstan Moses wthn a snge chapter. Ths contrasts
wth Saeems other percepton of hmsef as drtyand aso ustrates the mutpcty
of regons that have payed a roe n Indas deveopment. Inda s prmary Hndu,
whereas Saeems famy s Musm and hs ayah, Mary, s Cathoc. The narratve
ncorporates them because a three are a part of Inda. The narratve, n many
ways, becomes a sacred knd of text n ts own rght.
Undermnng Saeems percepton of hs narratve as a sacred book, however, are
the hstorca nconsstences that he freey acknowedges. Saeem has made a
mstake n hs account of Gandhs death, an obvousy semna moment n the
hstory of Inda. Yet, rather than dwe on t for too ong, he nssts on the prmacy of
hs story and moves on. Narratves make ther own truth and are nevtaby
cttous, whether they are noves or regous texts. Saeem has created hs verson
of reaty and s determned to uphod t.
Saeems dedcaton to mutpcty nds a contrast n the anguage marches
begnnng to parade throughout Inda. Lke the regous dvsons that ed to the
Partton of Inda and Pakstan, the anguage marchers are concerned ony wth ther
snguar, shared dentty and seek to excude others who are dssmar. Saeem has
moved from the washng chest to the cocktower, whch, gven the narratves
nsstence on the mportance of tme, s perhaps a more ttng symbo. Whe
crowds gather n defense of a snge tongue, Saeem nds nsde of hs head a purer
form of communcaton that transcends the barrers of anguage. Gven the
essenta nature of communcaton that Saeem has dscovered, the dherences
between any one anguage and another are petty, snce a unversa thread untes us
a, despte any surface dherences. The babbe of voces n Saeems head makes
an argument for puraty n a country that s struggng to reman unted. The
ctzens of Inda consttute an enormous range of humanty, and Saeem ustrates
that wde range by traveng from the mnd of a cab drver drecty nto 1the
thoughts of the prme mnster.
SummaryA Love in ,om.ay
Saeem descrbes how, durng the hoy fastng month of Ramzan, he and hs sster
went to the moves as often as possbe. They partcuary oved gong on Sundays,
when the move theater hods Metro Cub Cub vewngs, especay for chdren.
There, Saeem fas n ove wth an Amercan gr, Eveyn Lth Burns, who arrves at
Methwods Estate on New Years Day, 1957. Eveyn, however, oves Saeems best
frend, Sonny Ibrahm, who oves the Brass Monkey. Saeem descrbes Eves braces
and scarecrow-straw har. A tough gr, she mpresses and conquers the chdren of
Methwods Estate on her rst day by rdng her bcyce whe dong a headstand.
Saeem asks Sonny to speak to Eve on hs behaf, and, to mpress Eve, Saeem
tres to earn how to rde a bke. On hs rst attempt, he crashes head-rst nto
Sonny, hs bugng tempes meetng perfecty wth Sonnys ndented tempes.
Saeem descrbes how Inda became organzed nto fourteen states and sx
terrtores, based upon common anguage. Bombay, however, remaned a
mutngua state. As a resut, n February 1957, a massve parade of demonstrators
marched through the cty, seekng a partton of the state aong ngustc nes. The
chdren of the estate watch the parade whe Saeem tres to mpress Eve wth hs
new bke-rdng sks. She gnores hm, so he deves deep nto her thoughts unt he
comes upon an mage of her, standng n a doorway, hodng a knfe that drps
bood. Saeem deves so deep nto Eves thoughts that she can fee hm there, and
she pushes hm nto the parade to get rd of hm. Confronted by an angry, mockng
crowd, Saeem rectes a rhyme n Gu|arat to pacate the crowd. They move on,
sngng hs ohensve rhyme, unt they run nto a parade of pro-Gu|arat marchers.
Throats are st, and, n the end, the state of Bombay s parttoned.
SummaryA My 5enth ,irthday
Padma has returned to Saeem. In an attempt to cure hs mpotence, she put herbs
n hs food that eft hm derous and for a week. St consumed by a fever, he
returns to hs narratve once agan. He says that durng the rst hour of August 15,
1947, 1,001 chdren were born n the newy ndependent Inda, each wth a speca,
mracuous power. He specuates that perhaps hstory, arrvng at a new fronter,
wanted to endow the future wth somethng genuney dherent from the past. Of
the 1,001 chdren, 420 de by the tme Saeem reazes ther exstence, eavng 581
mdnghts chdren. Saeem descrbes the chdrens varous powers, whch he
dscovers by traveng nto ther mnds. He notes that the coser to mdnght the
chd was born, the more extraordnary the power the chd had. Parvat-the-wtch
has the powers of a rea wtch, whe Shva, born wth Saeem on the stroke of
mdnght, has the power of war.
Meanwhe, Ahmed contnues hs steady descent nto acohosm and soaton.
Nonetheess, he remans a successfu busnessman, even after a hs secretares
eave hm and Mary Pereras sster, Ace, comes n to work for hm. The ghost of
|oseph DCosta contnues to haunt Mary and w contnue to do so unt she
confesses her crme. Saeems tenth brthday arrves. He recounts a of the thngs
that happened that day, begnnng wth the faure of the governments Fve-Year
Pan, hs mothers suspcous bushng at the menton of the word communist, and,
nay, hs decson to create hs own gang, the Mdnghts Chdrens Conference
(MCC).
Analysis
From the moment Saeem and hs sster begn to go to the moves, the reatonshp
between Saeems narratve and the cnema becomes evdent. Saeem pts the
hoest month n Isam, Ramzan, aganst the aure of the cnema. The experence of
the cnema makes up for the prvatons of regon, and yet ths perod doesnt
represent a cash of cutures or vaues so much as a medng. The mrrorng of the
Metro Cub Cub, MCC, wth those of the Mdnghts Chdrens Conference seems apt.
In addton, Rushde nvests Eve wth a cnematc quaty as soon as she enters the
story. Rdng her bke n crces around the "Indan" chdren and armed wth a Dasy
ar-gun, she represents a chdsh carcature of the cassca western m. Instead of
|ohn Wayne, Methwods Estate has the Amercan Eve Burns to dctate commands
and serve as the new eader of the Indans, who fa amost mmedatey under her
contro. Gven the sgncant roe of m n postcoona Inda, Rushdes portrat s
as much soca commentary as t s a fathfu depcton of the nuence of m on a
chds magnaton. The nuence s aso evdent n Saeems narratve stye, whch
pus back from an mage and hovers over the andscape ke a camera sweepng
over the cty. Furthermore, n ts exuberant, popust meodramatcs, Saeems
narratve draws on aesthetc conventons nuenced by Boywood, the massve
Bombay-based m ndustry that domnates cutura markets throughout the word.
Saeems faed attempt to woo Eve Burns s mrrored n the peas of the anguage
marchers, who demand the creaton of ther own anguage-parttoned regon. In a
chapter tted "Love n Bombay," ove s the one thng that s mssng. Instead of
ove, frustrated desres domnate the chapter: the frustrated desre of Sonny for the
Brass Monkey, Eve for Sonny, and Saeem for Eve a pont to a word n whch ove
s absent. In amost every case, these desre are not ony thwarted but resut n acts
of voence. The theme of unrequted ove contnues, abet n an atered form, wth
the return of Padma, who genuney oves Saeem yet s unabe to have a
reatonshp wth hm. Even her good-natured attempt to cure hs mpotence ends n
a mnor act of voence.
The arrva of the other mdnghts chdren, ong-awated and foreshadowed, s a
semna moment n the nove. The chdren are fu of symboc meanng, from ther
number, orgnay 1,001, to ther very exstence. As Saeem notes, they mark a
break from the past-and perhaps an attempt on the part of hstory to brng
somethng new nto the future. Ther powers range from the fantastc to the
grotesque and unfortunate. To be one of mdnghts chdren s not necessary a
bessng, and t can sometmes be a tragedy. Lke the ambguty of the snakes and
adders, the mdnghts chdren are aso an ambguous group-fortunate and
scarred, poor and rch. As such, they are a perfect reecton of Inda tsef. In ther
sheer numbers and range of powers, they are an argument on behaf of puraty.
They are the chdren of the country, and they represent ts range and scope.
Saeem notes that 1,001 s a magca number. Scheherazade, the herone of The
(ra"ian )ights, tes 1,001 stores n order to deay her executon. Scheherazade s
the archetypa storyteer, and she provdes a ttng mode for Saeems own
narratve pro|ect. The number s aso a pandrome, whch means t can be read both
backward and forward. In ths way, the number 1,001 represents the reversa of
Saeem and Shvas fortunes.
SummaryA At the Pioneer Ca#B
Saeem descrbes a fever-nduced dream n whch someone he cas "the Wdow"
reaches out and destroys the chdren by rppng them a n two. Someone brngs
Saeems son to the pcke factory, athough the boy w not say whom. Saeem says
that he s teng ths story for hs son and that memory has ts own speca truth. He
compares hmsef and hs story to gures and stores from varous word regons.
Saeem returns to the year he turned ten. Purshottam, the sadhu, has ded from a t
of sucda hccups. Saeem restrcts hs communcaton wth the other mdnghts
chdren to a snge hour a day, between the tmes of mdnght and 1 a.m. One day,
as hs mother goes on a shoppng trp, he hdes hmsef n the car and uses hs
teepathy to foow, through hs mothers mnd, the route they are takng. He
watches as hs mother enters a drty restaurant caed the Poneer Caf. In the
mornng, m studos pck up extras at the Poneer Caf, but n the afternoon t
becomes the hangout of the Communst Party. Saeem watches as hs mother sts
across from Nadr Khan, now named Oasm Khan, and the two of them exchange
meanngfu ooks and gestures.
Saeem descrbes how he brought the mdnghts chdren together, breakng
through the barrers of anguage and eventuay transmttng an mage of hmsef
nto ther brans. They each have a horrbe sense of sef-mage. He ntroduces
hmsef to Shva, who recognzes hm as the rch kd from the estate hs father used
to work on. Shva suggests that the two of them shoud be the eaders of the gang.
Shva scorns and mocks Saeems attempts to create a meanngfu purpose for the
conference. Shva, Saeem notes, s the god of destructon and the Hndu
pantheons most potent dety. He tes how Shvas father tred to mutate hm n
order to make hm a better beggar and how, at the ast moment, Shva saved
hmsef by grppng hs father wth hs powerfu knees.
Saeem descrbes the events of the 1957 eecton. The Communst Party makes a
powerfu showng, athough the Communst canddate Oasm Khan ost hs race,
due, n part, to Shva and hs ntmdatng gang of thugs. Suddeny, however,
Saeem reazes that hes gotten the dates wrong and that the eecton of 1957
occurred before hs tenth brthday.
