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Hello everyone!
Now, let’s dive in and discuss the screening in detail — covering pre-viewing activities, while-watching prompts, post-viewing discussions, and critical reflections based on the postcolonial themes explored in the film.
◾️What this session aims to do (Purpose)
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Critically engage with the film adaptation of Midnight’s Children.
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Explore postcolonial themes: hybridity, nationhood, and language (the “chutnification” of English).
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Build reflective and analytical skills via guided viewing.
1️⃣ Introduction – From Page to Screen
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, first published in 1981, is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of postcolonial literature. Awarded the Booker Prize and later the “Booker of Bookers,” the novel is a sprawling, multi-generational narrative that blends magical realism with the turbulent history of the Indian subcontinent.
The story is told through the eyes of Saleem Sinai, born at the stroke of midnight on 15th August 1947, the exact moment of India’s independence from British colonial rule. This miraculous coincidence links his life irrevocably to the fate of the nation itself.
In 2012, director Deepa Mehta collaborated with Rushdie to adapt this monumental work for the screen. Rushdie himself wrote the screenplay and served as the film’s narrator, providing a direct bridge between the novel’s voice and the film’s storytelling.
🔷 Pre-Viewing Activity: Setting the Stage for Midnight’s Children
Before stepping into the vivid world of Midnight’s Children, it is essential to prepare the intellectual ground for a richer viewing experience. This stage is not just about knowing the plot — it’s about sharpening the mind with questions, concepts, and contexts that will help decode Salman Rushdie’s layered narrative and Deepa Mehta’s cinematic translation.
A. Trigger Questions — Journal Reflections or Class Discussion
👉🏻 Before engaging with Midnight’s Children, it’s useful to explore key theoretical and cultural ideas that deepen our understanding of its narrative complexity.
▪️Hybridity – Homi K. Bhabha’s “Third Space”
In The Location of Culture, particularly the chapter “Signs Taken for Wonders,” Bhabha introduces the concept of hybridity and the “Third Space” — a cultural zone where identities are negotiated, and new meanings emerge. In the context of postcolonial India, hybridity reflects how colonial and indigenous influences merge, producing identities that are neither purely traditional nor wholly Western. This framework helps in reading Midnight’s Children as a story of in-between spaces — between history and myth, East and West, memory and reality.
▪️Nationhood – Partha Chatterjee’s Indian Nationalism
▪️Language and Chutnification – Salman Rushdie’s Literary Play
Rushdie’s essays in Imaginary Homelands — especially “Commonwealth Literature Does Not Exist” — reveal his playful approach to English, a language once used as a tool of colonial domination. Through “chutnification,” Rushdie infuses English with Indian idioms, rhythms, and cultural references, decolonizing it and making it a vehicle for distinctly Indian storytelling. This is crucial for understanding the novel’s style, where language itself becomes a space of resistance and creativity.
The essay “Padma or No Padma” examines the adaptation process and audience reception. It highlights how visual media reshapes narrative focus and character presence, showing how Midnight’s Children shifts when moved from page to screen.
🔷 While-Watching Activities
While viewing Midnight’s Children, it becomes clear that Deepa Mehta’s adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s novel is not simply a cinematic retelling but a dense layering of personal memory, historical narrative, and postcolonial critique. The following observations unpack the key moments and themes that emerge during the screening.
1. Nation and Identity in Saleem’s Narration
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From the very opening, Saleem Sinai frames his existence as inseparable from the destiny of India itself — “I was born at the stroke of midnight, on the night of August 15, 1947.” This symbolic birth date fuses his life story with the nation’s founding moment. Every significant turn in his personal life — from childhood illnesses to romantic entanglements — is paralleled by shifts in the political landscape: independence, partition, wars, and the Emergency. The visual juxtaposition of Saleem’s intimate experiences with archival-style footage of historical events blurs the boundary between autobiography and national history. The effect is to suggest that identity in postcolonial contexts is not purely individual; it is interwoven with the political, cultural, and ideological fabric of the nation. In Saleem’s case, his personal narrative becomes an allegory for the chaotic, fractured, and yet hopeful journey of independent India.
