Midnight’s Children: Book 2: My Tenth Birthday Summary & Analysis

 Padma has finally returned, and she is full of apologies for Saleem. For the past week, Saleem has been ill and delirious. Padma confesses that she recently visited a holy man who taught her to “awaken Saleem’s manhood from its sleep” using a “lusty herb,” which she then secretly mixed into his food. The preparation nearly killed him, but now that he is better, he doesn’t blame Padma for her actions. Although he remains “unmanned,” he is happy to have his companion back.

Having lost an entire week of writing, Saleem is eager to continue his story. He begins in 1957, as he is nearing his tenth birthday, when, thanks to knocking heads with Sonny, he becomes aware of the existence of the other children of midnight. On the eve of independence, one thousand and one children were born into the new country of India between midnight and one, and each has a supernatural power. Of course, not all survive, and after four hundred and twenty of the children (the number “associated with fraud, deception, and trickery”) die early in childhood, five hundred and eighty-one children remain. With the exception of a set of twins in Baud, all of the children are unaware of each other.

The powers of the children of midnight are great and varied. A boy from Kerala can step in and out of mirrors and other reflective surfaces, and a Goanese girl can multiply fish. Some can transform their human figure; there is a werewolf in Nilgiri Hills, and a boy in Vindhyas who can shrink and grow at will. There is even a child in Kashmir who can, by entering water, alter their sex to either male or female, and a girl in Calcutta who can inflict physical wounds with her words.

Saleem claims that the closer the child’s birth to the midnight hour, the greater their magical gift. In fact, those born in the final minutes and seconds of the hour, according to Saleem, are “(to be frank) little more than circus freaks.” The children born near the half-hour mark are also specially endowed. For example, a girl in the Gir Forest can heal with the laying-on of hands, and a boy in Shillong is incapable of forgetting anything that he has ever seen or heard.

The children born at the top of the hour have the greatest gifts of all. A boy born at twenty-one seconds past midnight has completely mastered the art of alchemy by nearly ten years old, and a girl born at seventeen seconds past can fly by simply closing her eyes. Another boy born at twelve seconds after can travel through time. Parvati-the-witch, born seven seconds after midnight in the same Old Delhi slum as the Hummingbird, has been given the powers of the illuminatus, “the genuine gifts of conjuration and sorcery.”

Saleem and Shiva are both born at the stroke of midnight; however, Saleem’s power is greater than Shiva’s. Midnight has given Shiva the gift of war; he is, after all, named after the god of destruction. Saleem, however, is given the greatest gift—“the ability to look into the hearts and minds” of others.

Meanwhile, in the weeks following Dr. Narlikar’s death, Ahmed sinks deeper into alcoholism and seclusion. He stops coming to the table for meals, and he rarely tells Saleem and the Brass Monkey bedtime stories like he used to. He escapes to his home office each day before anyone else is awake and locks himself away, “the old aroma of failure which had hung about him from the earliest days” permeates from under the door. Despite being constantly drunk, Ahmed cleans up on the stock market, buying and selling long and short, and “in a streak of good fortune comparable only to Amina’s success on the horses,” he manages to turn things around.

Even in the midst of his winning streak, Ahmed continues to drink. The last of the Coca-Cola girls quit, leaving him without a secretary. Mary convinces Alice to come and work for Ahmed. She has long since forgiven her sister for running off with Joseph D’Costa, and since Alice has “an almost infinite tolerance of men,” it seems a good match.

In a drunken stupor, Ahmed attempts to place a curse on Sherri, Saleem’s mongrel dog—the very same curse he had invented years ago for the benefit of William Methwold. In his intoxicated state, Ahmed believes the curse to be real, and he becomes increasingly upset when the dog fails to drop dead or break into boils. He orders Amina to drive him and the entire family (including Sherri) to Hornby Vellard, the causeway connecting the islands of Bombay, and after walking around a bit, he orders everyone back in the car, except for Sherri. Ahmed leaves the dog behind, and after running behind the car for some time, “she burst an artery as she ran and died sprouting blood from her mouth and her behind, under the gaze of a hungry cow.”

Meanwhile, Joseph D’Costa continues to haunt Mary’s dreams, and she begins forcing herself to stay awake. In her sleeplessness, Joseph begins haunting Mary while she’s awake, and she knows the only way to get rid of him for good is to confess her crime. She fails, however, to come clean. Her love for Saleem is too strong, and she is sure that her confession will cause him pain. She continues to keep her sin and guilt locked away in the back of her mind.

On the day of Saleem’s tenth birthday, Amina throws him a party; however, none of the children of Methwold’s Estate show up—except for Sonny and, of course, the Brass Monkey. Sonny gives Saleem a message from Evie Burns: “Tell Saleem he’s out of the gang.” Without his friends, Saleem is left with his parents, the other adults on the estate, and his uncle Hanif, who arrives with his wife, Pia.

Hanif makes himself “excessively unpopular” at the party by loudly yelling, “Elections coming! Watch out for the communists!” Saleem notices that Amina blushes after Hanif’s comment, and she has been mysteriously disappearing lately, supposedly going on “shopping trips.” Saleem, still suspicious of the afternoon caller, remains dedicated to discovering his mother’s secret.