SummaryA Al%ha and Ome*a
Saeem says he w descrbe the fa of Eve Burns, but, before dong so, he ohers a
st of aternatve ttes for the chapter, as we as a descrpton of the events of that
wnter. Bombay s on the brnk of partton. A severe drought occurs, and vandas
sabotage the ctys water reserves. Severa whores are found murdered, bearng
strange bruses that ook as f made by a par of gant, powerfu knees. As a resut of
the water shortage, stray cats n search of water overrun Methwods Estate. Eve
promses, n exchange for payment, to rd the estate of the cats. Armed wth her
Dasy ar-gun, Eve ends the pague of cats by shootng them. The Brass Monkey,
who was rumored to have been abe to speak to anmas as a chd, s outraged. She
cas Eve outsde, then pounces on her. The two have a terrbe ght, and, a few
weeks ater, Eves father sends her away for good. Months ater, Eve wrtes Saeem
a etter confessng to have once stabbed an od woman who companed about her
assaut on the cats. Saeem suggests that perhaps hs sster acted out ove for hm.
Saeem says that he never ked Shva but nonetheess coud not keep hm out of
the Mdnghts Chdrens Conference. Saeems menta powers grow stronger, and
he s eventuay abe to turn hs mnd nto an open forum n whch a the chdren
can speak to each other. Saeem notes that the conference gnored the warnngs of
Soumtra, the tme-traveer among them, who nssted, "a ths s pontess-they
nsh us before we start!"
At schoo, Saeems geography teacher rps out hs har. Shorty afterward, Saeem
oses part of hs nger durng a schoo dance whe attemptng to mpress a gr.
Saeem s rushed to the hospta, where hs parents are asked to donate bood. Hs
parents bood types are A and O, but he s nether-thereby provng that they coud
not be Saeems boogca parents. Ahmed assumes that hs wfe had an ahar.
Saeem, ookng back on hs ten-year-od sef, endows hm wth the gft of hndsght
and aows hm to rumnate on the homogenous nature of the body and the
profound consequences of hs mutated nger. He coses wth the mage of a ten-
year od boy wth a bandaged hand thnkng about bood and the ast ook he saw on
hs fathers face.
Analysis
Saeems fever-nduced nghtmare of the Wdow, the ntroducton of hs son, and the
descrpton of the chutney factory carfy certan eements of Saeems current
stuaton. The Wdow, whom Saeem has referenced severa tmes as hs destroyer,
grows nto an even more omnous gure durng the dream Saeem recounts. As
cryptc as Ramrams prophesy, Saeems dream aso foreshadows future events n
the narratve. In addton, we earn that Saeem s a father and that hes recordng
hs hstory for hs son. Saeem cams that "memorys truth, because memory has ts
own speca knd. It seects, emnates, aters, exaggerates, mnmzes, gores, and
ves aso; but n the end t creates ts own reaty." Ths renforces the dea,
present snce the begnnng of the nove, that the truth of facts, gures, and
chronooges represents ony one knd of truth. When experences ter through a
persons conscousness and are recomposed by that ndvdua conscousness nto a
work of art, the resutng narratve produces a dherent, but equay egtmate, knd
of reaty. Hstory s aways a knd of storyteng, and Saeem argues that hs verson
of events shoud be consdered |ust as vad as any other.
As Saeems mother rts wth a gure from her past, now turned communst, Inda
nds tsef rtng wth communsm as we. Once agan, we can see the nuence of
the cnema on Saeems narratve. Not ony s the Poneer Caf the afternoon
hangout for the Communst Party, t s aso the recrutng spot for m extras. The
communsts, ke the m extras, are ookng for a roe, however mnor, to pay n
ther natons potca drama. And Indas potca turmo, wth ts wdespread
corrupton, certany seems dramatc enough to warrant a m treatment. Saeems
mother and Oasm Khan, n restraned rtaton, mrror the gestures of a Boywood
m, and Saeem descrbes ther scene n cnematc terms: ther hands "enter the
frame," but Saeem "eft the move before the end." Saeems abty to enter other
peopes mnds, and see through eyes that are not hs own, mmcs the power of a
m camera to capture perspectves unavaabe to norma human eyes.
These chapters aso oher nsghts nto the character of Shva, Saeems man
antagonst. Ther debate about ther purpose n the word, whe sghty
unbeevabe, comng as t does out of the mouths of ten-year-ods, ponts to one of
the fundamenta dherences between the two boys. Shva s named after the god of
destructon, whereas Saeem represents Brahma, the god of creaton. The two boys
represent destructon and creaton, voence and restrant, respectvey. The
ambguty that Saeem found ackng n hs chdhood board game of Snakes and
Ladders s evdent n hs portrat of Shva. Born nto ab|ect poverty and neary
mutated by hs father n order to make a vng, Shva s as tragc as he s voent.
Hs anger and hs attracton to destructon are nescapaby reated to hs upbrngng
-an upbrngng that the oder, mature Saeem knows was meant for hm.
SummaryA 5he $olynos $id
Saeem asserts that though he appears to be a perenna vctm, the knd of person
"to whom thngs have been done," he perssts n seeng hmsef as the protagonst
of hs story. He contempates how an ndvduas fe mght be connected to the
hstory of a naton and says that he s nked to Inda "teray and metaphorcay,
both actvey and passvey," and every combnaton after that: "actvey-tera,
passvey-metaphorca, actvey-metaphorcay, and passvey-teray."
Saeem returns to hs story, to the day he eft the hospta after osng a porton of
hs nger. Mary Perera and hs unce Hanf pck hm up from the hospta nstead of
hs parents. They assuage hs fears wth promses of sweets and food as they drve
to Hanfs home on Marne Drve. On the way, they pass a bboard for Koynos
toothpaste, whch depcts the brand mascot, the Koynos Kd, brushng hs teeth.
Gratefu to hs unce and hs unces wfe Pa, he vows to be an exceptona son to
the chdess coupe.
Mary stays wth Saeem, feedng hm enormous quanttes of food, whch fue a rapd
growth spurt n hm. She tes hm fantastc stores n whch Indas ancent past
returns to fe. Now that hes growng up, Saeem cant hep but notce hs aunt Pas
beauty, whch perssts even though her m career has begun to fade. She bames
her career faure on Hanf, who has refused to wrte anythng besdes strcty reast
m scrpts, whch, n the current m ndustry, w never get made. Hanf and Pa
ony manage to make ends meet because Hom Catrack contnues to pay Hanf a
studo saary. Durng one of hs aunt and unces popuar card partes, Hom Catrack
hands Saeem a note. He tes hm to gve t to hs aunt wthout teng anyone, or
he have Saeems tongue cut out. Later that evenng, Saeem has a nghtmare and
goes to hs aunt and unces bed. Cured up next to hs aunt, he hands her the note
and fees her body sthen. The next day, she comes home and aunches nto a
trade aganst her husband. She storms oh to her bedroom, and Saeem foows. Pa
throws hersef onto the bed, and, whe attemptng to comfort her, Saeem s
overwhemed by hs aunts beauty and fondes her. Pa smacks hm and cas hm a
pervert. Mary appears n the doorway, embarrassed, and tes Saeem that hs
parents have |ust sent hm hs rst par of ong trousers.
Amna comes to the apartment on Marne Drve to brng Saeem home. On the drve
back to ther house, she tes Saeem to be good to hs father, as Ahmed s unhappy
these days. Saeem recas hs mothers ndscreton and s ed wth a desre for
revenge. In the meantme, the chdrens conference has been set asde.
SummaryA Commander Sa.armati1s ,aton
After returnng to Methwods Estate, Mary Perera dscovers that |oseph DCostas
ghost has faen nto decay. The ghost tes Mary that unt she confesses to havng
swtched the babes, he w be hed responsbe for her crme.
Saeem reazes that hs father no onger wants anythng to do wth hm and that hs
sster, the Brass Monkey, has become the new househod favorte-a fact that
surprses her as much as t surprses hm. In an attempt to ose her favored poston,
she tres to become a devout Chrstan. Saeem notes that ths s the rst nstance
of the Brass Monkeys fanatca tendences, whch come to domnate her fe n ater
years.
The Mdnghts Chdren Conference begns to fa apart. Many of the chdren are
aready begnnng to go ther separate ways, as they become ncreasngy ahected
by the regous, cutura, and cass-based pre|udces of ther parents. Saeem and
Shva openy debate the merts of the conference. Saeem peads for mutua
toerance and a sense of shared purpose, whe Shva mocks hm as a nave "tte
rch boy," fu of deastc notons.
Saeem begns to vst the od, crazy Dr. Schaapsteker. From hm, Saeem earns
about snakes and how to watch for hs enemes. Wth hs new knowedge, Saeem
pots hs rst attack aganst Hom Catrack and La Sabarmat to punsh them for
ther ct ahar. He cps out etters from newspaper headnes that, once
assembed, spe out "Commander Sabarmat Why Does Your Wfe Go to Coaba
Causeway on Sunday Mornng?" He hdes the note n the commanders cothes.
Commander Sabarmat hres a detectve to foow hs wfe. One Sunday, after
recevng the nvestgators report, the commander checks out a revover, nds La
and Hom Catrack, and shoots them both. He manages to k Hom Catrack and
severey n|ure hs wfe. Afterward, he approaches a tramc cop and tres to turn
hmsef n. The omcer ees when he sees the gun, so Commander Sabarmat s eft
to drect the tramc unt a squad of poce omcers arrves to arrest hm. Isma
Ibrahm, the awyer who once defended Ahmed, agrees to defend Commander
Sabarmat, as we. The Commander becomes a natona hero, and the rst |ury to
hear hs case acquts hm. The |udge, however, overturns the verdct. The speca
treatment has turned the pubc aganst hm, and the presdent refuses to pardon
hm.
Amna never agan goes to the Poneer Caf to see Oasm Khan. The resdents of
Methwods Estate begn seng ther houses to Dr. Narkars femae reatves, who
want to raze a the houses and bud an enormous manson for themseves. Ahmed,
st angry over the tetrapods, refuses to se. After everyone ese has moved oh of
Methwods Estate, Saeem sts n the yard payng wth a sma gobe. The Brass
Monkey comes outsde and crushes the gobe wth her feet. Saeem specuates that
perhaps she dd so because she mssed Sonny Ibrahm, her ong-tme admrer.
Analysis
Midnights Children represents an attempt by both Rushde and Saeem to wrte a
new hstory of Inda, one that takes a facets of the great naton nto account. The
hyphenated terms Saeem generates to descrbe hs reatonshp wth Inda suggest
that there are mutpe, vared, and equay egtmate ways n whch to experence-
and, therefore, wrte-hstory. These new, hyphenated dentons reect Saeems
ntenton to redene natona hstory accordng to hs own persona narratve. In
order to succeed, Saeem must bend and reshape anguage. Words get |ammed
together, |ust as the detas of Saeems fe are |ammed nto the potca hstory of
Inda. By redenng anguage, Saeem redenes reaty. The od, forma conventons
of narratve cant sumcenty convey ths new story, so Saeem breaks those
conventons, payfuy voatng the rues of tme, space, and anguage.
