"Midnight's Children" Post 7a

Another cultural aspect of India in the modern time period that I noticed in "Midnight's Children"? I suppose it would have to be mysticism. I mean, the entire premise of the novel is based on the fact that all of the children born within the hour of midnight of the birth of India in India were endowed with special gifts, magical abilities. The author is requiring that the reader either take a leap of faith, read the novel disbelievingly, or decide to focus on another aspect of the novel than this integral feature (I took the last route). Superstition figures throughout "Midnight's Children", aside from the children's gifts. Many of the events happen in reoccuring cycles: Meruochrome flowing, sons not being sons, wives changing their names, women growing into Reverend Mothers, men shrinking, relying on magicians, and countless other repetitions . The characters in the book seem to stake a lot by the way of omens as well: when Saleem arrives in the magicians ghetto, an old woman calls him out: "'Ai-o-ai-o! Bad luck is come! You go to foreign places and bring it here! Ai-oooo!'" (445). Many of the magicians are swayed and it is only through the efforts of Picture that Saleem is allowed to stay. Even Saleem himself falls sway to meanings and signs: he applies the fact that Indira Gandhi's hair was white on one side and black on the other and applies it to numerous events: the black and white sides of the economy, the black and white sides of the Emergency, the black and white sides of her detainment of the MCC. Fortunately, everything is not black and white for long: the opposition party comes into power and Saleem is allowed to continue with what little life he has left.