Midnight's Children

Have given a write-up about this novel in my company's random fun activity, supposedly.

Midnight’s Children

One can easily get the plot from internet. I wouldn’t talk about the plot, but things that actually make this book a masterpiece and why the author of this book deserves all the accolades and awards that he received.

To start with, I was thinking about what genre this book can be classified into. I really couldn’t decide on that. So checked on Wikipedia and it classifies this book into a Genre called Magic Realism. This genre category is the closest fit for this book, but it is way beyond it. How? I will make an attempt to explain the beauty hidden in this book of 500 odd pages.

There is no limit on how deep a human mind can think. And in this depth of imagination, the variation and intent is what makes that imagination unimaginable. Putting India on the world map, this is a very boldly written piece of work, way back in 80’s, coming from a man who is not just way ahead of his generation in terms of thinking, but also very controversial, delightfully different, outspoken individual called Salman Rushdie. I would recommend a 2-min Wikipedia read on this novelist-par-excellence.

Through the central character Saleem Sinai, the evolving story of young India is narrated. It takes us through the pre-independence days to the partition of India to the congress rule of 3 decades to the emergency and finally to the socio-political challenges left open for the next generations. This central character happens to be born on the stroke of midnight of 15^th August 1947, when India was gifted with independence. Saleem Sinai is gifted with telepathic dripping nose, using which he can sniff others’ minds. He later discovers that all children born in India close to the midnight of independence are gifted with some or the other special powers. Saleem attempts to discover the meaning of their gifts and acts as the convener, brining all these hundreds of diversely talented children together and fight the issues that the young nation is facing. Other than this, he himself gets involved in some of the major events (either by luck or by ignorance or sometimes due to boredom) that shaped the nation after independence. He goes through many geographical shifts across India due to wars, family business, and personal differences; and gets to sniff more and more minds over the course of time, thereby getting an essence of things to come. He even suffers from loss of memory for some good amount of time during one of the critical missions of Indian Army, and later on, getting it back, with the help of one of his childhood friends. As the Emergency is declared in the young country by a dynamic woman Prime Minister, all that is left for Saleem is to put the pieces of his life together and make some sense out if it, so that he could write a chronicle about the young evolving nation and his personal life, for his son, who also is gifted with similar powers.

This is a rough and a brief plot of the novel. What is important here is that every single aspect that he talks about has a greater significance than just being a mere event, for instance the convention of the Midnight’s Children is a reflection of the religious, political, economic, cultural, linguistic issues that India faced in its early statehood.

Some interesting trivia about this book that I gathered from the internet after I finished reading:

·         In 1984 Indira Gandhi brought an action against the book in the British courts, claiming to have been defamed by a single sentence in chapter 28, penultimate paragraph, in which her son Sanjay Gandhi is said to have had a hold over his mother by him accusing her of contributing to his father's death through her neglect. The case was settled out of court when Salman Rushdie agreed to remove the offending sentence

·         It was awarded the 1981 Booker Prize, the English Speaking Union Literary Award, and it was awarded the James Tait Prize. It also was awarded the “Best of the Booker” prize twice, in 1993 and 2008 (this was an award given out by the Booker committee to celebrate the 25th and 40th anniversary of the award).

·         BBC was planning to film this novel with Rahul Bose in the lead but the project was cancelled due to pressure from the Muslim Community.

·         Deepa Mehta is working on a film called Winds of Change, collaborating with Rushdie on the screenplay, with an excellent star cast, slated to release in 2012.

·         Saleem Sinai’s (This character is roughly based on early life of Salman Rushdie) would-be in this novel is named Padma. And in real life, Salman Rushdie’s fourth wife is Padma Lakshmi, whom he married 2 decades after the novel’s release. Sheer coincidence or some fascination with the name Padma? Only the man knows J

Be grateful to exist

There are times when one should feel greatful to just exist, to be alive, to breathe, to live in a different era, to know that present is different from the past, to realize that these times are more merrier, to have access to information, to understand and accept the reality, to lead a life with basic rights in place, to not witness atrocities, to realize that common sense has taken precedence over insanity in this world.

There are times when words don't really do justice in expressing certain thoughts. Very rarely does a movie leaves an impression deep and powerful in peoples' minds for some meaningful amount of time. A different magnitude of feelings take over the usual self. The feeling of discomfort, righteousness, pity mixed with sorrow, grit, anger, sadness.

Schindler's List. A gem of a movie. Salute to the team who made this movie. Should have watched it many years ago. But the unintentional delay was really worth. Probably bcoz I watched it in a place which is more relevant. Probably.

Raging fire of discontent

Anger, frustration, disappointment. Suck it up!

