Emerald goes on to marry Major Zulfikar. At Emerald’s
wedding, Mumtaz and Ahmed Sinai—who had previously been courting
Alia, the eldest daughter—have a conversation. They eventually marry,
and Mumtaz changes her name to Amina Sinai.
Analysis
In these chapters, the private life of Saleem Sinai once
again coincides with the public life of India. Saleem claims that
his body is falling apart and that he’s destined to crumble into
approximately 630 million particles of “anonymous” dust. At the
time of Midnight’s Children’s publication, India’s
population stood at about 630 million. Born at the moment of India’s
independence, Saleem symbolizes modern India and conceives of himself
as a physical embodiment of India’s history. By claiming that he
will crumble into 630 million pieces, Saleem suggests that when
his body falls apart, he will release all of India. With the notion
that, in his individual body, Saleem contains a physical representation
of every single “anonymous” Indian citizen, Rushdie takes a symbolic
metaphor—Saleem as modern India—and makes it concrete. Saleem’s
bodily disintegration also reflects the literary fragmentation of
the novel as it skips haphazardly through time. Because Saleem’s
body seems doomed to collapse from the beginning, we might wonder
whether the narrative is destined to fall apart as well. Saleem’s
constant pleas for his story to be taken seriously cast further
doubt on the truthfulness of his account—and make Saleem an increasingly
unreliable narrator.
Once again, Padma urges the narrative forward, and we
jump to 1942 and what Saleem refers to as “the optimistic epidemic.”
The word epidemic suggests that the hope inspired
by Mian Abdullah is contagious, out of the ordinary, and potentially
dangerous. In the early 1940s, time has not only put a strain on
Aadam and Naseem’s relationship but on the country as well. Religious
strife is beginning to fill the air, and that tension takes violent
shape in the form of the crescent knives that kill Mian Abdullah.
The shape of the knives is particularly significant, since they
recall the crescent moon and star, which together serve as a symbol
of the Islamic faith. The knives silence Mian Abdullah’s optimistic
hum and symbolically destroy any hope for a unified India, postindependence.
The tension between religious pluralism and dogmatism can also be
seen in Aadam’s relationship with his wife, whose new name testifies,
in part, to her stubborn religious devotion. Reverend Mother remains dogmatic
in her faith, so much so that she is ready to watch her husband
die of starvation in order to defend her principles. And yet Saleem
comments that his grandmother, despite her convictions, remains
adrift in the universe. Her constant use of the word whatsitsname suggests
that Reverend Mother has increasing difficulty pinning down names
to objects or, by extension, meaning to reality.
At this point, members of Saleem’s extended family, including
his parents, aunts, and uncles, have all entered the story. The
silver spittoon of the Rani of Cooch Naheen, the impotence of Nadir
Khan, and the steely determination of Reverend Mother each play
an important role as the narrative progresses. That Reverend Mother breaks
her silence on the same day the United States drops the atomic bomb
on Japan not only repeats the continued theme of personal history
intersecting with political history, but it also illustrates the
significance of individual events in the history of a family.