The themes of nostaga and ost nnocence run throughout these two chapters,
trggered by the shockng dscovery that Saeem cannot be Ahmed and Amnas
boogca son. The exe that foows Saeems hospta stay bears a panfu
resembance to hs rst days n Methwods Estate, when hs mother reuctanty
shared the newborn Saeem out of a sense of prde and ove. Now, Saeems parents
have banshed hm from ther home, sendng hm to ve wth hs aunt and unce out
of a sense of shame and confuson. The reveaton about Saeems true parentage
represents a ma|or shftng pont n ths famys hstory, one from whch they can
never return.
Snce Saeems persona dentty s nextrcaby entwned wth that of Inda,
Saeems dsappontments may be seen as a reecton of the newy formng
countrys own probems. Saeem wstfuy descrbes the tmeess Koynos Kd,
trapped forever n hs bboard but free from the ravages of tme and age. Saeem
ongs for hs ost chdhood n the same way that Inda s currenty overcome by a
sense of nostaga, ookng back ongngy at ts ancent past as t urches nexoraby
nto the future. Wth every uncomfortabe step forward, somethng ese must be
dscarded, a sentment dramatcay captured by Saeems ost nger. Saeems
awkward, nadvertent sexua experence wth hs aunt represents a oss of a
dherent knd of nnocence. As uncomfortabe as the moment s, t marks a turnng
pont for Saeem. Immedatey afterward, Mary shows up wth new ong trousers. As
Saeem trades hs short pants for ong ones, he takes a dstnct step nto aduthood.
The word as Saeem knows t s over, a pont the Brass Monkey drves home when
she steps on hs gobe, shatterng t.
Lke Saeem and the naton of Inda, the chdren of the conference and the fames
of the estate are aso begnnng to shed ther nnocence. The mdnghts chdren
begn to take after ther parents, deveopng pre|udces and bases. Dvsons begn
to break them up, andSaeem and Shvas hghy phosophca debate demonstrates
the turmo wthn the conference, whch reects the potca turmo facng Inda at
the tme. Saeems speeches agn hm wth the Communst Party, whe Shva
seems to espouse the benets of a system based on ndvdua-focused, free-market
captasm.
Indas dmcutes n movng forward are aso symbozed n Commander
Sabarmarts tra. The debate surroundng the commanders nnocence pts
tradtona and progressve vaues aganst one another. That a |udge nds Sabarmat
guty represents a vctory for bera progress, yet the favored treatment he
receves, aong wth the fact that La s forced to abdcate custody of ther chdren,
seems to temper that vctory.
SummaryA 6evelations
Saeem tes us that Lord Khusro, today the weathest and most famous guru n
Inda, was once hs chdhood frend, Cyrus-the-great. After Cyruss father des from
chokng on an orange seed, Cyruss fanatca mother begns camng her son s a
hoy chd and nvents a hstory for hm based, n part, on a Superman comc book
that Saeem had once gven to Cyrus.
As the Narkar women begn to demosh the houses of the estate, Pa cas to te
the famy that Hanf has commtted sucde. The entre famy gathers at the house
for a forty-day mournng perod. Infurated by the dust from the demoton, as we
as Pas refusa to mourn, Reverend Mother vows not to eat unt her daughter-n-aw
shows her dead son some respect. After twenty days, Saeem breaks the staemate
by apoogzng to hs aunt for hs prevous ndscreton. Pa tes Saeem that she
refuses to mourn because Hanf aways tred to avod meodrama n hs ms, and
she wants to respect that. Once she nshes expanng ths, however, Pa breaks
nto a torrent of gref that amazes everyone. Pa begs Reverend Mother for
forgveness and paces hersef n her mother-n-aws contro. Reverend Mother
decares that Pa w move to Pakstan wth her, where they w reaze Reverend
Mothers ong-hed dream of purchasng a petro pump.
On the twenty-second day of the mournng perod, Aadam Azz sees God. Aadam
tes hs famy that he asked God why hs son ded, to whch God reped: "God has
hs reasons, od man; fes ke that, rght?" Mary beeves that Aadam actuay saw
|oseph DCostas ghost, but she keeps ths to hersef, and the vson of an ndherent
god haunts Aadam for the rest of hs fe. In hs od age, he takes to shoutng and
cursng at mosques and hoy men. Fnay, on Chrstmas Day, he takes a tran to
Kashmr. Two days ater, at a mosque n Kashmr, a man ttng Aadams descrpton
steas a ock of har that once beonged to the Prophet Muhammad. Later, the
government repaces the stoen ock wth a repca, camng to have recovered the
precous artfact.
On the thrty-eghth day of mournng, Mary sees the ghost of |oseph DCosta for
hersef. She cas the entre famy together and confesses that eeven years ago she
swtched Shvas nametag wth Saeems. Ahmed recognzes the supernatura gure,
however, and reazes that t snt the ghost of |oseph DCosta, after a. The "ghost"
s Ahmeds od servant, Musa, now amcted wth eprosy and returnng to seek
forgveness. Mary returns to her mothers house n Goa, though her sster, Ace,
stays on to assst Ahmed.
SummaryA Movements Per#ormed .y Pe%%er%ots
Afrad that Shva w dscover the truth about ther parentage, Saeem bans hm
from the chdrens conference. Meanwhe, Ahmed, dstraught over what has
happened, drunkeny berates hs wfe. Reverend Mother advses Amna to take her
two chdren away from Ahmed, so Amna, Saeem, and the Brass Monkey move to
Pakstan to ve wth Emerad and Genera Zukar. At the generas opuent house,
Emerad and the genera treat Saeem and hs famy worse than the generas
mne-snmng dog, Bonzo. Once n Pakstan, Saeem nds hmsef unabe to
communcate wth the other chdren.
One evenng, Genera Zukar hosts an mportant dnner, attended by many hgh-
rankng mtary omcas. Durng the dnner, the genera aows hs son, Zafar, and
Saeem to |on the men at the tabe. The commander-n-chef of the army, Genera
Ayub, decares that the government has faed and announces hs pans to take over
Pakstan. When Ayub decrees a state of marta aw, Zafar-who has a tendency to
wet hs pants-gets frghtened and has an accdent. Genera Zukar chases hs son
out of the room, then asks Saeem to come hep hm. Saeem heps the omcers map
out ther strategy, usng pepperpots and other condment |ars to symboze troop
movements. On November 1, Genera Zukar takes Saeem to the presdents
house, where Saeem watches as the genera forces the naked presdent out of bed
and onto a pane.
Saeem and hs famy stay n Pakstan for four more years, durng whch tme he
becomes a teenager and hs sster grows ncreasngy devout, fang under the
countrys regous spe. Reatonshps between Inda and Pakstan deterorate.
Aong the Indan-Chnese border, skrmshes arse.
On her fourteenth brthday, the Brass Monkey sngs, astonshng everyone wth her
beautfu voce. Everyone begns referrng to her as |ama Snger, and Saeem
acknowedges that from then on he woud aways take second pace to her.
Analysis
Wth the reveaton of Saeems true parentage, the acton of the story begns to
mmc the stye of the narraton. Rather than descrbe hs fe n a near,
straghtforward fashon, Saeem chooses to skp back and forth n tme, hashng up
and then reassembng hs bography n order to revea connectons that mght have
otherwse gone unnotced. In ths way, Saeem does more than |ust recount hs fe
story: he draws attenton to partcuar themes, motfs, and patterns, thereby
shapng hs story and gvng t meanng. When Mary Perera reveas the truth about
Saeems brth, the characters experence a smar tme warp, as the past forcefuy
asserts tsef on the present. Hstory s never dead, as we have seen throughout the
nove. Hstory not ony repeats tsef, but t aso comes back-sometmes, teray
back from the grave-to destroy the usons of the present.Midnights Children,
wth ts tanged, crcutous chronoogy, to some degree, attempts to destroy the
usons of tme tsef.
The chapter tte "Reveatons" evokes the Book of Reveaton, the na secton of
the New Testament, whch descrbes the end of the known word and the savaton
of the fathfu by |esus. In addton to meanng "a dramatc dscosure," the
word re'elation can aso carry a theoogca dmenson, meanng "the dscosure of a
dvne w or truth." In Midnights Children, one seemngy dvne reveaton has
aready occurred-when Saeem mstakes the detached voces of the mdnghts
chdren for the mracuous voces of anges. In ths chapter, hs grandfather Aadam
has a fase reveaton as we, mstakng the ghost of |oseph DCosta for a vson of
God. In both cases, these fase reveatons have dre consequences. When Saeem
announces hs newfound abty to hs famy, hs father strkes hm, eavng hm
forever deaf n one ear. Aadam, n hs turn, becomes so dstraught over what he
beeves to be Gods ndherence that he becomes consumed by a need to seek
revenge on hs fath. Aadam becomes overwhemed by the hoe nsde hm, whch
appeared after he ht hs nose on the hard ground of Kashmr and whch represents
the absence of hs fath. |ust as the sanctty and ntegrty of tme has been shown to
be an uson, many of the reveatons experenced by the characters are aso
exposed as fase mpressons. Saeems voces were no more the voces of anges
than decrept Musa was the ghost of |oseph DCosta, or |oseph DCosta was, n turn,
God.
In a nove so suhused wth magc, t seems ronc that many of the most fantastca,
supernatura eements are eventuay reveaed to have human sources. However,
ths trend emphaszes the noves arger theme: to show that no sod, dentve
truths exst. Midnights Children operates on severa dherent eves of reaty,
ncudng the potca, the persona, the fantastca, and the factua. Each of these
provdes a ens through whch one mght vew the story n queston. Each ens w
provde a dherent vson, but each of those vsons remans vad n ts own rght.
Even ctons can cam to have ther own knd of reaty. Saeem may not be Ahmed
and Amnas boogca son, but the cton, once t s reveaed as such, proves
mpossbe to shake oh competey. Smary, Saeem knows that hs frend Cyrus-
the-great possesses no speca powers and that the myth of Lord Khusro s nothng
more than a ctona concocton, dreamed up by a fanatca mother and nspred by
an Amercan comc book. Whether or not the Pakstan government repaced the
sacred har of Mohammed wth a fake repca remans rreevant, snce the peope
contnue to have fath n the artfact. Legtmacy es not n fact, but n the
wngness and abty to beeve. Saeem emphaszes ths pont when he contnuay
defends the vadty of hs fantastca narratve to Padma, hs skeptca stener.
SummaryA 0raina*e and the 0esert
On September 9, 1962-at the exact moment that Indas defense mnster decdes
to use force, f necessary, aganst the Chnese army-Amna receves a teegram
sayng that Ahmed has suhered a "heartboot." She announces that, after four years
n Pakstan, the famy s returnng home to Bombay. Upon seeng her broken
husband, Amna becomes determned to hep hm recover. Durng Ahmeds
recovery, the two graduay begn to fa n ove wth one another.
