Saleem Sinai - Characters, Midnight's Children | Midnight's Children- Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

Pompous. Funny talking. Ugly. Disfigured. Probably crazy. A Muslim in a Hindu India. Sounds like leading man material doesn't it? He's a regular Brad Pitt or Robert Pattinson, right? Seriously, we are glad that this is a book and not a movie, because we're not sure we could stand an hour and a half of looking at Saleem and dealing with his egotistical voice. Despite his lack of heroic good looks, Salman Rushdie has chosen this kid for his main character.

Facts (as Saleem likes to say): Saleem Sinai is born on August 15, 1947 in Bombay, India. Time: at the stroke of midnight. Day: India's very first Independence Day. According to Saleem, this makes him a Very Important Person. Well, that and a bunch of letters and prophecies about his birth. He eventually learns that he and another child (Shiva) were switched at birth.

More facts: When we meet him he's a couple of weeks away from his 31st birthday. Saleem believes that he's dying, and that literal cracks have formed in his body. We're not gonna lie—it's a little weird. He says, "I ask you only to accept (as I have accepted) that I shall eventually crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious dust " (1.3.1). That's right—it's totally a fact that Saleem's body is filled with cracks and about to crumble into as many particles of dust as there are people in India. "Facts" are not exactly facts in this novel, if you hadn't already noticed.

Okay, enough of the "facts." Let's get down to business.

Pride Goeth Before The Fall

You might say that Saleem is not exactly modest. Okay, that's an understatement—Saleem is possibly one of the vainest characters we've ever seen. Look, we have proof:

• This is how he describes himself: "I, Saleem Sinai, possessor of the most delicately-gifted olfactory organ in history [...]" (1.3.3)
• He thinks he's more important than history: "I shall avert my eyes from the violence in Bengal and the long pacifying walk of Mahatma Gandhi. Selfish? Narrow-minded? Well, perhaps; but excusably so, in my opinion. After all, one is not born every day." (1.8.25)
• He even compares himself to Jesus and Mohammed.

Who else would claim that his birthday is more important than the deaths of hundreds of people? Better yet, who would say that he's the next prophet of God? Only this guy.

He's the protagonist, so duh the novel is about him. He shouldn't know that, though.

We can look at Saleem's Mount Everest sized pride in a couple of ways. Either Saleem really is the center of everything that happens in India (so all of his comparisons to great people and prophets are legitimate) or he's crazy and impossibly vain. We're still not sure which one it is, but either way he's super arrogant.

Why Is He Here?

You've heard of midlife crises, right? Well, Saleem has a first-ten-years crisis instead. By the time he's eight, Saleem is already worrying about his purpose in life. When most kids are still playing with coloring books, he's trying to achieve greatness. And it makes sense. He hears everyone talking all the time about their big expectations for him, and he doesn't want to disappoint.

Even though he tries his best, Saleem still has the feeling that something's not right. He feels that, "[...] I, alone in the universe, had no idea what I should be, or how I should behave" (2.11.14). This is only until he discovers his telepathy, though—then he has a ticket to greatness.

Or so he thinks, anyway.

Even when the Midnight's Children come together, purpose is still a problem. Saleem and Shiva argue about it constantly:

"The thing is, we must be here for a purpose, don't you think? I mean, there has to be a reason, you must agree? So what I thought, we should try and work out what it is, and then, you know, sort of dedicate our lives to..." "Rich kid," Shiva yelled, "you don't know one damn thing! What purpose, man? What thing in the whole sister-sleeping world got reason, yara? For what reason you're rich and I'm poor? Where's the reason in starving, man? God knows how many millions of damn fools living in this country, man, and you think there's a purpose! Man, I'll tell you—you got to get what you can, do what you can with it, and then you got to die. That's reason, rich boy. Everything else is only mother-sleeping wind!" (2.15.47)

Years later, Saleem finds his purpose. It is to be sterilized by The Widow. Yep, the Midnight's Children existed to be destroyed. Or, that's what hethinks—we're kind of doubtful. All signs point to Saleem being an example of Absurdism, i.e., the idea that humans always search for meaning, but are never able to find it.

So why is he here? Who knows?

Who Is He, Anyway?

Saleem would have a hard time answering the question, "Who are you?" He couldn't tell us something simple like, "I'm Saleem Sinai." He'd probably say something like, "I have been a swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one of me, you'll have to swallow the lot as well" (1.1.3). He'd be no fun at an icebreaking party.

Let's start at the beginning.

Well, that's hard. Saleem spends a long time—like several chapters—telling us his family history. That's an old-school technique: lots of literature uses a family tree to tell us who the characters are. There's one problem here, though: Saleem isn't his mother's biological child. Heck, he's not even his "real" father's biological child. What does all that family history mean then, if he's not related to these people by blood?

