This week I picked up India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha. Guha attempts (quite successfully) to remedy the fact that post independence Indian history is overlooked in our history books, "the past is defined as a single, immovable date: 15th August 1947. Thus, when the clock struck midnight and India became independent, history ended, and political science and sociology began."
But India After Gandhi does not stand alone, it has a companion piece! Another book, one I had read recently but written decades earlier! A brother, if books ever have one. The protagonists of the two brother-books are twins, born on the same day, "And the time? The time matters too. Well then: at night. No it's important to be more ...On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact...Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India's arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world." The story of Saleem Sinai, Midnight's Children.
The two books take off from that midnight hour and tell us a breathless story. It is as if their souls are intertwined. One is a history book that reads like a best in class fiction, the other is a fictional account that carries in it the essence of history. You could read a few chapters from one and pick up the thread on the other. The two together form a jugalbandi, Guha provides the facts, Rushdie adds the emotions. Though, at times, with equal skill, they exchange their roles. Guha's account is backed up with a whole lot of footnotes and references, Rushdie, is telling you the tale with a wink and a smile. The historical references in Rushdie's allegorical tale are sometimes inescapable, sometimes subtle. Reading India After Gandhi brings them all into focus. This is one from the earlier chapters.
During the 1950s Nehru tours the United States and Russia. The then US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, does not warm up to Nehru, and finds him "one of the most difficult men with whom I have ever had to deal." Nehru too was not predisposed to appreciate the US, and "had ticked off the US as unrivaled in technology but predatory in its capitalism." Nehru received a lot more affection from the Russians. "In 1951, while the American congress debated a request for food aid from India, the Soviet Union - unencumbered by democratic procedure - offered to send 50,000 tons of wheat at once." Thus, despite Nehru's protestations of non-alignment, India leaned the tiniest bit towards Russia.
At roughly the same time, Saleem, is falling for the recently arrived American, Evelyn Lilith Burns, and, "gave her a necklace of flowers (queen-of-the-night for my lily-of-the-eve), bought with my own pocket money from a hawker-woman at Scandal Point. 'I don't wear flowers,' Evelyn Lilith said, and tossed the unwanted chain into the air, spearing it before it fell with a pellet from her unerring Daisy air-pistol. Destroying flowers with a Daisy, she served notice that she was not to be manacled, not even by a necklace: she was our capricious, whirligig Lill-of-the-Hill"
Things however go better with the "champion breast-stroker" Masha Miovic, with the "low, throaty voice, full of promises - but also of menace". Soon, "Saleem takes the floor with Masha Miovic, swearing not to smooch. Saleem and Masha, doing the Mexican Hat; Masha and Saleem, box-stepping with the best of them! ; you see you don't have to be perfect to get a girl!...The dance ended; and still on top of my wave of elation, I said, 'Would you care for a stroll, you know, in the quad?' Masha Miovic smiling privately. 'Well, yah, just for a sec; but hands off, okay?' Hands off, Saleem swears. Saleem and Masha taking the air...man this is fine. This is the life. Goodbye Evie, hello breast-stroke."
The above excerpts were but a glimpse, reading the two books together is an all together wonderful experiences and is highly recommended. I have a sneaking suspicion that Guha had a copy of Midnight's Children next to him while he wrote his account. If one thinks about it, that is so much more fantastic and wonderful than a fiction writer consulting a history book.
