Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie [170]
I confess: what I did was no act of heroism. I did not battle Homi on horseback, with fiery eyes and flaming sword; instead, imitating the action of the snake, I began to cut pieces out of newspapers. From GOAN LIBERATION COMMITTEE LAUNCHES SATYAGRAHA CAMPAIGN I extracted the letters “COM”; SPEAKER OF E-PAK ASSEMBLY DECLARED MANIAC gave me my second syllable, “MAN.” I found “DER” concealed in NEHRU CONSIDERS RESIGNATION AT CONGRESS ASSEMBLY; into my second word now, I excised “SAB” from RIOTS, MASS ARRESTS IN RED-RUN KERALA: SABOTEURS RUN AMOK: GHOSH ACCUSES CONGRESS GOONDAS, and got “ARM” from CHINESE ARMED FORCES’ BORDER ACTIVITIES SPURN BANDUNG PRINCIPLES. To complete the name, I snipped the letters “ATI” from DULLES FOREIGN POLICY IS INCONSISTENT, ERRATIC, P.M. AVERS. Cutting up history to suit my nefarious purposes, I seized on WHY INDIRA GHANDI IS CONGRESS PRESIDENT NOW and kept the “WHY”; but I refused to be tied exclusively to politics, and turned to advertising for the “DOES YOUR” in DOES YOUR CHEWING GUM LOSE ITS FLAVOR? BUT P. K. KEEPS ITS SAVOR! A sporting human-interest Story, MOHUN BAGAN CENTER-FORWARD TAKES WIFE, gave me its last word, and “GO TO” I took from the tragic MASSES GO TO ABUL KALAM AZAD’S FUNERAL. Now I was obliged to find my words in little pieces once again: DEATH ON SOUTH COL: SHERPA PLUNGES provided me with a much-needed “COL,” but “ABA” was hard to find, turning up at last in a cinema advertisement: ALI-BABA, SEVENTEENTH SUPERCOLOSSAL WEEK—PLANS FILLING UP FAST! … Those were the days when Sheikh Abdullah, the Lion of Kashmir, was campaigning for a plebiscite in his state to determine its future; his courage gave me the syllable “CAUSE,” because it led to this headline: ABDULLAH “INCITEMENT” CAUSE OF HIS RE-ARREST—GOVT SPOKESMAN. Then, too, Acharya Vinobha Bhave, who had spent ten years persuading landowners to donate plots to the poor in his bhoodan campaign, announced that donations had passed the million-acre mark, and launched two new campaigns, asking for the donations of whole villages (“gramdan”) and of individual lives (“jivandan”). When J. P. Narayan announced the dedication of his life to Bhave’s work, the headline NARAYAN WALKS IN BHAVE’S WAY gave me my much-sought “WAY.” I had nearly finished now; plucking an “ON” from PAKISTAN ON COURSE FOR POLITICAL CHAOS: FACTION STRIFE BEDEVILS PUBLIC AFFAIRS, and a “SUNDAY” from the masthead of the Sunday Blitz, I found myself just one word short. Events in East Pakistan provided me with my finale. FURNITURE HURLING SLAYS DEPUTY E-PAK SPEAKER: MOURNING PERIOD DECLARED gave me “MOURNING,” from which, deftly and deliberately, I excised the letter “u.” I needed a terminal question-mark, and found it at the end of the perennial query of those strange days: AFTER NEHRU, WHO?
In the secrecy of a bathroom, I glued my completed note—my first attempt at rearranging history—on to a sheet of paper; snake-like, I inserted the document in my pocket, like poison in a sac. Subtly, I arranged to spend an evening with Eyeslice and Hairoil. We played a game: “Murder in the Dark”.… During a game of murder, I slipped inside Commander Sabarmati’s almirah and inserted my lethal missive into the inside pocket of his spare uniform. At that moment (no point hiding it) I felt the delight of the snake who hits its target, and feels its fangs pierce its victim’s heel …
COMMANDER SABARMATI (my note read)
WHY DOES YOUR WIFE GO TO COLABA
CAUSEWAY ON SUNDAY MORNING?
No, I am no longer proud of what I did; but remember that my demon of revenge had two heads. By unmasking the perfidy of Lila Sabarmati, I hoped also to administer a salutary shock to my own