2. The Birth Switch and Hybridized Identities
The fateful act of Mary Pereira, the nurse who swaps two newborns — Saleem and Shiva — encapsulates the theme of hybridity at a deeply human level. Saleem, biologically the child of a poor family, is raised in privilege; Shiva, born to privilege, is raised in poverty. This creates layered identities:
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Biological Hybridity: Their genetic heritage aligns them with one class, but their lived experiences belong to another.
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Social Hybridity: Saleem develops the mannerisms, education, and worldview of the elite, yet unknowingly carries the history of struggle and marginalization in his bloodline.
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Political Hybridity: The two boys grow into symbolic embodiments of competing visions of India — Saleem as the representative of unity and pluralism, Shiva as the emblem of raw power and aggression.
This plot device functions as a metaphor for the entire postcolonial nation — born from one set of historical circumstances but raised under another, producing a hybrid identity that defies neat categorization.
🔹Video Narration:
"In this crucial scene, Mary Braganza, the nurse, swaps the newborn Saleem and Shiva. This act sets the stage for exploring complex hybrid identities that define their lives. The switched infants come to embody three intertwined layers of hybridity:
First, biological hybridity — Saleem is born to a poor Hindu family but is raised in a wealthy Muslim household, while Shiva, born into privilege, grows up in poverty. Their genetic heritage and social upbringing are deliberately mismatched, challenging fixed notions of identity based solely on birth.
Second, social hybridity — their contrasting environments shape their manners, opportunities, and worldviews in unique ways. Saleem inherits elite education and manners, while Shiva develops street-smart resilience and ambition through hardship.
Third, political hybridity — Saleem’s life symbolizes idealism and national unity, reflecting his elite, multicultural upbringing, whereas Shiva’s path is marked by anger and militancy, fueled by social resentment and class struggle.
👉🏻 Mary’s switch symbolizes the postcolonial dislocation where identity is fragmented, fluid, and socially constructed, not predetermined. This birth swap metaphorically rewrites the personal and political landscapes of post-independence India, emphasizing hybridity as a space of negotiation, conflict, and creative possibility."
3. Saleem’s Unreliable Narration and Metafiction
Throughout the film, Saleem breaks the illusion of historical objectivity. He forgets dates, confuses sequences of events, and openly admits to embellishing or altering facts. At times, the visual narrative contradicts his spoken words, reminding viewers that what they see is filtered through one individual’s subjective lens. This metafictional approach forces us to confront the constructed nature of both personal and national history. Just as Saleem’s memory is selective and imaginative, so too is any official account of history — shaped by the biases, omissions, and priorities of its author. In this way, Midnight’s Children aligns with postcolonial historiography, which challenges the Eurocentric assumption that history can be a singular, linear, and objective truth.
4. The Emergency — Democracy and Freedom Under Siege
The portrayal of the 1975–77 Emergency is one of the film’s most politically charged sequences. The government’s imposition of authoritarian rule, suspension of civil liberties, and implementation of coercive sterilization programs are shown not only as historical facts but as deeply personal traumas for the characters. Saleem’s community experiences forced displacement, loss of livelihoods, and the erasure of dissenting voices. This aligns with the symbolic reading of the bulldozer in Rushdie’s text — a machine of “beautification” that in reality destroys communities and identities. The Emergency becomes a cautionary moment in the narrative: independence does not guarantee democracy, and the postcolonial state can reproduce the same forms of control and violence once associated with colonial rule.
5. Linguistic Hybridity and the Chutnification of English
Language in Midnight’s Children is not a neutral medium; it is an active participant in shaping identity. Characters move fluidly between English, Hindi, and Urdu, sometimes within the same sentence. This reflects the linguistic reality of urban, multilingual India, but it also enacts Rushdie’s idea of “chutnification” — the remixing of English with local idioms, rhythms, and metaphors. In doing so, the colonial language is transformed from an imposed standard into a living, adaptive tool of Indian expression. This linguistic hybridity not only resists the purity of “Queen’s English” but also mirrors the cultural hybridity of the nation itself. In the film, such shifts in language often occur in moments of heightened emotion, reinforcing the idea that identity is performed through both what is said and how it is said.
