Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

A Modern Literary Classic

A Metaphor Of India...

At one point in the book, the narrator says,

 “Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each “I,” every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world.”

To the uninitiated, the above lines may appear to male little sense, but anyone reading them will feel the intensity with which it has been written.  This kind of intensity confronts the reader from the very first lines and spans through the entire book. Even after its completion, the effect lingers for an interminable period. It was somewhat a painful process to read the complete novel but I have  finally finished reading it. In truth, I finished the book that launched Rushdie’s career proper. I needed to let it pretty much slosh around my head for a little while before I could distil the experience down to a few hundred words. One of Rushdie’s many attractive qualities as a writer is his clever use of humorous images and metaphors to describe and discuss incredibly controversial and painful issues. One of the recurrent images in Midnight’s Children is the “pickles of history.” Pickles, of course, are an edible comestible, but they have curious properties—they are sour and yet somehow appealing for many people. Considering the entire panorama of history presented in Midnight’s Children, write an essay in which you explain the pickles of history as conceptualized by Rushdie.  This concept is further extended and leaves its mark upon the reader, who experiences the same feeling upon its completion.

Salman Rushdie’s illustrious career is well documented: shooting to fame by winning the Booker, The Satanic Verses, The fatwa, political asylum, hiding from Islamic fundamentalists. All these aspects dominated his life and his career. The intensity of the his style and the story of Midnight’s Children , was perhaps like a fictional prelude of things to come. However, published in 1981, it remains one of the most important books of post –colonial literature and is often compared with the likes of One Hundred Years Of Solitude by G. G Marquez and The Tin Drum  by Gunter Grass.

Midnight’s Children is not a masterpiece, but it is a typical reflection of a master story creator. Not a storyteller – a story creator, for that is what Rushdie excels at. Surely Rushdie laboured over each chapter, each paragraph, yes, even each line, to create a labyrinth of themes, a plethora of allusions, a pickle-factory of twists and turns. Midnight’s Children is not a masterpiece because its creator did just that: masterfully create a story. Midnight’s Children tells the life story of Saleem Sinai born at midnight on the August 15, 1947 at the moment modern India became an independent state. Saleem’s somewhat timely arrival is not a coincidence; our protagonist’s life destined to follow the ebb and flow of India’s own fortunes. Telepathically linked to the other children born in the first hour of India’s independence, all of whom have their own gifts, we follow Saleem from cradle to fatherhood as he relates his story to his lover Padma.

First released in 1981; this was Rushdie’s second novel and won the Man Booker Prize of that year; in 1993 it was judged the Booker of Bookers (the best novel to have one the prize in the first twenty-five years of the award’s existence).

And it’s good. It really is. It’s a breathtakingly ambitious allegory distilling the story of the subcontinent down to a single character’s story, a fantastic fusion of Indian and Anglo-Western culture. The observations are startlingly, brutally honest, on occasion profoundly dark and more often quite funny, the rendering of postcolonial India nostalgic without being sentimental. Sometimes the narrator reflects the post colonial public frustration and the anarchy, which were engendered along with the formation of independent India . The author writes,

“Midnight has many children; the offspring of Independence were not all human. Violence, corruption, poverty, generals, chaos, greed, and pepperpots…. I had to go into exile to learn that the children of midnight were more varied than I—even I—had dreamed.”

Avatar – The last airbender

A TALE OF FRIENDSHIP AND DESTINY…

Avatar – The Last Airbender is an American cartoon series aired on Nickelodeon. In almost all good cartoon lovers, this is remarked as one of the best there is; though, it cannot be ranked among the legendary “Tom & Jerry”.

The story, in short is about saving the world from the ruthless Fire nation who are about to conquer the world and throw it out of its peaceful balance. In the fictional context, the world is divided into four nations named after the four ancient elements – Air, Water, Earth and Fire. Besides this, people of each nation have the ability to control the elements using martial arts of different styles. The Air nomads are monks who are brought up in the ways of spiritual philosophy. The Water tribes dwell at the polar ice caps and are cultural artisans and their bending, i.e. waterbending, is more fluid and incorporates healing abilities such. The earth kingdom is more political and though with an imperial leadership, it follows a steady system of government. Their bending is similar, i.e. follows the mentality of a stubborn and steadfast nature. Fire nation is completely hierarchical and industrial. They are the only group of people who use metal and their mental setup is more similar to Adolf Hitler during World War II. They have a natural thirst for power and are ruthless. In this entire hullabaloo, the most powerful of all is the Avatar. The Avatar is the only one who has the ability to bend all four elements at the same time and has other powers such as to contact the spirit world. It is prophesized, that the Avatar is the only person who can restore balance when there is chaos. The Avatar spirit is a life cycle and is born into each nation, one per generation, the cycle being air, water earth and fire.

                                         

The concept is quite imaginative, and a story emerges on this backdrop. Aang is the Avatar, an airbender. After the previous Avatar Roku’s death, the Firelord (king of the fire nation), Sozin, wiped out all the Air nomads knowing that the Avatar would be reborn into the Air nomads. By some miraculous luck Aang escapes, but is frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years. He is then discovered near the South Pole by Katara and Sokka, two kids from the southern water tribe. The story then begins and follows Aang’s learning of the four elements while the Fire nation tries to hunt him.

In this series we see the power of the bond of friendship, the importance of family, and the reward of trust. We are allegorically made aware of the evils of the modern world, of how we should not be driven by a lust for power, how we should care for nature and most of all the people around us. It teaches us the moral values of respect and of honor; it portrays the difference in class of society; and gives a visual of most of the proverbs we’ve come to know in our youth. Spanning over an epic trilogy of seasons, this tale will take the viewer through an entertaining ride through comedy, romance, action and adventure. It is an altogether family package worth watching. Enjoy people!!!