Midnight's Children is the first-person narrative of Saleem Sinai, an obscure thirty-year-old pickle factory worker who writes the fantastic story of his life each night, reading it aloud each night and having it commented on by a doting woman named Padma. He starts his story by describing how his grandfather came to the Kashmir region of India in 1915 after receiving his medical degree from Oxford and how he was approached by a wealthy landowner to examine his daughter. He was not allowed to look at her, though, and during each examination for months could only view her through a hole in a sheet that was held up by attendants. Aadam Aziz, Saleem's grandfather, fell in love with his grandmother, Naseem Ghani, by viewing her in parts.
Insight
The book is an allegory, a tale, full of magical realism and little pieces are hidden and revealed, much like the famous perforated sheet metaphor that pervades the book. What was very flabbergasting for me was all the Indian history. I felt very ignorant about it all. I felt like I was missing something indefinable, something that I would get if I knew more about the history involved.
I still haven't finished, but I'd like to talk about one of the occurring elements. That sheet with the hole cut out that was the only way Saleem's grandfather, the doctor, could examine the girl who would become his wife. Isn’t it a dizzying idea? Here is an institution who wants to protect their girls and women so much, that they allow speculation about them? It seems this method of protection serves a paradoxical purpose. Aren't we reading this book through a sheet, too? Where the hole moves around and we can see one element of the whole story, but we have to make the connections for ourselves?
I can somehow relate to the story in a sense that I strongly believe it is possible to love someone in pieces, without knowing their whole being. When examining the relationship between Naseem and Aadam Aziz, it seems as though Rushdie is stating that one cannot love someone through a perforated sheet, without knowing their soul. Aadam and Naseem’s marriage became a battleground because they did not have a solid foundation of love to build upon. As a consequence, Naseem employed such tricks as attempting to starve her husband, and Aadam reacted by refusing to eat. Due to the fact that both Naseem and Aadam were quite stubborn, neither one of them refused to concede to one another. It makes me wonder if, for Naseem and Aadam, showing one’s true feelings would be to admit defeat.
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