Midnight’s Children: Book 2: All-India Radio Summary & Analysis

Padma has not returned, and Saleem is still feeling her absence. Alone at the pickle factory with only his employees (“an army of strong, hairy-armed, formidably competent women”) to keep him company, Saleem’s condition is worsening. He can no longer distinguish between the odors of lemon and lime, and his cracks are spreading all over his body. What’s worse, he’s discovered an error in his storytelling. Saleem realizes that Gandhi was not assassinated shortly after he was born; however, he can’t reconcile the actual date within the story of his life. In Saleem’s India, “Gandhi will continue to die at the wrong time.”

Back in his childhood, Saleem abandons his Archangel explanation and finally realizes that the voices he hears are some form of telepathy. He hears multiple languages in his head, most of which he doesn’t understand, and as “language marchers” fill the Bombay streets demanding partition based on language, Saleem finds new ways to understand the voices in his head. Soon, language fades always, and he is able to understand through what he calls “universally intelligible thought-forms which far transcend words.” Saleem is even able to pick out the voices of his own family and Mary Pereira.

Saleem atones for his blasphemy by washing his own mouth out with soap, and he quickly becomes the favorite child again. The Brass Monkey soon sets fire to Amina’s slippers, and all is right again in the Sinais’ home. No one mentions the voices again. Saleem notes that mental illness “is a source of deep family shame,” and worrying that he will again be received as crazy, he decides to keep his new powers a secret.

Saleem begins to use his gift to his advantage, cheating on tests and improving his grades by entering the thoughts of the class genius, Cyrus-the-great. He is suddenly privy to surprises and knows what’s inside wrapped presents, and through entering Ahmed’s thoughts, he sees the latest Coca-Cola girl naked. He enters Amina’s thoughts, filled with household tasks and pieces of her husband, and she keeps repeating the same name, “Nadir, Nadir.” Mary, who Saleem has taken to dreaming with, dreams each night about a man named Joseph D’Costa. Her thoughts are consumed by a guilt that Saleem can’t quite understand (she keeps it at the very back of her mind), but it is the same guilt that he feels each time he eats her chutneys.

Unable to return to the solitude of Amina’s washing-chest and looking to escape the thoughts of his family, Saleem begins hiding in the broken clock tower that Joseph D’Costa had attempted to blow up. In the clock tower, Saleem enters the thoughts of all of India, travelling in his mind to New Delhi, Calcutta, and Cape Comorin. He enters the thoughts of movie stars, famous athletes, politicians, and finally, the Prime Minister himself. Saleem believes that there is nothing he can’t know.

Despite having his assets unfrozen, Ahmed never regains life below the belt, and “his sex lays dormant, a woolly elephant in an iceberg, like the one they found in Russia in ’56.” Having married him for children, Amina feels her womb begin to rot, and she takes to cooking her own disappointment into the hot lime chutney. Ahmed has replaced sex with the tetrapod business, which is about to take off. He has kept his name off of the books this time, in order to protect his assets; however, when Narlikar dies unexpectedly, there is no record of Ahmed’s contribution.

According to the rumor, while out visiting friends, Narlikar decided to walk down by the sea where the city had arranged for one tetrapod to stand in the water. Once there, he finds several beggar-women surrounding the tetrapod “performing the rite of puja.” He tries to run the women off, shouting at them and pushing them. Suddenly, nearby language marchers hear his shouts and turn to riot. He runs to the sea, clinging to the tetrapod. The language marchers knock the tetrapod into the sea, killing Narlikar instantly.

Not long after his death, a steady stream of female heirs arrives on Methwold’s Estate to manage Narlikar’s affairs. Narlikar, who hated women and children, is surrounded in death by strong women who assume his business dealings and move into his apartment. They take over the running of his hospital and cut Ahmed out of the tetrapod business. Once again, on account of Narlikar’s tetrapods, Ahmed is left broke.