It means that Saleem is a mixed up guy. From the beginning he has serious identity problems. He says, "Even a baby is faced with the problem of defining itself; and I'm bound to say that my early popularity had its problematic aspects, because I was bombarded with a confusing multiplicity of views on the subject [...]" (2.9.28). That "multiplicity of views" basically defines his identity. Saleem is six billion things in one… at least metaphorically if not literally.

Despite all this multiplicity, Saleem seems to have finally gotten a hold on himself by the end of the novel. When he reveals his birth switching to Padma, they have this conversation:

"An Anglo?" Padma exclaims in horror. "What are you telling me? You are an Anglo-Indian? Your name is not your own?'' "I am Saleem Sinai," I told her, "Snotnose, Stainface, Sniffer, Baldy, Piece-of-the-Moon. Whatever do you mean-not my own?" (1.8.50)

For Padma, the switch changes everything.

Padma's ideas of identity and family have to do with biology. Saleem's ideas are something else. When Padma says that she's glad that the Buddha (a.k.a. Saleem with amnesia) ran away from the war, he corrects her: "But I insist: not I he. He, the Buddha. Who, until the snake, would remain not-Saleem; who, in spite of running-from, was still separated from his past; although he clutched, in his limpet fist, a certain silver spittoon" (3.25.2). In other words, Saleem is not Saleem without his memories.

By the end of the novel, Saleem starts defining himself by his past and his memories. They make him who he is—it doesn't matter anymore that he's not biologically his parents' child. That's why the Buddha, who can't remember anything, is not Saleem. Maybe it's a weird way of looking at it, but are you still yourself if you can't remember anything about yourself? Your body is constantly changing, so if not for your memories, what makes you you?

Saleem Sinai's Timeline

• Saleem Sinai enters the world with a boom on August 15, 1947. He is switched at birth with Shiva, who becomes the son of Wee Willie Winkie.
• Baby Saleem comes down with typhoid and the only thing that can save him is snake venom from the crazy Dr. Schaapsteker.
• While healing from typhoid, baby Saleem figures out how to stand, and bows his legs permanently. Oh yeah, and his little sister is born.
• Saleem learns that is a bad idea to hide in laundry baskets when he ends up accidentally spying on his mom as she fantasizes about Nadir Khan. He discovers his telepathy while trying to stop himself from sneezing.
• When Saleem tells his family about the voices in his head, Ahmed Sinai smacks him so hard that he can't hear in one ear anymore. Guess that was a bad choice.
• No secret is safe from Saleem, and he uses his powers to probe into his family's mind.
• Evie Burns enters Saleem's life. He tries to impress her by riding a bike, but he ends up falling off and unlocking a new part of his power. When he uses his new power on her, she freaks out.
• Saleem talks to the Midnight's Children, and meets Shiva.
• The Midnight's Children have a vote about who should be leader, and Saleem wins.
• Mr. Emil Zagallo, Saleem's geography teacher, rips out his hair. Later his friend shuts him in a classroom and cuts off a finger. This leads to him going to the hospital and his family finding out that he could not be their biological child.
• Saleem is sent to hang out with his uncle Hanif and aunt Pia. It's pretty cool until he finds out that Pia has been cheating on Hanif.
• Back home, the Midnight's Children are falling apart.
• Saleem makes a plot for revenge that ends with Lia Sabartami and Homi Catrack getting shot to death and nearly everyone moving away from the Methwold estate.
• Uncle Zulfikar gets Saleem involved in a coup d'état that takes over the Pakistani government.
• When Saleem gets a sinus infection his parents take him to the hospital, but the treatment takes away his powers. No more powers, but at least he can smell.
• The family moves to Pakistan and Brass Monkey turns into Jamila Singer. Saleem learns from the world's oldest prostitute that he's in love with his sister.
• Jamila Singer never wants to see Saleem again after he confesses his love.
• The Indo Pakistani war of 1965 kills Saleem's family and gives him amnesia.
• Saleem becomes part of the Canine Unit for Tracking and Intelligence Activities, and gets lost in the jungle. When he gets bitten by a snake, his memories return.
• Because he's totally brave, Saleem hides with the magicians from the war.
• After a while, he goes to visit his uncle Mustapha, but he gets kicked out when his aunt discovers him sleeping with Parvati.
• Parvati uses Shiva to get pregnant so that she can marry Saleem. They have a son, but Parvati gets killed when there is a raid on the magician's ghetto.
• Saleem gets taken to The Widow's hostel to be sterilized.
• When he gets back, he hangs out with Picture Singh until he recognizes a chutney that he had as a child.
• Saleem finds Mary's pickle factory and begins working there.
• On Saleem's 31st birthday he marries Padma and dies.