On October 9, as Inda prepares for war wth Chna, Saeem reconvenes the
conference. The chdren greet one another exctedy as f they are at a famy
reunon. Sx days ater, as Inda faces an unprovoked attack by Chna, the chdren
begn to turn on Saeem, bamng hm for Shvas absence and chastsng hm for
havng seaed oh a part of hs mnd. On October 20, as the Indan army s bady
beaten by Chnese forces, the chdren aunch a fu-scae attack aganst Saeem for
hs secrecy and etsm. Durng the next month, the chdren eave hm, one by one.
After ts nta defeat by the Chnese army, Inda experences a new optmsm,
beevng the defeat of the Chnese to be near at hand. At the same tme, Saeems
perpetuay congested snuses become competey bocked. As the war between
Inda and Chna draws coser, Saeems snus probems grow worse. On November
20, news of Indas defeat by the Chnese domnates the news. The papers procam,
"Pubc Morae Drans Away." The next day, the advancng Chnese army hats ts
progress, and Saeems parents take hm to the hospta to have hs snuses ceared.
After the operaton, Saeem dscovers that hs connecton to the chdren has
dsappeared aong wth the congeston n hs snuses.
Amna convnces Ahmed that they shoud move to Pakstan and |on her ssters, and
they se ther house on Methwods Estate to the Narkar women. On ther ast day
n Bombay, Saeem takes the etter from the prme mnster, the newspaper photo,
and an od tn gobe and bures them on the property. The famy arrves n Karach
on February 9. Soon afterward, |ama begns her sngng career, whe Saeem
en|oys the peasure of beng abe to sme for the rst tme n hs fe.
SummaryA /amila Sin*er
Saeems nose can now detect emotons, feengs, and es, as we as smes.
Saeems sense of sme has become so acute that, upon arrvng at Karach, he can
sme hs aunt Aas btterness and hypocrsy. Lvng wth hs aunt n the shadows of
a mosque at the center of Karach, Saeem expores the cty on hs Lambretta
scooter. Ahmed decdes to bud the famy a new home and has the and
consecrated wth the brne and umbca cord from Saeems brth.
St emotonay attached to Bombay, Saeem nds hmsef unabe to fee at home
n the overwhemngy Musm Pakstan. Ahmed buys a towe factory, names t after
hs wfe, and decares that someday he w produce the most famous towe n the
word. Soon after, Ma|or (Retred) Aauddn Latf comes to hear |ama sng. Saeem
and |ama nckname hm Unce Puhs. Unce Puhs becomes a xture at the house
and makes |ama a famous snger. He keeps her face hdden from her audence,
however, camng that a horrbe accdent has dsgured her face. |ama performs
behnd a curtan, whch has a snge hoe for her ps.
|ama becomes the most ceebrated snger n Pakstan, and Saeem confesses that
he was n ove wth her. He demonstrated hs ahecton by brngng her fresh,
eavened bread from a secret Cathoc nunnery. Suen and meanchoy, Saeem
spends hs days rdng hs scooter, takng n the ctys smes. Hs fondness for
profane smes brngs hm to Ta Bb, who cams to be, at 512 years od, the words
odest whore. Saeem nds Ta Bb rresstbe, because she can take on the scent of
any person. Whe tryng out a seres of smes on Saeem, she nds one that
partcuary ahects hm. Saeem reazes that shes taken on |amas scent and runs
out of Ta Bbs house.
Genera Zukars son, Zafar, becomes engaged to a prnces daughter from Kf. The
prnce aso has a son, Mutasm, who s we known for hs ooks and charm. At
Zafars engagement ceremony, |ama Snger performs, and Mutasm, who has yet
to see her face, mmedatey fas n ove wth her. After hearng her sng, Mutasm
takes Saeem asde and, after askng Saeem to descrbe hs sster, tes Saeem that
he has a ove charm for her. Saeem tes Mutasm to hand hm the charm, then
creeps nto hs ssters bedroom and gves t to her hmsef. He confesses hs ove to
|ama whe pressng the charm aganst her pam. The charm works brey, but
|ama s ashamed and horror strcken, even though she and Saeem share no bood
reaton. Saeem reazes that even though he and |ama are not truy reated, they
are st brother and sster. Saeem reects that the dherence between hs Indan
chdhood and Pakstan adoescence was the dherence between an nnte varety
of aternatves and an nnte number of es.
Analysis
When Saeem returns to Inda, he once agan nds the detas of hs persona fe
cosey mrrored n the events of natona potcs. Amna earns of her husbands
"heartboot" |ust as the pubc earns of Indas ntenton to use necessary force
aganst Chna. As Saeem notes, both of these reveatons w end wth an evcton,
as Chna boots out the Indan troops and Saeems parents boot hm out of Inda.
Indas defeat n the war metaphorcay drans the country of ts optmsm, |ust as
Saeems operaton teray drans hs congested snuses. In addton to the
rhetorca smarty, the narratve aso mpes that Saeem, n osng hs abty to
communcate wth the mdnghts chdren, becomes draned of hope and optmsm
aong wth Inda. Hs seemngy persona oss resonates across the entre country,
snce the Mdnghts Chdrens Conference represented Indas potenta future.
Back n Pakstan, the countrys regous dogmatsm confronts Saeem. Hs fe n
Pakstan becomes rdded wth hypocrses and rones. Hs aunt Aa, who once oved
Ahmed, greets them ehusvey whe nwardy seethng wth btterness and
resentment. Despte Pakstans reputaton as the "Land of the Pure," Saeem
manages to dscover the words odest whore vng n Karach. The newy devout
|ama secrety yearns for eavened bread made by Cathoc nuns. Fnay, Ahmed
attempts to consecrate hs homes budng ste wth hs sons umbca cord and
afterbrth-whch, as we know, may or may not actuay beong to Saeem.
Throughout the nove, Rushde remans ntent on dsmantng the fase veneer of
fath, exposng and exporng the essenta human frates and compextes that e
beneath. In Pakstan, Saeem actvey ressts that natons sef-procamed purty. He
seeks out the profane and wretched and, n the end, outs a sacred soca taboo by
fang n ove wth hs own sster. |ama, on the other hand, becomes the
embodment of the passve and devout beever. However, because we have aready
wtnessed |amas growth and deveopment, not to menton her forcefu and
magnetc personaty, we know that underneath the ever-present ve remans a
compex ndvdua. |amas ove for the uneavened bread represents a seemngy
mnor transgresson, but t hghghts the fact that regous purty cannot competey
ehace an ndvduas character or desres.
Throughout the nove, romantc ove has remaned notceaby absent or, at the very
east, eusve. Often unrequted-and when t s requted, |ust as often erroneous
and unfounded-romantc ove has a payed a compcated and frequenty
contradctory roe n the noves deveopment. Saeem bames hs parents
newfound ove for the destructon of the Mdnghts Chdrens Conference, |ust as
hs ove for hs sster roncay destroys the ntmate connecton they once shared.
For Saeem, every act of ove seems nevtaby to carry an act of destructon wth t,
a connecton that speaks as much to the compcated ntentons behnd each acton
as t does to a arger, unversa cam about oves catacysmc potenta. At the
same tme, unrequted ove contnues to pay a domnant roe n shapng the ves of
the characters. From Mutasms and Saeems faed courtshp of |ama to Zafars
never-consecrated marrage, ove extracts a heavy to. Aa, after a number of
years, remans burdened by anger and |eaousy at havng been dened Ahmeds
ove, whe |ama, shrouded n purty, remans unabe to accept t.
SummaryA "ow Saleem Achieved Purity
Saeem recounts the events eadng up to mdnght, September 22, 1965, the
moment he acheved purty. Saeem begns to have dreams about Kashmr and says
that hs dreams sped over nto the genera popuaton, becomng pubc property
n 1965. In that year, Inda and Pakstan fought ther second war, argey over the
dsputed regon of Kashmr.
Reverend Mother and Saeems aunt Pa now run a petro (gas) staton. As Reverend
Mother grows arger and harer wth age, Pa embarks on a seres of romantc
asons. Meanwhe, Aas btterness begns to take ehect, and she exacts her
revenge through her cookng. In |anuary, Amna becomes pregnant. Aas cookng
causes her to have terrbe nghtmares, and she begns to shrve and age rapdy.
Ahmed, dstraught over hs wfes condton and posoned by Aas cookng,
becomes stess at work, and the factory begns to fa apart.
In Apr 1965, Zafar, now a eutenant n the army, s dspatched to hep guard the
Rann of Kutch, a dsputed terrtory on the border between Inda and Pakstan. Whe
watng for repacement troops, he and hs companons thnk they see a ghost army
descendng on them. Zafar and hs troops ay down ther weapons, ony to dscover
that the ghost army s actuay a band of smuggers workng wth Genera Zukars
fu permsson. Zafar returns to hs fathers house and sts the generas throat wth
a curved smuggers knfe. As a resut, Emerad s gven permsson to emgrate to
Engand, though the war prevents her from eavng the country.
On the rst day of a short-ved peace between Inda and Pakstan, Ahmed suhers a
stroke that eaves hm partay parayzed and neary nfante. Saeem says hes
now convnced that the Indo-Pakstan war of 1965 took pace soey to emnate hs
famy. On the nght of September 22, 1965, ar-rad srens rng throughout Pakstan.
The rst bomb that fas ks Reverend Mother and Pa; the second bomb hts the |a
and reeases Zafar; and the thrd destroys Emerads house. Of the three bombs that
and n Karach, one ks Ma|or (Retred) Aauddn Latf and a of hs daughters.
Whe the bombs fa, Saeem rdes hs Lambretta toward hs home. Two na bombs
fa from the sky. One destroys Saeems mother and father, hs unborn sbng, and
hs aunt Aa. The other destroys the unnshed house Ahmed had been budng for
the famy. As Saeems house crumbes, the sver spttoon that once beonged to
hs grandfather hts hm n the head, erasng hs memory entrey and thus purfyng
hm.
Analysis
In ths chapter, prvate and pubc hstores become competey fused and
thoroughy nextrcabe, as the narratve hurtes forward to a shockng, yet
seemngy nevtabe, catastrophe. Saeem cams that the war of 1965 occurred for
two reasons: "because I dreamed Kashmr nto the fantases of our rues;
furthermore, |because| I remaned mpure, and therefore the war was to separate
me from my sns." Once agan, Saeem cams persona responsbty for arge-scae,
natona events. Saeem begns dreamng about Kashmr-the beautfu, dyc
andscape that was hs grandfather homeandand whch remans to ths day a
symbo of great natona prde for Indans and Pakstans ake. In the rst chapter of
the nove, Kashmr was presented as an her to the bbca Garden of Eden, wth
Aadam and Naseem payng the roes of Adam and Eve, the words rst man and
woman. In the Chrstan fath, Eden represents a vanshed perfecton to whch
humans aspre yet can never attan on the physca, earthy pane. Exhausted,
Saeem yearns for a return to uncompcated purty. As readers, we too may fee
exhausted and worn-down by the endess compextes of Midnights Children and
wsh for a return to a ess-convouted narratve, such as that of the noves openng
chapters.
