Midnight’s Children: Book 2: The Fisherman’s Pointing Finger Summary & Analysis

 Saleem continues his story and tells Padma about a framed painting hanging on his bedroom wall in Buckingham Villa, left over from the days of Methwold. In the picture, a fisherman extends his arm and points at the sea, towards the horizon. Following the fisherman’s pointing finger, he appears to also be pointing at a framed letter also hanging on the wall, addressed to Saleem from Prime Minister Nehru, in which he congratulates Saleem on the “happy accident” of his birth. The Prime Minister says, “We shall be watching over your life with the closest attention; it will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own.”

The Prime Minister’s message unnerves an already paranoid Mary, who wonders if the government knows about her secret. Saleem also considers that the fisherman in the painting is pointing past the picture and his room, to the actual sea and horizon. Or perhaps, Saleem thinks, it may be a warning, an attempt to draw attention to itself.

Amina and Ahmed bring baby Saleem home from the hospital, including his umbilical cord in an old pickle-jar. Saleem is an incredibly large baby, who drains both his mother and wet-nurse of milk, and like Aadam Aziz, he has a large, bulbous nose (which constantly drips “goo”). His skin is fair and birthmarks cover his face. Strangely, Saleem makes very little noise and doesn’t blink. Amina and Mary, who have since turned into “a two-headed mother,” take turns opening and closing his eyes, which are an amazing “Kashmiri-blue.”

Amina and Mary fuss over baby Saleem and love him fiercely. They are secretly competitive of each other, each somewhat resentful of the other. Secretly, Amina continues to love Nadir Khan, and she frequently dreams that is was really Nadir who fathered Saleem. Her dreams are so realistic that she begins to become confused as to Saleem’s true parentage. In this way, Saleem considers himself the son of four fathers; Nadir, Willie, Methwold, and Ahmed Sinai.

Willie continues to frequent Methwold’s estate, entertaining the residents with his songs of nostalgia. Instead of his wife, Willie now brings with him a rather large baby with “menacingly knocking knees” named Shiva, after the god of procreation and destruction.

Most of the residents of Methwold’s Estate are enamored with Saleem as well (except for Dr. Narlikar, who hates children and advocates for public birth control), and they take turns “borrowing” him. As Saleem is passed around the estate, he learns about each of his neighbors. Old man Ibrahim worries about governments nationalizing his native Africa, and his son Ismail, Sonny’s father, is a highly crooked lawyer. Lila Sabarmati (who lives in a flat) is continually unfaithful to her husband, and Homi Catrack, film-magnate and race-track owner, lives with his daughter, Toxy, an inbred “half-wit,” in Versailles Villa.

Ahmed, a “self-important man,” never forgives Saleem for breaking his toe, and he resents the attention that Amina gives the baby (she no longer sweet talks him for money, and the napkin in his lap remains still). Methwold’s cocktail hour has led to Ahmed’s full-blown alcoholism, and since Bombay is a dry state, he must see a doctor every month to get his allotment. When that fails to be enough liquor, Ahmed orders Mary and old Musa, his long-time servant, to obtain alcohol from a doctor as well.

An intoxicated Ahmed fears getting lost in the city streets, so he works from his home office. Disillusioned with his family, he hires “Anglo” girls as secretaries and takes to flirting with them until they are forced to quit. Unable to pronounce their Western names, Amina refers to Ahmed’s secretaries as “Coca-Cola girls,” and considers them “cheap type females.”

One evening, Dr. Narlikar comes to visit Ahmed and together they drive out to the seaside. There, Narlikar pitches Ahmed a business idea in which they mass produce standing tetrapods to place over the water, thereby reclaiming the land beneath the sea. Ahmed agrees, and he begins writing and cashing many checks, and soon the State Secretariat gets the “whiff of a Muslim who is throwing his rupees around like water.”

Ahmed receives a letter from the State alerting him that all of his assets have been frozen. Ismail Ibrahim offers Ahmed his legal services free of charge, stating, “I have heard about these freezings—only well-off Muslims are selected, naturally. You must fight.” Ahmed laments that the government has “shoved his balls in an ice-bucket,” and soon after he conceives his second child with Amina, he is struck impotent, his “little cubes of ice too frigid to hold.”