Midnight's Children ppt.pdf - MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN BY SALMAN...

MIDNIGHT’S
CHILDREN BY
SALMAN
RUSHDIE
- - N A R E N D R A K U M A R , P H D

PERFORATED SHEET: SELF-
REFLEXIVITY, FANTASY AND HISTORY
•
Aadam Ajeez: German returned, given up praying suddenly to create a large hole
(vacuum) making him vulnerable to women and history
Nakku with a nose to start dynasties with, a promise that fails to materialize
(’Mughal Emperors would have given their right hands for noses like that one. There are
dynasties waiting inside it…like snot” (kin loc 302)
‘On my mother, it looked noble and a little long suffering; on my aunt Emerald, snobbish;
on my aunt Alia, intellectual; on my uncle Hanif it was an organ of an unsuccessful
genius; my uncle Mustapha made it a second rater’s sniffer; the Brass Monkey escaped
it completely; but on me – on me, it was something else again’ (kin loc 308).
•
Tai: the voice of antiquity inhering an element of fantastic

ANTIQUITY AND FANTASY
•
Response to the question (‘No, tell, Taiji, how old, truly ? (kin loc 345)):
•
Tai in ‘brandy voice and words more intoxicating than booze’ (kin loc 351) –
•
‘How old? You ask how old, you little wet-head, you nosey…’ (kin loc 351) … ‘So old,
nakkoo!’… ‘I have watched the mountains being born; I have seen Emperors die. Listen.
Listen. nakkoo...’ […] I saw that Isa, that Christ, when he came to Kashmir’ […] ‘Nakkoo,
listen, listen. I have seen plenty. Yara, you should’ve seen that Isa when he came, beard down
to his balls, bald as an egg on his head. He was old and fagged-out but he knew his manners.
“You first, Taiji,” he’d say, and “Please to sit”; always a respectful tongue, he never call me
crackpot, never called me to either. Always aap . Polite, see? And what an appetite! Such a
hunger, I would catch my ears in fright. Saint or devil, I swear he could eat a whole kid in one
go. And so what? I told him, eat, fill your hole, a man comes to Kashmir to enjoy life, or to end
it, or both. His was was finished. He just came up hear to live it up a little’ […] (kin loc 348-