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By Root 12093 0

was much more than a mere military parade; as befits a triumph, it was garlanded with side-shows. A special I.A.F. troop transport had flown to Dacca, carrying a hundred and one of the finest entertainers and conjurers India could provide. From the famous magicians’ ghetto in Delhi they came, many of them dressed for the occasion in the evocative uniforms of the Indian fauj, so that many Daccans got the idea that the Indians’ victory had been inevitable from the start because even their uniformed jawans were sorcerers of the highest order. The conjurers and other artistes marched beside the troops, entertaining the crowds; there were acrobats forming human pyramids on moving carts drawn by white bullocks; there were extraordinary female contortionists who could swallow their legs up to their knees; there were jugglers who operated outside the laws of gravity, so that they could draw oohs and aahs from the delighted crowd as they juggled with toy grenades, keeping four hundred and twenty in the air at a time; there were card-tricksters who could pull the queen of chiriyas (the monarch of birds, the empress of clubs) out of women’s ears; there was the great dancer Anarkali, whose name meant “pomegranate-bud,” doing leaps twists pirouettes on a donkey-cart while a giant piece of silver nose-jewelery jingled on her right nostril; there was Master Vikram the sitarist, whose sitar was capable of responding to, and exaggerating, the faintest emotions in the hearts of his audience, so that once (it was said) he had played before an audience so bad-tempered, and had so greatly enhanced their foul humor, that if his tabla-player hadn’t made him stop his raga in mid-stream the power of his music would have had them all knifing each other and smashing up the auditorium … today, Master Vikram’s music raised the celebratory goodwill of the people to fever-pitch; it maddened, let us say, their hearts with delight.

And there was Picture Singh himself, a seven-foot giant who weighed two hundred and forty pounds and was known as the Most Charming Man In The World because of his unsurpassable skills as a snake-charmer. Not even the legendary Tubriwallahs of Bengal could exceed his talents; he strode through the happily shrieking crowds, twined from head to foot with deadly cobras, mambas and kraits, all with their poison-sacs intact … Picture Singh, who would be the last in the line of men who have been willing to become my fathers … and immediately behind him came Parvati-the-witch.

Parvati-the-witch entertained the crowds with the help of a large wicker basket with a lid; happy volunteers entered the basket, and Parvati made them disappear so completely that they could not return until she wished them to; Parvati, to whom midnight had given the true gifts of sorcery, had placed them at the service of her humble illusionist’s trade; so that she was asked, “But how do you pull it off?” And, “Come on, pretty missy, tell the trick, why not?”—Parvati, smiling beaming rolling her magic basket, came towards me with the liberating troops.

The Indian Army marched into town, its heroes following the magicians; among them, I learned afterwards, was that colossus of the war, the rat-faced Major with the lethal knees … but now there were still more illusionists, because the surviving prestidigitators of the city came out of hiding and began a wonderful contest, seeking to outdo anything and everything the visiting magicians had to offer, and the pain of the city was washed and soothed in the great glad outpouring of their magic. Then Parvati-the-witch saw me, and gave me back my name.

“Saleem! O my god Saleem, you Saleem Sinai, is it you Saleem?”

The buddha jerks, puppet-fashion. Crowd-eyes staring. Parvati pushing towards him. “Listen, it must be you!” She is gripping his elbow. Saucer eyes searching milky blue. “My God, that nose, I’m not being rude, but of course! Look, it’s me, Parvati! O Saleem, don’t be stupid now, come on come on … !”

“That’s it,” the buddha says. “Saleem: that was it.”

“O God, too much excitement!” she cries. “Arré baap,