However, |ust as Adam and Eve can never return to Eden, Saeem cannot return to
Kashmr-at east, not to the Kashmr he remembers through Aadam. That Kashmr
doesnt exst anymore, a fact Saeem hmsef hnts at when he rst descrbes
Aadams Kashmr and cams that "||n those days there was no army camp at the
akesde, no endess snakes of camouaged trucks and |eeps cogged the narrow
mountan roads, no soders hd behnd the crests of the mountans past Baramua
and Gumarg." Even at the begnnng of the nove, the beauty of Kashmr s tanted
by hndsght. In 1915, the vaey may have seemed "hardy changed snce the
Mugha Empre," but by the tme Saeem begns teng hs story, Kashmr has
transformed rrevocaby. Whether or not we beeve Saeems cam that he drecty
nuenced the potca stuaton, hs dreams reman a concrete expresson of the
nostaga and desre that fed Inda and Pakstans strugge over Kashmr. Saeems
nabty to recapture hs ost Eden reects the futty of the unyedng strugge
between Inda and Pakstan for contro of the regon.
Saeem aso cams to Padma that the Inda-Pakstan war of 1965 was a persona
|ehad, or hoy war, aganst hm. Before Saeems famy gets eradcated, btterness
and decepton have aready brought them to the breakng pont. Snce arrvng n
Pakstan, each of ther ves has taken a drastc turn for the worse. Rushde
acceerates the narratve by packng Amnas pregnancy, Ahmeds rapd decne,
Pas numerous ahars, Zukars murder, and Aas hatefu revenge nto the span of
a snge chapter. The famys exstence has become grotesque, and Saeem
beeves that Pakstan must be tryng to drve out hs wretched famy, the way the
human body re|ects and expes hazardous matera. Ony by ayng waste to the
past and annhatng hs memory can Saeem acheve bankness and thus
ceanness. Echong the noves earer cams that creaton and destructon are
ntmatey nked, Saeem acheves purty n the "Land of the Pure" through
catacysmc and utter devastaton.
,oo) 5hreeA
SummaryA 5he ,uddha
Saeem survves the bombng campagn but retans no memory of hs past. When
Padma starts to weep for hs dead famy, he yes at her to weep for hm nstead.
He descrbes the events foowng the bombng as f he were narratng a move
traer.
Saeem descrbes a secret army camp n the hs. An army omcer, Brgader
Iskander, yes at three young recruts to the armys Canne Unt for Trackng
Integence Actvty (CUTIA),. The army has assgned these three teenage boys-
Ayooba Bacoh, Farooq Rashd, and Shaheed Dar-to work wth somethng caed the
man-dog, trackng down rebes. Saeem, meanwhe, sts cross-egged under a tree,
hodng a sver spttoon n hs hand. The recruts have heard varous rumors about
the man-dog: that hs sster s the famous |ama Snger, that he comes from a
weathy famy, and that he cant fee anythng but has amazng trackng abtes.
The man-dog s, of course, Saeem hmsef. Ayooba, Farooq, and Shaheed nckname
Saeem buddha, or od man, whch Saeem nds approprate because of ts
regous connotatons. Saeem cams that |ama put hm n the armys care to
punsh hm for ovng her. After months of tranng together, Saeem begns to
rrtate the three boys, especay Ayooba. Irrtaton seems to be n the ar snce, n
the eastern porton of Pakstan, Shekh Mu|b, the eader of the Bangadesh
ndependence movement, s agtatng to form hs own government. Saeem grows
fond of the goomy, prvate Shaheed, however. Shaheeds name means "martyr,"
and Shaheed often has dreams of hs own death, n whch he sees a brght
pomegranate oatng n front of hm.
The Pakstan troops assembe on March 15, 1971, and y to Dacca aong wth sxty
thousand other troops. At mdnght on March 25, the troops march nto the cty and
Saeem eads hs team to Shek Mu|b. As they drve through the streets, they see
the Pakstan troops murderng, rapng, and pagng the town. Ten mon refugees
ee from Bangadesh nto Inda. Saeem says the human mnd cannot comprehend
ths number, despte the news headnes that procam the "bggest mgraton n
hstory." Despte a the atroctes they wtness, Saeem and hs unt refuse to
queston orders. Settng out to track an unnamed ndvdua, they move further and
further out of the cty. They commandeer a boat and head down the Padma Rver.
Saeem reveas to readers that he s eadng hs companons on a meanngess
chase, snce theyre foowng an magnary enemy. He drects them from one pace
to the next, eventuay drvng them nto the Sundarbans, an enormous |unge on
the border of Bangadesh and Inda that s a maze of foage and waterways.
SummaryA -n the Sundar.ans
Saeem admts that no enemy awats them n the Sundarbans. No onger abe to
accept orders, he ees and takes the three boys wth hm. As the |unge coses n on
them, the group reazes they are ost. Ran begns to the boat, so they pu onto
dry and. Drnkng the ran that fas from the eaves, the nsane ogc of the |unge
nfects them. The days pass n a haze. Ayooba sees the ghost of a man he ked,
and the ghosts uds drp onto hs arm, parayzng t. A the men begn to see the
ghosts of the peope they have arrested. After the nghtmares, they become
overwhemed by nostaga, and begn to see mages from ther past. Saeem,
however, remembers nothng unt a posonous snake btes hm n the hee.
After two days on the verge of death, Saeems memory comes oodng back to
hm. He tes the three boys hs entre fe story, but n the end he cannot remember
hs own name. The ghosts come back. In order to sence them, the three boys
ther ears wth mud, becomng deaf as a resut. The four wander through the |unge
and come across an ancent Hndu tempe, dedcated to the mut-mbed goddess
Ka. Insde the tempe, four beautfu women vst them and take them nto ther
arms nght after nght. Saeem reazes that they are a growng ncreasngy hoow
and transucent. They notce four skeetons n the corner, and can see that the
tempe s on the verge of fang apart. They ee from the tempe and head back to
the boat, where an enormous tda wave carres them out of the Sundarbans. Its
October 1971. In the present tme, Saeem notes that no tda waves were recorded
that month.
When Saeem and the boys return, they dscover that guerra soders ed by Mukt
Bahn have begun to terrorze the Pakstan Army wth snper attacks. In a deserted
vage, the three boys begn to panc. Saeem, however, can ony thnk about hs
name and how unfar everythng s. He begns to weep, and Ayooba comes over to
comfort hm. At that moment, a buet zps by and ks Ayooba. Saeem, Shaheed,
and Farooq stea some bkes and begn pedang. In December, they arrve at a ed
outsde of Dacca, ttered wth rottng corpses. A peasant stands nearby, seng
what he has scavenged. He tes Saeem that Inda has |oned the war, ed by a man
wth enormous, powerfu knees. A buet whps through the ar, kng Farooq.
Saeem stumbes across the ed and comes upon a tanged pyramd of bodes. The
bodes are those of Saeems chdhood frends, Eyesce, Haro, and Sonny. The
atter speaks brey to Saeem before dyng. Saeem says he beeves the war
happened n order to reunte hm wth hs od frends.
Analysis
In these chapters, Saeem transforms nto a haf-anma, haf god-ke gure.
Reeved of hs memory, Saeem cannot fee pan or emoton, mpyng that a
connecton to our past represents an essenta part of beng human. Saeem spends
hs days sttng under a tree, free from the tras of hs past, the monkke hardo he
rst adopted as a chd gvng hm an added ar of regous soemnty. Once agan,
we wtness a medng of regous tradtons, as Saeem comes to resembe both a
Chrstan monk and the gure of the Buddha. Saeems new, dvne ahectaton
contrasts wth the armys dersve nckname for hm, "the man-dog." Part beast,
part dvne gure, Saeem one agan represents the meetng pont of the sacred and
the profane. He wfuy acknowedges how hs fe currenty resembes a cheap
move, ndugng n that smarty as he recounts the foowng events n the stye of
a move traer.
Saeems story hardy skps a beat between the two wars, the 1965 Indo-Pakstan
war over Kashmr and the 1971 conct over Bangadesh ndependence. The centra
roe that potcs and warfare payed n the shapng of Inda and Pakstans hstory
becomes ncreasngy evdent. The voence escaates and grows arger n scae as
Saeem pays the dua roes of wtness and actve partcpant n the pagng of
Dacca. At ths pont, nformng the reader of the factua detas of the mtary
conct becomes one of the narratves cear ob|ectves. Saeem takes care to st
the names of ma|or generas and potca eaders, not to menton the potca
events occurrng n Inda at the same tme. In these chapters, Saeems story
becomes equa parts hstory esson and wartme memor.
Saeem enters the Sundarbans to eave behnd what he has seen and done, yet
roncay manages to recam hs memory there. The |unge of the Sundarbans s a
densey magca pace, popuated by voces, ghosts, and appartons. The massve,
mysterous tda wave that carres Saeem and hs companons out of the |unge
seems a ttng concuson to the nterude. The snake that btes Saeem n the hee,
thereby restorng hs memory, represents the atest nstance of the noves snake
motf, foowng |oseph DCostas snakebtes, Dr. Schaapstekers fe savng venom,
and Saeems beoved Snakes and Ladders board game. Snake venom saved
Saeems fe once before, and now t brngs that fe back to hm. As the young
Saeem noted, the dstncton between good and ev, or snakes and adders, s
aways ambguous. Wth hs memory restored, Saeem can now encounter hs
chdhood frends. In one of the noves more tragc and voent mages, Saeem
stumbes across the human pyramd of dyng bodes, comprsed of Eyesce, Haro,
and Sonny Ibrahm. The bodes of hs dyng frends, and the descrpton of Farooqs
death, whch very cosey echoes Aadam Azzs prayer from the openng chapter,
demonstrate how mages of the past can become corrupted and deformed by the
voence of the present. Tme and age have ony made matters worse for the former
chdren of Methwods Estate.
SummaryA Sam and the 5i*er
On December 15, 1971, Tger Naz, the Pakstan army omcer n charge of the war
aganst Bangadesh, surrenders to hs Indan counterpart and od frend, Sam
Manekshaw. Saeem says that he, n turn, surrendered to an od frend, a gr wth
saucer eyes.
As Saeem and Shaheed return to Dacca, they once agan wtness the Pakstan
armys atroctes. Saeem enters a deserted house that once beonged to a notary,
whe Shaheed stands outsde watchng the soders. Shaheed ooks up |ust n tme
to see a grenade headng toward hm. It expodes at hs mdsecton, spttng hm n
haf. Shaheed ponts to a nearby mosque and asks Saeem to brng hm to the top of
t. Once there, a tra of ants foows Shaheeds bood and begns to devour hm. The
mosques oudspeaker pcks up hs screams, echong them throughout the cty.
