Summary: A Wedding
Saleem describes how Parvati succeeded in getting him
to marry her, on February 23, 1975. Having heard of Saleem’s impotence,
Parvati decides to take her fate into her own hands. Using a magical
spell, she summons Shiva to her. Not knowing why, Shiva becomes
compelled to come to the ghetto.
Saleem describes Shiva’s career for us. Following the
war, Shiva becomes a national hero. He grows more refined and sophisticated and
develops a reputation as a great lover and seducer. Soon, women
from the highest echelon of society are devising ways to have affairs
with him. They tuck secret notes into their toes, drop handbags,
and spill drinks. A number of illicit children are born from his
affairs, although he falls out of love with any woman who bears
his child. One woman, angry and bitter, approaches him during a
horse race and tells him that he’s become the laughingstock of all
the rich women. After this revelation, Shiva grows uncomfortable
in his new life and becomes unintentionally cruder than ever.
After Parvati casts her spell and brings Shiva to the
ghetto, Shiva takes her back to his barracks. The two are briefly
happy until, on September 12, she tells him she’s pregnant with
his child. Their relationship grows violent, and Shiva begins to
sleep with prostitutes, siring a line of poor illegitimate children
to match his earlier line of rich ones. Meanwhile, the political
situation grows darker, as students and workers begin protesting
government corruption. The protests lead to the development of an
opposition party, the People’s Front. Parvati releases Shiva from
her spell and he promptly returns her to the ghetto, where she finds
Saleem and Picture Singh running from tear gas, launched by the
police during a political rally.
In the magician’s ghetto, everyone shuns Parvati because
of her pregnancy. Picture Singh suggests again that Saleem marry
her, and Saleem finds himself unable to ignore his plea—fully aware
of the fact that, since Shiva is Ahmed and Amina’s true son, Parvati’s
child will be his parents’ true grandchild. Parvati converts to
Islam and becomes Laylah, and the magicians perform incredible feats
after the wedding ceremony.
While public dissent with the government grows, so does
Parvati’s stomach. On June 12, at 2 p.m.—the exact moment the prime minister
is convicted of campaign malpractice—Parvati goes into a labor that
lasts thirteen days. Her labor pains correspond to political events
involving the prime minister, until finally, at midnight on June
25, the prime minister declares a State of Emergency, allowing her
to arrest her opposition and censor the press. At the same moment,
Parvati’s child is being born, and Saleem laughs hysterically at
the sight of his son’s enormous, floppy ears. Saleem describes the
boy as a grave, good-natured child who refuses to cry. Saleem wonders
if his long-held belief in the intimate connection between the nation
and the individual has leaked into the prime minister’s mind, since
her new slogan has become “India is Indira and Indira is India.”
Saleem gives a brief synopsis of Indira’s life, including a description
of her husband’s death, and the prominent role her son Sanjay played
in the sterilization campaign of 1975. He points out that, in 1975,
Indira had been a widow for fifteen years.
Summary: Midnight
Saleem says he can’t go on with the story, but that he
must. He struggles to find the right words, trying to tell it as
a dream, but then stops and decides to tell it directly. He says
that the winter of 1975–76 brought with it an endless darkness.
His son, Aadam, suffers from tuberculosis, and neither he nor Parvati
can cure the boy. Saleem insists that, as long as the Emergency
lasts, his son will be ill. Parvati tries to make Aadam cry by using
magic, but instead he holds in all of his sound. Meanwhile, the
government alters the constitution, giving the prime minister nearly
unlimited power. Saleem can smell danger in the air.
