Midnight’s Children: Book 2: Snakes and Ladders Summary & Analysis

In February of 1948, all the snakes escape from Schaapsteker Institute, a facility where scientists study snakes and test anti-venom. Rumors spread that a Bengali snake-charmer is to blame; a tall blue man who is Krishna himself, punishing Indians for renouncing their Hindu faith and becoming a secular state.

As the Bombay streets teem with snakes, Dr. Schaapsteker, the eighty-one-year-old man who founded the institute, moves into the top floor of Buckingham Villa. Ahmed’s frozen assets make living difficult, and to help ends meet, Amina allows him to move into the house.

With Ahmed sinking further into alcoholism and depression, Amina writes her parents for advice and three days later, Aadam and Reverend Mother arrive in Bombay from Agra. Reverend Mother is not impressed with Amina’s city life, and she encourages them all to move to Pakistan. Emerald has already moved there with Zulfikar, along with Alia as well, who is teaching at a Pakistani school.

Reverend Mother takes over Amina’s kitchen and begins cooking all the meals. Ahmed makes slight improvements eating Reverend Mother’s cooking (which is “imbued with the personality of its creator), and the same food fills Amina with rage. Mary begins cooking chutneys and kasaundies of her own, into which she stirs her guilt and fear of discovery. Mary’s preserves are delicious, and they counteract the unpleasantness of Reverend Mother.

Ismail, despite waiving his own fee, still requires money to fight Ahmed’s case in court, and Amina, now pregnant with her second child, secretly frequents a local horse-racing track to earn money. Using her dowry money, Amina, who knows nothing about horses, places her bets based on the jockeys’ smiles—and wins big. She is, however, fraught with guilt over the sin of gambling, but she nevertheless “fights her husband’s fight.”

Saleem stops his story to mention his love as a child for the game Snakes and Ladders. He notes that the moral of the game teaches children that for every snake lurking is a ladder to compensate, and likewise, for every ladder, there is the danger of snakes. Moreover, Saleem notes that the game underscores the “unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up against down, good against evil.” This metaphor, he claims, is present in his mother’s own story. Despite Amina’s victory at the racetrack, snakes are still waiting to strike.

Not all of Amina’s siblings immigrate to Pakistan, and her brother, Hanif, soon moves to Bombay with dreams of becoming a film producer. He marries a beautiful actress, Pia, and stars her in his first film, The Lovers of Kashmir. Hanif’s film becomes an instant classic, in which he invents “the indirect kiss.” Men and women were not permitted to touch or kiss on-screen, and as such, Hanif writes a script in which actors sensually kiss things (such as fruit), instead of each other.

As Ahmed and Amina accompany Hanif and Pia to the theater to see The Lovers of Kashmir, the theater manager interrupts the film to alert the crowd to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Hanif quickly whispers to Amina, “Get out of here, big sister—if a Muslim did this thing there will be hell to pay.”

Once Gandhi’s assassin is proven not to be a Muslim and it is again safe to leave the house, Amina secretly returns to the racetrack. She continues to gamble until her pregnant belly no longer fits behind the steering wheel of the car and she is forced to stay home. At Buckingham Villa, Mary and old Musa are constantly fighting. Musa, resentful that Mary sleeps in Saleem’s room while he is stuck in the servants’ quarters, is offended by her constant prayers and counting of rosary beads, and it is during one such fight that Amina discovers the house has been burgled.

The missing silver and gold is soon found amongst old Musa’s things (despite his earlier denials). He is convinced that his constant fighting with Mary is about to cost him his job, and he didn’t want to be put out empty-handed. Amina refuses to press charges, but old Musa leaves Buckingham Villa anyway, and as he goes, he places a curse upon the house.

In the days following old Musa’s departure, Mary notices a strange figure running around the broken clock tower near Methwold’s Estate. Frightened, Mary and Amina call the police. An inspector arrives and shoots at the dark figure, who ends up being the wanted criminal Joseph D’Costa. The bullet misses just as an escaped snake bites Joseph, and he immediately falls down dead. Mary faints to the ground, and the inspector informs Amina that Joseph has wired the entire tower with multiple bombs and explosives, enough “to blow this hill into the sea!”

About the time Amina goes into labor for the second time, Saleem falls ill with typhoid. Aadam treats his grandson the best he knows how, but his Western medicine fails to make the slightest difference, and he fears Saleem will soon die. Dr. Schaapsteker suggests injecting the baby with cobra venom, an intervention known to work. As Aadam injects the poison into his baby grandson, his fever begins to break.

In the commotion of Saleem’s illness, Amina gives birth to a daughter, who comes to be known as the Brass Monkey on account of her red hair. The birth goes largely unnoticed in the excitement of Saleem’s near-death experience and the news that Ismail has finally won Ahmed’s court case.