As the Indan army advances nto the defeated cty, a troop of magcans precedes
them. A snake charmer by the name of Pcture Sngh traves wth the troops, aong
wth Parvat-the-wtch, one of the former mdnghts chdren. Parvat sees Saeem
and shouts out hs name, restorng hs ost dentty to hm and reuntng hm wth an
od, ost frend. At the same tme, Sam and Tger remnsce about ther od days n
the Brtsh Army, and Tger denes rumors of war crmes. Parvat ohers to hep
Saeem escape from Pakstan by magcay transportng hm n her basket. Saeem
dsappears nto the basket, and whe nsde he dscovers a rage wthn hm, an
anger at a he has seen and had done to hm, everythng that he has "bndy
accepted."
Saeem says that the Wdow has now draned the anger out of hm, but at that tme,
hs anger was responsbe for restorng hs abty to fee.
SummaryA 5he Shadow o# the Mos3ue
Twenty-sx pcke-|ars st on a shef, correspondng to the twenty-sx chapters of the
nove thus far. Padma suggests, hopefuy, takng a Kashmr vacaton wth Saeem.
By the tme Saeem arrves n Inda and stumbes out of the basket, Indra Gandhs
New Congress Party hods a two-thrds ma|orty n the Natona Assemby. Saeem
becomes determned to save the country. At the magcans ghetto, whch es n the
shadow of a mosque, an od woman named Resham Bb tes Saeem to eave
before he destroys everythng. However, Pcture Sngh, as the head of the
magcans ghetto, decares Saeem hs persona guest.
Saeem decdes to eave soon after, though, because he remans convnced that he
w pay a cruca roe n Indas savaton and fees that hs destny w be
mpossbe to fu whe vng n the ghetto wth Parvat and Pcture. He decdes to
go to hs unce, Mustapha Azz, a senor Cv Servant, for assstance. Saeem admts
that he aso had a persona, ess nobe reason for eavng. In Dacca, Parvat had
seen Shva, drvng through the streets n a tank and decorated as a mtary hero.
Parvat asked Shva for a ock of hs har, and Shva obged. Parvat fet hopefu that
the meetng was a good sgn, and that the three of them woud someday be
reunted. Saeem admts that a fear of seeng Shva agan aso prompted hm to
eave.
When Saeem arrves at hs unces house, hs unces wfe greets hm harshy.
Saeem earns that a of hs reatves have ded and enters a 400-day mournng
perod for them. He aso earns that once hs sster dscovered that he had
dsappeared durng the war, she turned aganst the government and began to
crtcze t openy. |ama s never seen or heard from agan. Saeem, however, has a
dream n whch |ama returns to the secret monastery where he used to get her
eavened bread. On the 418th day of hs stay, a man whom Saeem beeves mght
be Indra Gandhs son comes over to dnner. Saeem sees a back eather foder n
hs unces study, abeed Top Secret and tted "Pro|ect M.C.C." Saeem says he
doesnt condemn hs unce, and notes that he, too, has been a trator before.
Saeem says that, athough he ddnt know ths at the tme, the Gandh famy has
acqured the abty to repcate themseves, and that s why they wanted to mpose
brth contro on everyone ese.
Parvat-the-wtch vsts Saeem the next day. That evenng, Saeems aunt nds hm
n bed wth Parvat and throws them out of the house. Back n the ghetto, Pcture
Sngh and Saeem dscuss the rampant corrupton n the government and n the
country. Parvat-the-wtch shows Saeem the fu extent of her fantastc magca
powers, castng spes to grow hs har back, erase the brthmarks on hs face, and
straghten hs bandy egs. However, she remans restess, because she wants more
than frendshp from Saeem. Yet every tme Saeem tres to seep wth Parvat, he
sees her face transform nto a grotesque verson of hs ssters. After repeated
ehorts, Parvat gves up, deveopng a permanent pout on her ps. When Pcture
Sngh suggests that Saeem marry her, Saeem es and says that hes mpotent,
thereby wshng upon hmsef the curse that once amcted Nadr Khan and, brey,
hs father.
Analysis
Shaheeds cry of agony, broadcast over the mosque oudspeaker, comprses one of
the noves most chng and bruta moments. Shaheeds scream expresses the
narratve outrage at the senseess deaths of thousands of young men durng the
Indo-Pakstan war. Shaheeds name means martyr, and n the end he does de ke a
martyr, the shnng pomegranate of hs dream transformng nto a ve grenade and
destroyng the ower haf of hs body. However, Shaheed s unke a martyr n that
hs death proves ncdenta and caprcous, and thus martyrdom tsef, at east n
ths conct, s reveaed to be an empty noton. Hs death serves no purpose and
makes no statement-t s merey gruesome, panfu, and tragc. Searchng for some
dgnty and meanng, and seekng to fu the weghty prophecy of hs gven name,
Shaheed asks Saeem to brng hm to the top of the mosque. However, nstead of
ndng God there, Shaheed nds hmsef beng consumed by greedy ants.
Shaheeds death gans no nobty n the mosque, and hs spt corpse proves no
more sacred than the dead cockroach the ants had prevousy been feastng on. The
mechanzed ca to prayer-a recorded voce, whch aways skps n the same pace
-renforces ths feeng of hoowness. Shaheeds scream, however, is rea. Though
he cannot artcuate words, the Shaheeds voce cres out not ony for hs own
death, but aso for the thousands of other atroctes beng commtted throughout
the country.
After Parvat transports Saeem to the magcans ghetto, he ends up vng n the
shadow of yet another mosque, an echo of the mosque that oomed over hs aunt
Aas house n Karach, the ste of hs famys extermnaton. The combnaton of
ths omnous settng and Resham Bbs warnngs seems to suggest doom for
Saeem. After eavng the ghetto for hs unces house, Saeem makes two startng
reveatons. He earns about the death of hs famy members and dscovers hs
unces secret foder, abeed "Pro|ect M.C.C." In addton, a mysterous man comes
to vst hs unce-who, despte beng a Musm, remans a deepy devoted Indan
cv servant. Saeem beeves the man to be San|ay Gandh, eder son of Prme
Mnster Indra Gandh, though he never manages to conrm hs suspcons. San|ay
was the government omca prmary responsbe for the sterzaton campagn, a
centra program enacted durng the State of Emergency decared by Indra Gandh
between 1975-1977. When Saeem sees the man he beeves to be San|ay, he says
that the prme mnsters famy had dscovered how to repcate themseves. Ths s
a sy reference to the Gandh potca dynasty, whch began wth Indras father and
Indas rst prme mnster, |awahara Nehru, and contnued through Indra and onto
Indras son, Ra|v Gandh. Even today, the Gandh famy remans hugey nuenta
n Indan potcs, wth Ra|vs wdow, Sona, servng as presdent of the Indan
Natona Congress Party, and Ra|vs chdren, Rahu Gandh and Pryanka Vadera,
potcay actve as we.
SummaryA A !eddin*
Saeem descrbes how Parvat succeeded n gettng hm to marry her, on February
23, 1975. Havng heard of Saeems mpotence, Parvat decdes to take her fate nto
her own hands. Usng a magca spe, she summons Shva to her. Not knowng why,
Shva becomes compeed to come to the ghetto.
Saeem descrbes Shvas career for us. Foowng the war, Shva becomes a natona
hero. He grows more rened and sophstcated and deveops a reputaton as a great
over and seducer. Soon, women from the hghest echeon of socety are devsng
ways to have ahars wth hm. They tuck secret notes nto ther toes, drop
handbags, and sp drnks. A number of ct chdren are born from hs ahars,
athough he fas out of ove wth any woman who bears hs chd. One woman,
angry and btter, approaches hm durng a horse race and tes hm that hes
become the aughngstock of a the rch women. After ths reveaton, Shva grows
uncomfortabe n hs new fe and becomes unntentonay cruder than ever.
After Parvat casts her spe and brngs Shva to the ghetto, Shva takes her back to
hs barracks. The two are brey happy unt, on September 12, she tes hm shes
pregnant wth hs chd. Ther reatonshp grows voent, and Shva begns to seep
wth prosttutes, srng a ne of poor egtmate chdren to match hs earer ne of
rch ones. Meanwhe, the potca stuaton grows darker, as students and workers
begn protestng government corrupton. The protests ead to the deveopment of an
opposton party, the Peopes Front. Parvat reeases Shva from her spe and he
prompty returns her to the ghetto, where she nds Saeem and Pcture Sngh
runnng from tear gas, aunched by the poce durng a potca ray.
In the magcans ghetto, everyone shuns Parvat because of her pregnancy. Pcture
Sngh suggests agan that Saeem marry her, and Saeem nds hmsef unabe to
gnore hs pea-fuy aware of the fact that, snce Shva s Ahmed and Amnas true
son, Parvats chd w be hs parents true grandchd. Parvat converts to Isam and
becomes Layah, and the magcans perform ncredbe feats after the weddng
ceremony.
Whe pubc dssent wth the government grows, so does Parvats stomach. On |une
12, at 2 p.m.-the exact moment the prme mnster s convcted of campagn
mapractce-Parvat goes nto a abor that asts thrteen days. Her abor pans
correspond to potca events nvovng the prme mnster, unt nay, at mdnght
on |une 25, the prme mnster decares a State of Emergency, aowng her to arrest
her opposton and censor the press. At the same moment, Parvats chd s beng
born, and Saeem aughs hystercay at the sght of hs sons enormous, oppy ears.
Saeem descrbes the boy as a grave, good-natured chd who refuses to cry. Saeem
wonders f hs ong-hed beef n the ntmate connecton between the naton and
the ndvdua has eaked nto the prme mnsters mnd, snce her new sogan has
become "Inda s Indra and Indra s Inda." Saeem gves a bref synopss of Indras
fe, ncudng a descrpton of her husbands death, and the promnent roe her son
San|ay payed n the sterzaton campagn of 1975. He ponts out that, n 1975,
Indra had been a wdow for fteen years.
SummaryA Midni*ht
Saeem says he cant go on wth the story, but that he must. He strugges to nd
the rght words, tryng to te t as a dream, but then stops and decdes to te t
drecty. He says that the wnter of 1975-76 brought wth t an endess darkness. Hs
son, Aadam, suhers from tubercuoss, and nether he nor Parvat can cure the boy.
Saeem nssts that, as ong as the Emergency asts, hs son w be . Parvat tres
to make Aadam cry by usng magc, but nstead he hods n a of hs sound.
Meanwhe, the government aters the consttuton, gvng the prme mnster neary
unmted power. Saeem can sme danger n the ar.
