Yes. The clock has stricken. The countdown has ended.
And finally I am not me anymore. I am two. The one before and the one after.
“Yes, they will
trample me underfoot, the numbers marching one two three, four hundred million
five hundred six, reducing me to specks of voiceless dust, just as , all in
good time , they will trample my son who is not my son, and his son who will
not be his, and his who will not be his, until the thousand and first
generation, until a thousand and one midnights have bestowed their terrible
gifts and a thousand and one children have died, because it’s the privilege and
the curse of midnight’s children to be both masters and victims of their times,
to forsake privacy and be sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of multitudes,
and to be unable to live or die in peace.”
Many ‘times’ stolen out from hundreds of over packed
schedules over the past one year had been used in trying to read and comprehend
the whole idea called the “Midnight’s Children”. It is only then I realised
that the above last lines come closer than anything to describing for real the
many multitudes of the book.
I started it as a fantasy novel (at least that was
the impression of the first few chapters), of a story being narrated back in
the timeline, of a story that begins one morning by the side of a lake in
Kashmir. There was no getting away from the time and date, the date of Saleem’s
birth: The stroke of Midnight, 15th of August 1947. Even then,
Rushdie’s magic forces you to concentrate on things and events that that so
seamlessly swing back and forth in reference, in importance to everything going
on.
Towards the middle, slowly the realistic, historical side to the
story begins to unfold. I recall here the movie “Butterfly Effect”, where
everything, even the flutter of a wing, is said to have profound consequences.
Every little move, or thought in Saleem’s soul is tied to the story of India.
India is Saleem and Saleem is India. How the author manages, in spite of
weaving fiction, reality, history-all into India’s path breaking events in the
Timeline, adding to that his own take and views on every situation is beyond
comprehension. It’s like walking on a tightrope with a fire beneath. Pure
mastery!
It was only when I was into my last few chapters did I realise (from some other 3rd source though) that MC is not only the book with all that hype; it is also a loose albeit fantastical biography of some events in Rushdie’s life. A total full circle.
I had to admit. Midnight’s children is THE book to read. A surreal magic realism. A total tangent to everything that is India and everything that it is not. All through the eyes of a young man’s life.
It was only when I was into my last few chapters did I realise (from some other 3rd source though) that MC is not only the book with all that hype; it is also a loose albeit fantastical biography of some events in Rushdie’s life. A total full circle.
I had to admit. Midnight’s children is THE book to read. A surreal magic realism. A total tangent to everything that is India and everything that it is not. All through the eyes of a young man’s life.
“Reality is a question of
perspective; the further you get from the past,
the more concrete and plausible
it seems-but as you approach the present,
It inevitably seems more
and more incredible..”
-Palash
November’2012,
Lumding.
