now the old men place the spittoon in the street, further and further from their squatting place, and aim longer and longer jets at it. Still the fluid flies true. "Oh, too good, yara!" The street urchins make a game of dodging in and out between the red streams, super-imposing the game of chicken upon this art of hit-the-spittoon . . . But here is an army staff car, scattering urchins as it comes . . . here, Brigadier Dodson, the town's military commander, stifling with heat . . and here, his A.D.C., Major Zulfikar, passing him a towel. Dodson mops his face; urchins scatter; the car knocks over the spittoon. A dark red fluid with clots in it like blood congeals like a red hand in the dust of the street and points accusingly at the retreating power of the Raj.In both quotations the act of chewing or the juice itself is associated with truth and memory; in the first, Saleem collects himself by chewing, calming himself so that he can record history accurately. In the second, the juice takes on the memory of the old men; it is as if they have spit their collected knowledge and injury into the brass bowl, and the spit of memory acts on its own. The shifting tone of the second paragraph quoted above illustrates Rushdie's dense and delicate style, which complicates analysis; moments of humor turn serious in an instant. Opposites are contained in a single image, and tropes fall over one another, as in the betel-juice looking like blood, which is another substance laden with more than its natural weight in meaning over the course of the novel.- Saleem Sinai’s face represented a map of India. Rushdie used this central theme as a tool to explore the different aspects of India. India was going through a time of transition and conflict. Throughout his book, Rushdie examined the social structure of India, the political strife in India, and the earlier influences on India.- Salman Rushdie entwined universal themes of India within his novel. Mi...