On the ast nght before "what-has-to-be-descrbed," Nadr Khan vsts Saeem and
tes hm to hde. However, ts aready too ate, and the next mornng budozers
announcng a "cvc beautcaton program" nvade the ghetto. Soders drag peope
nto vans and a rumor spreads that the peope are beng sterzed. The magcans
ght back and are successfu unt mtary troops arrve. Saeem oses Parvat and
Pcture Sngh. Ma|or Shva comes and captures Saeem. Parvat des voenty, and
by the end of the afternoon, nothng remans of the ghetto, ncudng Saeems
spttoon.
Saeem s taken to Benares and ocked n the paace of the wdows, on the shores of
the Ganges. Though Saeem cannot remember how he was nduced to do so, he
tes hs nterocutors where a of the mdnghts chdren can be found. The was of
Saeems ce begn to whsper wth the voces of the chdren. He gves them a ong
apoogy, but they are so excted and happy to hear each other agan that they
reman unconcerned. He becomes brey optmstc, unt on New Years Day a
beautfu woman expans to hm that the peope worshp the prme mnster as a
god, and that nothng can compete wth her supremacy.
Saeem and the other mdnghts chdren undergo sterzaton operatons, athough
-not wantng to eave anythng to chance-the doctors perform more aggressve
operatons on them than on the rest of the popuaton. The doctors remove testces
and whoe wombs from the mdnghts chdren, who, as a resut, ose a ther
magca powers. Saeem earns that Shva had a vountary vasectomy, and begns to
augh, snce Shvas namesake was the god assocated wth procreaton, and Shva
hmsef has aready fathered a whoe new generaton of mdnghts chdren. In ate
March of 1977, Saeem s reeased, aong wth the other mdnghts chdren. The
prme mnster cas for eectons and oses. Shva s arrested, and then ater ked
by the same woman who had mocked hm for mpregnatng her. Back n Deh,
Saeem waks around unt he eventuay nds Pcture Sngh, hodng a sma boy of
twenty-one months.
Analysis
The nove begns to come fu crce when Saeem marres Parvat. As Saeem
prepares to rase Shvas chd, he nds hmsef n a smar poston to hs father,
who aso rased another mans chd. And |ust as Saeems mdnght brth
corresponded to the brth of a new naton, so too does hs sons brth correspond to
the begnnng of a new era n Indan hstory. However, there are cruca dherences
between ths teraton and the orgna nstance. Whereas Saeem was born at a
moment suhused wth optmsm, hs son Aadam s born durng the State of
Emergency, a tme of anxety and dscord. Wth the brth of Aadam, the story of the
orgna band of mdnghts chdren draws to a cose, ony to begn a new story.
Instead of Shvas knees and Saeems nose, Parvat gves brth to a baby wth a par
of enormous ears. Shva had the power of war, and Saeem the abty to sme.
Aadam, wth hs enormous ears, w have the power to sten to hs fathers story.
Shva s unmade by women and saved by a war, |ust as Saeem had promsed at the
start of the nove. For a of hs mtary mght and rumored prowess as a over, Shva
remans unabe to accept or gve ove. He turns on the mdnghts chdren, and on
Saeem n partcuar. In hs wanton desre to destroy Saeem, he vountary permts
hmsef to be destroyed as we. Throughout the nove, Shvas greatest nsecurtes
stem from hs cass standng, and thus generate hs resentment and hatred of
Saeem. By the end of the nove, however, the reversed fortunes of the two have
rghted themseves. Shva, the poor chd who shoud have been rch, becomes
weathy and respected, and Saeem, the rch chd who shoud have been poor, oses
hs nhertance and dwes n a sum. However, Shva remans unabe to shake the
egacy of poverty that shaped hm, emphaszng once agan that our persona
hstores mod us n nexorabe ways.
In these chapters, Saeem nay reveas the mystery of the Wdows dentty: she s
Indra Gandh, the Indan prme mnster. Wth ths reveaton, Saeems fe and the
natons hstory become uned a na tme. When Saeem was born, |awahara
Nehru, Indas rst prme mnster, wrote hm a etter and wecomed hm nto the
word. Now Nehrus daughter, Indra Gandh, bears the responsbty for destroyng
Saeem. After decarng the State of Emergency n 1975, Indra Gandh suspended
cv bertes, engaged n massve arrests, ntated a campagn of forced
sterzaton, and destroyed ghettoes throughout the country. The potca and
human rghts abuses of those years are among the noves centra tragedes.
Rushde has hs Indra Gandh speccay target the mdnghts chdren, sterzng
them and thereby dranng them of ther powers. Rushde mpes that Gandh was
responsbe for destroyng not ony the hope and future of an entre generaton, but
that of a st edgng democracy as we. The chant "Inda s Indra and Indra s
Inda" represents a ca for snguarty. |ust as Pakstan denes tsef accordng to a
snge god, the sogan for Gandh reduces the entre muttudnous naton to a snge
woman. In ther mutpcty and the dversty of ther powers, the mdnghts
chdren post a threat to Gandh and the snge-ruer state. At the Wdows hoste,
the prophesy of Saeems brth s fued, the nghtmare of green and back s
umnated, and the Mdnghts Chdrens Conference s brought to ts resoundng
end.
SummaryA A.racada.ra
Saeem confesses that hs story about Shvas death was a batant e. Shva s st
ave, and Saeem says that unnshed busness remans between them. Padma
proposes to Saeem, and he accepts. The honeymoon w be n Kashmr. Saeem
specuates that perhaps Padma, wth her musces, mght be abe to reverse the
cracks and oomng death he faces. She proposes gettng marred on hs thrty-rst
brthday, but Saeem says that death s watng for hm that day.
Saeem returns to the story, and hs dscovery of Aadam and Pcture Sngh. Aadams
tubercuoss has dsappeared. Accordng to Pcture Sngh, he was cured by the
breast mk of a woman named Durga, whom Pcture Sngh has faen n ove wth.
Whe wakng past a mrror, Saeem sees hmsef for the rst tme n months. He
notces how rapdy he has aged, as we as the expresson of profound reef on hs
own face. Meanwhe, hs son, who st wont speak, demands constant attenton.
After Aadam vountary weans hmsef from Durgas breasts, Pcture Sngh hears of
a man n Bombay who cams to be the greatest snake charmer n the word.
Determned to chaenge the man, Pcture Sngh sets oh for Bombay wth Saeem
and Aadam.
When they arrve n Bombay, Saeem dscovers that Bombay has changed
competey. The three go to the Mdnte-Condenta Cub, a secret, underground
cub that caters to the cream of Bombays socety. A bnd woman eads them to a
room where they wat for the other charmer. A ght comes on, and Pcture Snghs
opponent, the Mahara|a of Cooch Naheen, comes out. The two due for a ong tme,
ther snakes cong and dancng, unt the younger man begns to fater, and one of
Pcture Snghs snakes wraps tsef around hs neck. Pcture Sngh coapses after hs
vctory and s carred out. In a back room, they are gven food to eat. Saeem takes
a bte of chutney and nstanty recognzes the avor. He nds out that the Braganze
Pcke factory, ocated n the north of town, makes ths partcuar chutney. Locatng
the factory, Saeem waks up to the gate and meets Padma for the rst tme. He
asks to see the manager and hears hs name caed out. He ooks up and sees Mary
Perera, the ony famy he has eft.
Saeem recounts what had happened to Mary. She now ves at the top of the od
h, n the manson but by the Narkar women. Her room occupes the same space
Saeems room used to occupy. Mary owes the entre busness to her sster, who
convnced the Narkar women to nvest n Marys chutney. Fnay, Saeems son,
Aadam, begns to say hs rst word: abracadabra.
Saeem descrbes the pcke |ars. He screws the d on the ast one, and ttes t
"Abracadabra." Saeem decdes that he w now wrte the future, and he descrbes
hs death. On the day of hs weddng, hs body breaks and fas apart, reducng hm
to 600 mon specks of dust.
Analysis
In order for Saeem to reach Bombay and dscover Mary, one na batte for
supremacy must take pace. Pcture Sngh, who cams to be words greatest snake
charmer, takes hs meager savngs and traves to Bombay to assert hs tte. There
can ony be one greatest, accordng to Pcture Sngh, and he s wng to sacrce
everythng to prove t. He succeeds n provng hs sks, but ony after he teray
descends nto a word of darkness, and neary destroys hmsef n the process.
Pcture Snghs vctory s utmatey a defeat, or a adder that becomes a snake.
Even n ts na moments, fe proves to be ambguous and fu of rones.
"Abracadabra" proves a ttng tte for the noves na chapter, snce the chapter s
as much about the contnued presence of magc as anythng ese. As Aadam Snas
rst word, t suggests that, despte everythng that has happened-the wars, the
tragc deaths, and the chaotc potca turmo-the next generaton of mdnghts
chdren retan the magc of potenta, and the abty to change the word. In
Aadams mouth, t becomes a word of deance, accumuated over the months of
sent stenng that marked the rst three years of hs fe. A sense of cautous hope
pervades the ast chapter. Saeem s set to marry Padma, and n her strong body, he
sees a cker of hope that hs own, cracked body mght somehow be preserved.
Perhaps, armed wth Padma and wth ove, he wont dsntegrate and be consumed
after a.
Despte a the changes and exes he has undergone, Saeem ends up amost
exacty where he began: at a house on Methwods Estate, hs son n the care of
Mary Perera, |ust as he was once n her care hmsef. Saeem has succeeded n
teng hs story, thereby preservng t for hs son, |ust as frut gets preserved for
chutney. That nta optmsm s tempered, however, by Saeems na prophecy,
whch sps out n a stream of conscousness. Imagnng hs future, Saeem sees
hmsef fang apart on hs brthday and crumbng nto mons of specks of dust,
|ust as hs grandfather Aadam crumbed nto dust n hs tme. Saeems brthday s,
of course, the annversary of hs natons ndependence. Crumbng nto dust
becomes a symboc act of both exhauston and unty. Havng gven everythng he
has wthn hm-not ony through hs fe, but through the teng of hs story as we
-Saeem can surrender hmsef, dssovng nto a metaphor for hs naton, as he
crumbes nto as many peces of dust as there are peope n Inda.
1. What roe does regous magery pay n the nove?
Answer for Study Oueston 1 >>
Inda, gven ts ong and compcated hstory, has been nuenced by amost every
ma|or regon, from Buddhsm and Isam to Cathocsm and Hndusm. Throughout
the nove, Rushde ncorporates eements from each regon, often borrowng
mages and names from specc regous narratves. Hs characters themseves
represent a wde range of regous faths. Saeem grows up n a Musm famy, whe
Shva s Hndu. Saeems ayah, Mary, s a devout Cathoc. In addton to regous
ausons, Saeem frequenty compares hmsef and hs narratve to regous texts.
