Hannah-Rushdie-3/2

2. pg 274-275 "'Not the dark one...'" to "...lots of fun"

From pages 274-275, Saleem comes back from the hospital and is going to live with Hanif, Pia and Mary. When he is telling Mary to make him a light green chutney, "... green like grasshoppers!"(green = a new beginning, happiness, nature/nurture. The lighter the chutney, the more pure and innocent he wants to feel after experiencing everything that has happened so far, such as learning about his mother's infidelity). On page 275, Saleem compares himself to the Kolynos Kid that has a big grin on his face. "...squeezing crises and transformations out of a bottomless tube, extruding time on my metaphorical toothbrush..." (275). It seems that Saleem is trying to clean his slate and mind, but his hopes thin out, like toothpaste coming out of the tube, as his parents temporarily leave him with Hanif. Transformations and crises come and go in never ending cycles.

"That I was no longer a good business risk, no longer worth the investment of their love and protection?" Saleem is portrayed as an insecure little boy, as he should be at his age. Throughout the novel so far, he is seen as an older narrator at age ten because of his abilities and his powers, but this passage shows Saleem as doubtful about his future and the love of his parents. He even wants his sister to at least give him a phone call, reassuring his position as a child in his family. In order to deal with his insecurities, he decides to act like a surrogate son to Hanif and Pia, trying to reclaim his role in some sort of typical family setting. Rushdie seems to show Saleem as an ordinary boy in India, somewhat normal and worrisome. He is repetitive in Saleem's thoughts about blaming himself for making his parents disappear from his life, going on for a page about the 'what ifs' of his injury and what could have happened if it never happened.