Midnight's Children: Book Two

(155)
Shaapsteker moves in upper storey: "At the end of February, snake poison entered our lives." (156)

(161)

"'It was not me, Sahib. If I have robbed you, may I turn into a leper! May my old skin run with sores!'" (165)

(168)

(155)
Ismail Ibrahim announces assets case won (169)
Baby Sinai stands (169)

(177)

"'Never believe in a djinn's promises, my son! Let them out of the bottle and they'll eat you up!'" (149)

Dressed up as the boy in the fisherman picture
Cures his grandmother (178)

(179)

"Amina Sinai, abhorring the idea of beating her children, temperamentally incapable of raising her voice, came close to wits' end; and the Monkey was sentenced, for day after day, to silence." (171)

summer of the language marches (186)

(174)

"inside me, the voices rebounded against the walls of my skull." (186)
"All-India Radio"
Saleem loses hearing in his left ear after being hit by his father; he never mentions his voices to his family again (187)
"I am nine years old and lost in the confusion of other people's lives which are blurring together in the heat." (195)

(171)

"Amina Sinai has opened the lower door of the washing-chest; I am tumbling downdown with laundry wrapped around my head like a caul." (184)

"when Doctor Narlikar betrayed him by dying, leaving behind him no record of my father's involvement in the tetrapod scheme, Ahmed Sinai... was swallowed up by the mouth of a long, snaking decline from which he would not emerge until, at the very end of his days, he at last fell in love with his wife." (201)

(205)

(213)

Jan Sangh, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Annadurai, Congress (211)

"I loved Evie for perhaps six months of my life; two years later, she was back in America, knifing an old woman and being sent to reform school." (207)

(215)

(225)

(216)
Saleem starts Marathi language protestor chant, "directly responsible for triggering the violence" (219)

(218)

taxes raised, end of tetrapod dream, locks himself in his office, "steady divorce from reality" (232, 233)
Sherri - guinea-pig for family curse experiments

(235)

Qasim Khan (Nadir) is running for the official Communist Party of India
(245-248)

(235)

(243)

(253)

To return 21 years later (239)

Uncle Hanif visits
Saleem given Alsatian puppy
Ibrahim announces support for Maha Gujarat Parishad
Party at Sinai's, not attended by hilltop gang because of Evie
Creates MCC (236-7)

this date is not exact, in the book Saleem places the election after his birthday
"And then it occurs to me that I have made another error--that the election of 1957 took place before, and not after, my tenth birthday; but although I have racked my brains, my memory refuses, stubbornly, to alter the sequence of events." (254)
All-India Congress wins, significant number of votes go to Communist Party

(257)

Attacked by the Brass Monkey (258)

A year after report submitted to Nehru, divisions implemented and India divided into 14 states and six centrally-administered "territories"
language divisions
Bombay: "United Maharashtra Party" vs. "Great Gujarat Party" (216)

(274)

(259)

On a Wednesday early in 1958:
School social, Saleem's hair pulled our by Mr. Emil Zagallo, Saleem loses his fingertip, Saleem's parents discover that his blood type does not match their own (265-268)

(287)
Monkey has taken the Saleem's position in the household (289)

(283)

(285)

(291)

(300)
"Cutting up history to suit my nefarious purpose." (297)
"No, I am no longer proud of what I did; but remember that my demon of revenge had two heads." (298)
national crisis, declared guilty, not pardoned
ends Amina's visits to Nadir

(291)

(303-4)

(295)

(310)
"'He died for his hate of melodrama.'" (312)

"The world of my childhood had, indeed, come to an end." (305)

"after eleven years he is your son" (321)
Musa forgiven

(322)

(329-331)
"I moved pepperpots symbolically while he spoke."

Saleem accompanies Zulfikar on the mission (333)

Monkey converts
Bonzo the dog dies
India-Pakistan relations deteriorate
Zafar to join Army when he comes of age
US aid for Pakistan
Sino-Indian border skimishes
Indian census literacy levels 1961 - 23.7 percent
Elections of 1962
(335)

(335)

(337)

"Please come quick Sinai-Sahib suffered heartboot gravely ill salaams Alice Pereira." (338)

(340)

(341)

(341)

(341)

(341)

(344)

(345)

(345)

(346)

"It is certainly likely that what a telephone call arranged, what finally took place on November 21st, 1962, was done for the highest of reasons; that my parents ruined me for love." (345)
"Silence outside me. A dark room (blinds down). Can't see anything (nothing there to see). Silence inside me. A connection broken (for ever). Can't hear anything (nothing there to hear). Silence, like a desert. And a clear, free nose (nasal passages full of air). Air, like a vandal, invading my private places. Drained. I have been drained. The parahamsa, grounded. (For good.)" (348)

(349)

(356)

(318)
"Behind his foolishness and his rages, the cracks continued to spread; the disease munched steadily on his bones, while hatred ate the rest of him away." (317)

(366-373)

(319)

(374)
Leaves India during a power struggle, opens successful petrol pump with Pia

(381)

(379)

(381)

(385)

Pakistani troops cross ceasefire line and infiltrate the Indian Sector (387)

(374,391-393)
"I rode the night-streets of the city, looking for death." (390)
air-raid deaths: Naseem Aziz, Pia, Zafar, Major Latif, Mutasim, Amina, Ahmed, Alia
"things people memories were buried under rubble beyond hope of salvation" (392)
"a miniscule but endless instant of knowing, before I am stripped of past present memory time shame and love, a fleeting but also timeless explosion in which I bow my head yes I acquiesce yes in the necessity of the blow, and then I am empty and free, because all the Saleems go pouring out of me" (392)

(393)