Midnight's children

Finally, I have ended Midnight's children.

The story of me reading this book is not as fascinating as the book itself but it does require a mention. When i first came to US in Aug 2007, i had completed part one of this book. For those who dont know, the book has three parts. Life became hectic so i had to leave the book. Last month, I went home and while coming i again started reading the book again from page 1. This time i started early but by the time i landed in US, i had finished part 2 of the book. And then again it was unopened for 3 weeks. The thoughts of another India trip just to finish the book were coming up but they were put to rest by the fact that i wanted to know how it ended. And so i have finished it now.

General disclaimer: When i write about movies, about songs and sometimes about books, i am not writing any reviews. I am merely giving my opinion on the subject and how i perceived it. This is very different from what a review should be and what i write is precisely not a review.

Midnight's Children is a very good book to read. It is storytelling at one of its best. Salman Rushdie manages to combine Indian history with a fantasy story and writes a fascinating tale. The genre of writing fiction which combines real historical facts with an unrealistic unrationale fantasy (magic powers etc) was very difficult for me to get accustomed to. Salman (and others like him such as Marquez) write the historical facts so beautifully with so much attention to detail that everything is believable. But then they infuse text like magic, wizardry etc that i know are completely untrue but they write about these unrationale things with the same beauty and preciseness that sometimes those historical facts itself seem unreal.

But once i got comfortable with the genre and read the factual and unrationale with same sensibility, the book was a joy to read. Born at the stroke of midnight at 15 Aug 1947, these children's lives are tied with the development of India and the crux of the story is the correlation between Indian historical facts and the children's lives. Saleem Sinai, the protagonist narrates that how the atom bomb test, the war to liberate Bangladesh, elections, Indira Gandhi's emergency etc how it was all done to effect his life in one way of another. In other way, how he was responsible for all of them.

And i could have also related to Saleem in many levels. I have my own story that how i was responsible for so many things as i have grown. To mention just a few :

2002-2006, I did my engineering from NSIT. Before and leading to 2002 NSIT was on a rise but as soon as i entered, the current director was expelled, NSIT was under govt. scrutiny for financial frauds. By the time i left, the director was a RSS leader who later will be caught of having plagiarised verbatim two of his papers and will be forced to resign.

2006: My first job, i go and work for trilogy. Just before i start to work, the company is split into two. After i join, they change their work culture, implement bad decisions one after the another, the company starts making losses, no bonuses, no recruitments, attrition, people getting fired etc. By the time i leave they have combined their two floor office into one floor and after merely 2 years they will close their entire India operations.

I come to US to start my masters. The day i land in atlatna, it is officialy announced that there is drought in the whole state. During my stay the nation gets a trillion dollar deficit, their president has the worst ratings ever and they are performing badly in the two wars.

The moment i leave the country to visit back home, a black man swears an oath to become the new president and there is hope all around. While back at home, I am staying in Jharkhand and President's rule is declared there. As soon as i come back in US, the number of people jobless is at an all time high. Companies are firing people left and right and they are fearing it the next great depression.


If Saleem Sinai can say that what happened in India after 15 Aug 1947, he was responsible for it. Just his mere presence had tirggered wars, famines, elections etc. In the same way i can also say that all that has happened after June 1985, it is because I was present and it had to be the way it turned out to be.