Fame, satisfaction, relief. Cannot elude me any more

Plan. Yes, I have
When. An year
How. By working my ass off
Serious. I can’t be fooling myself, can I?
Why now. To undo 27 years of shame
Holy crap. Go kid yourself
Fire will be doused after a while. Not if you have kerosene with you
Art work, show biz, marketing, innovation or just some luck. How does it matter.
Any influence of alcohol while you talk all this. Absolutely not

Well then, good luck is all that I can say. Don’t need Luck, thanks anyways.

I just figured it out

What if you find out you have leukemia and death is closing in? What if the 2012 hoopla is true? What if you realize you have wasted your life obeying your parents and not listening to yourself?

What if you know you are not enjoying what you are doing, yet forced to enjoy? What if you find out all that you have been doing these years is just submitting yourself against your own will?

What if you find out you have friends, lots of them, yet you are all alone, you are all by yourself?

What if you realize time is a bitch? It is something that keeps changing all the time. Nothing, nothing around you is going to be what it is today, tomorrow. What if you realize things which are keeping you happy now may not keep you happy tomorrow?

Whatever is the shape of tomorrow, what is known for certain is that the present has got a shape and it's beautiful. Appreciate the present and beauty will only get better with time. There is no way tomorrow will turn out to be a damp squib from the state it is in today. I am doing just that - relaxing on the terrace at 2 AM, piercing the cool breeze, listening to some random slow Hindi songs, sharing a cigarette with Ash and blogging my way to sanity. I am just appreciating the present.

Life is a long journey. It tends to get boring sometimes. There are some occasions when you don't really mind this boredom. You discover there's something about being a lazy bum, being a philosopher, being a rebel, being a loser, being just yourself. All we need to do is just figure out what that something is.

Long term plan? – What the heck

Today one of my friends asked me over a chat casually about my long term plans. My response was as one would expect: ‘Haven’t thought about it’.

I wonder if that qualifies to be a question at all. I heard people talking about having a clear long term plan in place in order to go in the right direction in life. Heard people talking about having a vision in life, having a clear mind, being stable in life, taking calculated risks in life, making a niche for yourself, earning respect and status in the society, keeping your parents happy and what not.

I have a question. Do we really need to be that ‘clear-minded’, ‘nice’ and ‘good’?

I have got no long term plans. Forget about long term, not even short term plans. I don’t plan. ‘Plan’ is a meaningless, made-up, self-satisfying word which has got significance only in a virtual world. No wonder it’s often used by the so-called managers. I even heard people talking about pre-plan. What the hell is this anyway? Plan before you plan? Give me a break.

Live in the present. Live real. Do what you want. Give a shit about what is to be done. Do what makes you happy. Don’t think. Thinking leads to complications. Complications are annoying.

Life is simple and it's ought to be lived that way.

Gasping for air

It’s all about money. It’s all about pride. It’s all about show-off. It’s all about everything except ‘following your heart’. Why do people pretend? Why do people fake? Why do people brag? Why? Why? Why?

Society, People, Conventions – Fuck them all.

I am sick of the set up, sick of things around me, sick of the routine, sick of life. I have felt like this many times before but never for so long as this time. All that I want to do is look at the person and give a sarcastic smile and say ‘Go Fuck Yourself’ but since I live in this wonderful meaningless brainless set up called society, I just give a smile (fake one that is).

I am choked. I need some air.

I am Amused

This world is full of people who never seem to miss a chance to amuse me.

While I am writing this post, I am travelling by train to my home town (a much needed break).

Right from the person (who has a headphone and not using it) whose answer when asked politely “Can I use your headphone please?” is surprisingly, a straight “No” (with no hesitation what so ever) to the person (a serious looking aged government employee) who is giving me “Oh – one of those another IT guys” looks to the person who is enquiring my pay package, my marital status and parental income to the person who is making valiant efforts to talk in an accented English (which by the way is irritatingly annoying) to the person who is sharing stories of his past emotional linkages (or should I say romantic illusions) to the person who is sleeping and shouting (It would be unfair to call such high volume synchronization ‘snoring’) like a Godzilla to the person who is talking on phone so loud as if he is on a mission to cause some serious damage to the network signal receiver system to the person (dressed in white) who is singing praises of Sai Baba; everyone,  every single person so far, in this remarkable train journey, seems to be doing their bit to amuse me, entertain me.

Why and how do I convey to this world that I don’t need any entertainment, I don’t need any amusement. It makes my belief even stronger that I don’t belong to this world.  I don’t get angry at anything anymore.  I have reached a stage of such discontent where anger has alienated itself from my emotions. I demand peace. When will the time come when common sense takes precedence over stupidity in this world?