Salman Rushdie - Midnight's children

When I first introduced myself to Shiva, I saw in his mind the certifying image of a short, rat-faced youth with filed-down teeth and two of the biggest knees the world has ever seen.

Faced with a picture of such grotesque proportions, I allowed the smile on my own beaming image to wither a little; my outstretched hand began to falter and twitch. And Shiva, feeling my presence, reacted at first with utter rage; great boiling waves of anger scalded the inside of my head; but then, 'Hey-look-I know you! You're the rich kid from Methwold's Estate, isn't it?' And I, equally astonished, 'Winkle's son-the one who blinded Eyeslice!' His self-image puffed up with pride. 'Yah, yaar, that's me. Nobody messes with me, man!' Recognition reduced me to banalities: 'So! How's your father, anyway? He doesn't come round…' And he, with what felt very like relief: 'Him, man? My father's dead.'

A momentary pause; then puzzlement-no anger now-and Shiva, 'Lissen, yaar, this is damn good-how you doin' it?' I launched into my standard explanation, but after a few instants he interrupted, 'So! Lissen, my father said I got born at exactly midnight also-so don't you see, that makes us joint bosses of this gang of yours! Midnight is best, agreed? So-those other kids gotta do like we tell them!' There rose before my eyes the image of a second, and more potent, Evelyn Lilith Burns… dismissing this unkind notion, I explained, 'That wasn't exactly my idea for the Conference; I had in mind something more like a, you know, sort of loose federation of equals, all points of view given free expression…' Something resembling a violent snort echoed around the walls of my head. 'That, man, that's only rubbish. What we ever goin' to do with a gang like that? Gangs gotta have gang bosses. You take me-' (the puff of pride again) 'I been running a gang up here in Matunga for two years now. Since I was eight. Older kids and all. What d'you think of that?' And I, without meaning to, 'What's it do, your gang-does it have rules and all?' Shiva-laughter in my ears… 'Yah, little rich boy: one rule. Everybody does what I say or I squeeze the shit outa them with my knees!' Desperately, I continued to try and win Shiva round to my point of view: 'The thing is, we must be here for a purpose, don't you think? I mean, there has to be a reason, you must agree? So what I thought, we should try and work out what it is, and then, you know, sort of dedicate our lives to…' 'Rich kid,' Shiva yelled, 'you don't know one damn thing! What purpose, man? What thing in the whole sister-sleeping world got reason, yara? For what reason you're rich and I'm poor? Where's the reason in starving, man? God knows how many millions of damn fools living in this country, man, and you think there's a purpose! Man, I'll tell you-you got to get what you can, do what you can with it, and then you got to die. That's reason, rich boy. Everything else is only mother-sleeping wind!'

And now I, in my midnight bed, begin to shake… 'But history,' I say, 'and the Prime Minister wrote me a letter… and don't you even believe in… who knows what we might…' He, my alter ego, Shiva, butted in: 'Lissen, little boy-you're so full of crazy stuff, I can see I'm going to have to take this thing over. You tell that to all these other freak kids!'

Nose and knees and knees and nose… the rivalry that began that night would never be ended, until two knives slashed, downdown-down… whether the spirits of Mian Abdullah, whom knives killed years before, had leaked into me, imbuing me with the notion of loose federalism and making me vulnerable to knives, I cannot say; but at that point I found a measure of courage and told Shiva, 'You can't run the Conference; without me, they won't even be able to listen to you!'

And he, confirming the declaration of war: 'Rich kid, they'll want to know about me; you just try and stop me!'

'Yes,' I told him, I'll try.'

Shiva, the god of destruction, who is also most potent of deities; Shiva, greatest of dancers; who rides on a bull; whom no force can resist… the boy Shiva, he told us, had to fight for survival from his earliest days. And when his father had, about a year previously, completely lost his singing voice, Shiva had had to defend himself against Wee Willie Winkie's parental zeal. 'He blindfolded me, man! He wrapped a rag around my eyes an' took me to the roof of the chawl, man! You know what was in his hand? A sister-sleeping hammer, man! A hammer! Bastard was going to smash my legs up, man-it happens, you know, rich boy, they do it to kids so they can always earn money begging-you get more if you're all broken up, man! So I'm pushed over till I'm lying down on the roof, man; and then-' And then hammer swinging down towards knees larger and knobblier than any policeman's, an easy target, but now the knees went into action, faster than lightning the knees parted-felt the breath of the down-rushing hammer and spread wide apart; and then hammer plunging between knees, still held in his father's hand; and then, the knees rushing together like fists. The hammer, clattering harmlessly on concrete. The wrist of Wee Willie Winkie, clamped between the knees of his blindfolded son. Hoarse breaths escaping from the lips of the anguished father. And still the knees, closing ininin, tighter and tighter, until there is a snap. 'Broke his goddamn wrist, man! That showed him-damn fine, no? I swear!'

Shiva and I were born under Capricorn rising; the constellation left me alone, but it gave Shiva its gift. Capricorn, as any astrologer will tell you, is the heavenly body with power over the knees.

On election day, 1957, the All-India Congress was badly shocked. Although it won the election, twelve million votes made the Communists the largest single opposition party; and in Bombay, despite the efforts of Boss Patil, large numbers of electors failed to place their crosses against the Congress symbol of sacred-cow-and-suckling-calf, preferring the less emotive pictograms of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti and Maha Gujarat Parishad. When the Communist peril was discussed on our hillock, my mother continued to blush; and we resigned ourselves to the partition of the state of Bombay.

One member of the Midnight Children's Conference played a minor role in the elections. Winkle's supposed son Shiva was recruited by-well, perhaps I will not name the party; but only one party had really large sums to spend-and on polling day, he and his gang, who called themselves Cowboys, were to be seen standing outside a polling station in the north of the city, some holding long stout sucks, others juggling with stones, still others picking their teeth with knives, all of them encouraging the electorate to use its vote with wisdom and care… and after the polls closed, were seals broken on ballot-boxes? Did ballot-stuffing occur? At any rate, when the votes were counted, it was discovered that Qasim the Red had narrowly failed to win the seat; and my rival's paymasters were well pleased.

… But now Padma says, mildly, 'What date was it?' And, without thinking, I answer: 'Some time in the spring.' And then it occurs to me that I have made another error-that the election of 1957 took place before, and not after, my tenth birthday; but although I have racked my brains, my memory refuses, stubbornly, to alter the sequence of events. This is worrying. I don't know what's gone wrong.

She says, trying uselessly to console me: 'What are you so long for in your face? Everybody forgets some small things, all the time!'

But if small things go, will large things be close behind?

There was turmoil in Bombay in the months after the election; there is turmoil in my thoughts as I recall those days. My error has upset me badly; so now, to regain my equilibrium, I shall place myself firmly on the familiar ground of Methwold's Estate; leaving the history of the Midnight Children's Conference to one side, and the pain of the Pioneer Cafe to another, I shall tell you about the fall of Evie Burns.