Friday October 3, 2008 6:00 am Missoula, Montana

• "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. This is why I have resolved to confide in paper, before I forget." [p. 37]
  • True enough. It gives one perspective. Although why one doesn't accept it more fully, forget about writing, and enjoy the moment? Then again, writing these web pages in the early morning is enjoyable.
    
    
• "I, Saleem Sinai, possessor of the most delicately-gifted olfactory organ in history, have dedicated my latter days to the large-scale preparation of condiments. ... And my chutneys and kasaundies are, after all, connected to my nocturnal scribblings - by day amongst the pickle vats, by night within these sheets, I spend my time at the great work of preserving. Memory, as well as fruit, is being saved from the corruption of the clocks." [p. 37 - 38]
  • Rushdie is a master of seeing connections where most would not. But I prefer to scribble in the morning.
    
    
• " 'Things - even people - have a way of leaking into each other,' I explain, 'like flavours when you cook. ... 'Likewise,' I intone earnestly, 'the past has dripped into me ... so we can't ignore it.' " [p. 38]
  • A great metaphor!
    
    
• "And, more prosaically, the water shortage had reached the point where milkmen could no longer find clean water with which to adulterate the milk ... Far away, there was a World War in progress once again." [p. 39]
  • I love the contrast. Also, the idea of making milk go farther by adding water is a new idea for me - adding water to liquor, yes, but to milk? I am still Learning.
    
    
• "... she [Reverand Mother] lived within an invisible fortress of her own making, an ironclad citadel of traditions and certainties. ... the domestic rules that she established were a system of self-defence so impregnable ... (Perhaps too, it wasn't a system f self-defence at all, but a means of defence against her self.)" [p. 40 - 41]
  • Nice point.
    
    
• "It is a sign of the power of this custom that, even when her husband was afflicted by constipation, she never once permitted him to choose his food, and listeneded to no requests or words of advice. A fortress may not move. Not even when its dependents' movements become irregular." [p. 41]
  • Cute.
• "Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts." [p. 47]

Aadam and Naseem had 5 children: Alia, the eldest daughter, then Mumtaz the second oldest daughter, Hanif and then Mustapha (both boys) and then Emerald, the youngest daughter. (One of these children will become the narrator's parent.)

In 1942 there was a man, nicknamed the hummingbird, who was championing the Islamic cause in India. He and Aadam Aziz became friends. He had a right-hand man, Nadir Khan who was a spineless poet. One evening the hummingbird was assassinated and Nadir Khan barely escaped through a window.