At tmes, he compares hmsef to Mohammed, Moses, Ganesh, and the Buddha. Hs
magca brth recas the propheszed brth of |esus Chrst, and two of hs parenta
gures, Mary Perera and |oseph DCosta, share names wth |esus parents. Through
hs frequent regous comparsons, Saeem makes an argument on behaf of hs
story. He s askng the reader to have fath n hs verson of hstory, despte ts aws,
shortcomngs, and naccuraces.
In addton to exatng hs narratve, Saeems frequent references to regous
magery aso become an argument for regous toerance and acceptance. There
are a number of regons n Inda, none better or worse than any other. By makng
every regon a part of hs narratve, Rushde decares that Inda, ke Saeem, s a
composte of a these faths. Each one has payed a dstnct roe n shapng the
country, |ust as each has shaped Saeem. They are ntertwned and nextrcabe
from one another.
2. What s the sgncance of Saeems adopton of Parvat-the-wtchs son?
Answer for Study Oueston 2 >>
Aadam Sna w be rased by someone who s not hs boogca father, |ust as
Saeem was. Despte the absence of a boogca connecton, nks reman between
past and present. Saeem has the nose and eyes of hs grandfather, Aadam Azz,
and Saeems son, wth hs enormous ears, w bear the name of hs great-
grandfather. Hstory w come fu crce, and the famy egacy and name w
contnue nto the next generaton.
After reveang the truth of hs brth, Saeem says he remaned hs parents son, and
nothng coud change that. Legtmacy, n other words, s not a matter of boogca
fact, but of beef. Saeem, despte the mssng boogca connecton, coud not be
any more, or ess, hs parents son. Aadam Azz s hs grandfather, and that s where
hs story begns, because that s the hstory he has nherted. The same w of
course be true for hs son. Aadam Sna, ke Saeem before hm, w nhert a past
and a name that w beong to hm because tme and hstory have sancted t.
Truth, ke the famy tsef, s created. Each s determned as much by fath as by
fact.
In addton, the tenson between knees and nose, destructon and creaton, s
brought to a symboc concuson by Saeems decson to rase the son of hs enemy.
Saeems adopton of Shvas son s an act of unty and ove, one that has the abty
to unmake a of the damage of the past and create a new future. Aadam snt
bessed wth enormous knees or an enormous nose, but somethng uttery new,
ears, thereby further sgnang the concuson of the rvary and tenson between
knees and nose.
3. How does Rushdes narratve stye reect the noves ntentons?
Answer for Study Oueston 3 >>
Rushde empoys a number of dherent terary technques and styes n the teng
of Saeems story. The nove s at once funny, dark, ronc, aegorca, and hstorca.
The anguage ranges from cooqua sang to the eoquenty yrca. Sentences
stretch for over a page, whe one word after another s nked by a hyphen. Saeem
even empoys a whoe new set of terary terms that he has nvented to hep expan
hs nove. He stretches and breaks grammatca rues n the creaton of a new type
of sentence. In addton, there s an obvous reatonshp between Rushdes prose
and the cnema, an mportant part of Bombay cuture. Saeem often descrbes hs
fe n cnematc terms, and on more than one occason, hs perspectve mrrors that
of a camera hoverng above the andscape.
By empoyng so many dherent technques and stye, Rushde attempts to wrte a
nove as arge and grand as ts sub|ect matter, Inda. The od terary technques and
styes are nsumcent and ncapabe of capturng the newy ndependent country
wth ts massve popuaton, enormous andscape, mutpe regons and varous
anguages, not to menton a hstory that stretches back to the very dawn of
cvzaton. It s aso ony ttng that a postcoona nove wrtten n Engsh attempts
to forge a new terary tradton and voce that s unquey Indan, and that n ts very
character, espouses the puraty of voces that make up the country.
"istorical Context
-ndian -nde%endence
European nterest n Inda as a source for materas and abor goes back to the
1490s, when Portuga won excusve rghts to the ucratve markets and contnued
through contro ganed by the Dutch East Inda Company, whch broke the
Portuguese monopoy n the begnnng of the seventeenth century. The East Inda
Company, an unomca arm of the Brtsh government, mpnged on the Dutch,
ghtng a seres of battes for contro of dherent areas of Inda, eventuay
consodatng contro n the 1750s. The country was under Brtsh contro for the
next two centures.
After the formaton of the Indan Natona Congress n 1885, protests aganst Brtsh
rue became ncreasngy common. Natonastc partes were dstracted, however,
by the rse of ethnc and regous groups wthn the country, such as the Musm
League, formed n 1906. In-ghtng between Musms and Hndus dverted attenton
from the genera protest aganst the Brtsh.
After Word War I, Mohandas K. Gandh (1869-1948), an Indan natonast and
sprtua eader who preached non-voent protest, aunched a movement to resst
Brtan, based on noncooperaton and the refusa to buy Brtsh goods. The Brtsh
|aed Gandh from 1922 to 1924, but he went on to revve the ndependence
movement, successfuy eadng the peope of Inda n cv dsobedence. He
convnced Indans to refuse to pay Brtsh taxes, partcuary the tax on sat, and, to
ca attenton to the pght of hs peope, he fasted to near starvaton.
Weakened by Word War II, Brtan determned that t coud no onger ght to contro
Inda and agreed to gve up contro. The Brtsh government arranged to renqush
a command over the area at mdnght on August 15, 1947: the very moment that
the narrator of Midnight*s Children was born. At that tme, the terrtory was
parttoned between Inda to the west and a new country, Pakstan, to the east, wth
the regon of Kashmr eft open for dspute. Aso freed from Brtsh rue at that tme
were Burma (ater caed Myanmar) and Ceyon (ater caed Sr Lanka).
-ndo-Pa)istani !ar
The partton of Inda and Pakstan was foowed by massve rots n both countres,
resutng n mons of deaths. The exact detas concernng the countres dened by
the Brtsh upon ther departure were consdered matters of dspute. On October 20,
1962, Inda was attacked aong ts ong border wth Chna n the Hmaayas, osng
the border terrtory n a batte that asted roughy a month (the border terrtory
remaned n dspute nto the eary 2000s). Pakstan mtary eaders took ths defeat
as a sgn that Inda was weak. They aso beeved that there was massve
dssatsfacton n the Kashmr terrtory aganst Indan rue. On August 5, 1965,
Pakstan sent an estmated 30,000 troops nto Kashmr, encouragng the Kashmr
peope to rse up for ndependence from Inda. Indan forces of equa strength
entered Kashmr August 15. In September, when Pakstan forces attacked the town
of Ackhnur, Inda attacked drecty aganst Pakstan, begnnng a quck and boody
conct, though no forma decaraton of war was ever ssued. By September 22, the
Unted Natons arranged a cease-re, whch both sdes sgned.
Sx years ater, n 1971, the two countres were at war agan. The conct came
about because Pakstan had been created n two dstnct terrtores: East Pakstan,
whch was mxed ethncay and ncuded Pun|abs, Sndhs, Pathans, Baochs,
Moha|rs, and more, and West Pakstan, whch was mosty Benga. In 1970, n the
rst genera eectons snce Independence, a Benga eader, Shekh Mu|bur
Rehman, ed hs party to vctory n natona eectons; rather than gve n to
democratc rue the country eaders decared a state of emergency and |aed the
shekh. Months of boody rots ed to a pan to gve the Bengas a separate and n
East Pakstan. Eght to ten mon refugees ed over the border nto Inda. Reazng
a crss, Indan Prme Mnster Indra Gandh (1917-84) decared war n December
1971.
Though the Pakstan mtary counted on a conct wth Inda endng n a staemate
as the 1965 conct had, they were qucky and decsvey defeated. The Indan
Army chef, Genera Sam Maneckshaw, drove nto Pakstan and secured the country
n a matter of weeks. Shekh Mu|bar was estabshed as prme mnster of the new
country, Bangadesh, formery East Pakstan.
-ndira andhi
Indra Gandh (1917-1984), the prme mnster of Inda whe ths nove was beng
wrtten n the 1970s, was not, as Rushde mentons, reated to the freedom eader
Mohandas K. Gandh. She was the daughter of |awahara Nehru, who had been a
dscpe of Gandh and became the rst prme mnster when Inda ganed ts
ndependence. She grew up n a househod surrounded by the most powerfu gures
n Indan potcs and marred Feroze Gandh, a potcan who ded n 1960. In 1964,
Indra Gandh was eected to Parament, and n 1966, when the prme mnster ded
suddeny of a heart attack, she was nomnated as a canddate whom the power
brokers coud easy contro. After her eecton, she became ercey ndependent,
rung the country from 1966 to 1977, and agan from 1980 to 1984.
Com%are C Contrast
;D?EsA Newy freed from coona rue, Inda has a poor but promsng
economy. Indan busnessmen, takng contro of ther own country, pattern
ther methods after those of the Europeans.
;DFEsA After decades of msgovernment, Inda's economy s consdered
weak, makng a country of 683 mon peope one of the word's poorest
natons.
5odayA The Indan economy s growng at an mpressve rate, as gobazaton
makes t possbe for |obs from anywhere n the word to be outsourced to
workers n Inda.
;D?EsA Tensons are hgh between the Hndu ma|orty of Inda and the Musm
ma|orty of Pakstan, eadng to a successon of treates that nay gves way
to a-out war n 1965.
;DFEsA Havng tested a nucear devce n 1974, Inda s a member of the
sma group of goba nucear powers. Pakstan proposes a non-nucear treaty
wth Inda but s ater found to be conductng research nto budng nucear
bombs.
5odayA As recenty as 2002, Inda and Pakstan have come to the verge of
nucear war.
;D?EsA The Indan m ndustry, n busness snce the turn of the century,
gans nternatona attenton as prestgous drectors such as Satya|t Ray and
Rtwk Ghatak present ther works at the prestgous Cannes Fm Festva.
;DFEsA Concentrated n Bombay, the m ndustry, ncknamed "Boywood,"
becomes a commerca powerhouse.
5odayA Boywood ms are vewed wordwde. Inda produces more ms than
any other country.
;D?EsA Beggng n the streets of a arge cty ke Bombay or New Deh s a
fu-tme professon for thousands f not mons.
;DFEsA The hoards of beggars that descend on toursts n Inda are egendary
and are a standard part of trave books.
5odayA Laws are enacted to curta beggng n the streets.
Gandh was mmensey popuar wth the Indan peope mmedatey foowng the
1971 vctory over Pakstan, but soca condtons soon changed that. By 1973 there
were demonstratons across the country aganst Inda's terrbe economc stuaton.
In |une 1975 Inda's hgh court found Gandh guty of campagn rreguartes and
ordered her to resgn her poston. Instead, Gandh decared a state of emergency:
the consttuton was suspended, the press was suppressed, and potca opponents
were |aed. Condent that she had successfuy suppressed the opposton, she
caed for eectons n 1977, but her party ended up osng bady. In 1980, though,
she was reeected. She was assassnated n 1984 by her bodyguards, and her son,
Ra|v Gandh (1944-91), was sworn n as the new prme mnster.