A British-Canadian masala

Midnight's Children (2012)

It has been said that Salman Rushdie could not sell his movie to any studio. So, he finally sold its right to a company for $1 as it was a personal achievement for him - his 1981 Booker prize book being made into a movie. Almost a year after its release, Rushdie is yet to receive his $1!

This story is a quasi-historical quasi-masala British-Canadian movie shot mainly in Sri Lanka, not Pakistan or India where the story happens, for fear of backlash for Hindu or Muslim communities. It tells a tale of a boy who was born on the stroke of midnight on the date India obtained Independence. It is a sort of a biography of his grandparents all the way down to his son with the history of India and the turmoil it went through the 20th century, from the serene lakes of Kashmir in 1917 through the blackest hour of  Emergency in 1977 in the background.

The film had an impressive ensemble of famous Bollywood, Kollywood and even British-American actors - Rahul Bose, Shabana Azmi, Shreya Saran, Soha Ali Khan, Anupam Kher, Siddarth and the son of Indian Harvard Professor in English Literature and Humanities, Homi K. Bhabha, Satya Bhabha.

Saleem (Satya Bhabha) is the protagonist who narrates about his grandparents and his parents. It dwells a bit about life in the Pre-Independence India and its internal squabbles. He tells us how he, as a newborn, was switched by the attending midwife at birth with the son of a singing vagabond. It happened all because the nurse's communist boyfriend was fighting for equality of classes.

Satya Bhabha

Saleem grew up disturbed, seeing his mother having an affair and visions of an invisible band of children, all born on Independence Day midnight, communicating with him. The boy whose place he replaces is Shiva, a restless and unhappy child. The midwife who had done the switching felt remorse and decided to dedicate her life as a nanny to Saleem.

One day, the cheat is discovered when a blood test revealed Saleem having a blood type incompatible to his parents'.  Accusations of infidelity are hurled, and Saleem is packed off to Pakistan, his aunt's house. The uncle is a high ranking officer in the Pakistan Army with political ambitions.

A coup after another happens. Saleem is drafted into the Pakistan War.
The story weaves around like a snake around a twig with Saleem meeting Parvati, another member of the Midnight Children's Club and having a duel with Shiva, by now a high ranking Indian Army officer and finally embracing his son whom Shiva is the father.

A nice story with a tinge of historical nostalgia and venture into controversies like Indo-Pakistan relationship and Indira Gandhi's emergency era and forced sterilization. Unfortunately, because the story is long and had to move the stop to keep with the contents of the book, the film failed to develop the characters. We do not end up feeling sad for the characters. T feel a disconnect with the film. I would any time read his book, with all his sarcastic nuances and logorrhoea.

The Sigh!

The Moor's Last Sigh, 
(1995) Salman Rushdie
Ever since there was a bounty on his head, the desire to read his books increased. Even though I have not had the chance to lay my hands on the coveted book that attracted the world's attention to his work (Satanic Verses), I nevertheless managed to read more than 4 of his books.
Just as his other books, his work is quite a hard read. The text is quite compact with loads of information that the readers have to digest. I had to take a break from reading this book to dwell into something less taxing to unwind. He, being an Indian lives up to the trademark of one, of being very verbose, expressive, long winded and not economical with his word. It is not that it is a bad thing. His indulgence in circumlocution and tangential talk illustrates his wide knowledge of things and his occasional swipe at things considered sacred to some. To drive his point into his flow of story, he brings in unrelated things like mythology, history and religion.
In the same vein, this book involves all of the above. It narrates the protagonist, a half Jew half Catholic in India, telling the story of his family. It is a brooding account a sad man who is born with a rare display where he aged twice the rate of an average human, his dysfunctional family on both sides of his family tree and especially his flamboyant mother and her antics. It takes us through the history of India and it ends in the Moorish land of Spain.
It is a very imaginative book and works just fine for a sarcastic and truth seeking person like me....