In sum, Midnight’s Children on screen captures the restless interplay between self and nation, history and memory, colonizer’s tongue and local speech. Saleem’s story may be unreliable, but it is precisely this unreliability that reveals a deeper truth: that postcolonial identity is fragmented, hybrid, and continually in the process of being rewritten.
🔷 Post-Viewing Tasks
After watching Midnight’s Children, the post-viewing stage is crucial for consolidating understanding, encouraging critical reflection, and linking the film’s narrative techniques to broader thematic and cultural contexts. This phase invites learners to go beyond plot recall, engaging in analysis, interpretation, and personal response.
Saleem and Shiva as Hybrid Figures:
Cultural Hybridity:
Saleem and Shiva’s lives represent a blending of cultural identities shaped by their circumstances rather than just biology. Saleem is born into a working-class Hindu family but grows up in a wealthy Muslim household. This mix of privilege and modest origins gives him a unique perspective—he inherits elite manners, education, and lifestyle while retaining a connection to his humble roots. On the other hand, Shiva’s life is the reverse: though born into a privileged Muslim family, he grows up poor and hardened by working-class struggles. This contrast illustrates how culture is not fixed by birth but shaped by social environments, reflecting the fluid cultural identities in postcolonial societies where colonial and indigenous influences overlap.
Religious Hybridity:
The religious identities of Saleem and Shiva also blur rigid communal lines. Saleem’s Muslim upbringing contrasts with his Hindu biological heritage, while Shiva’s Hindu upbringing contradicts his Muslim birth. This mixing challenges the rigid communal divisions often emphasized in India’s postcolonial context. Their overlapping religious identities underscore the complexity and hybridity of individual identities that cannot be confined to single religious or communal labels. It critiques essentialist views and highlights how identity is layered and multifaceted in a nation marked by religious diversity and historical conflict.
Political Hybridity:
Politically, Saleem and Shiva symbolize opposing but intertwined postcolonial narratives. Saleem embodies idealism and hopes for unity and progress, reflecting his elite upbringing that values national integration. In contrast, Shiva’s political ambition is fueled by resentment and anger born from poverty and marginalization, representing the discontent that arises from social inequalities and exclusion. Their differing political trajectories demonstrate how hybridity includes competing visions and conflicts, mirroring the contested and fragmented nature of postcolonial politics.
Birth Switch as Postcolonial Dislocation
The nurse’s swapping of Saleem and Shiva at birth symbolizes the arbitrary and disruptive effects of colonialism on identity and belonging. Just as colonial powers arbitrarily redrew maps and redefined national and social boundaries without regard for existing communities or histories, the birth switch disrupts the “natural” order of personal identity. This act of dislocation reflects how colonialism uprooted and fragmented identities, forcing people into new, often contradictory social and political realities. It highlights how identity is not inherent but constructed through history, politics, and social forces beyond the individual’s control.
Connection to Bhabha’s Third Space
Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the “Third Space” refers to an in-between cultural space where identities are not fixed or pure but are continuously negotiated and hybridized. Saleem and Shiva exist in this liminal space—not fully belonging to any single identity category of class, religion, or politics. This “Third Space” becomes a site of resistance against colonial binaries such as colonizer/colonized or rich/poor. It also opens up creative possibilities for forming new, complex identities that reflect postcolonial realities. By inhabiting this space, the characters embody the fluid and dynamic nature of identity in a postcolonial context.
Hybrid Identity as Possibility
Rather than portraying hybridity as a source of confusion or crisis, the film frames it positively as adaptability and strength. Saleem’s hybrid identity allows him to navigate multiple social and cultural worlds with empathy and resourcefulness. This flexibility is presented as a valuable asset in negotiating the challenges of a postcolonial society marked by diversity and contradiction. The film suggests that hybridity is not a deficit but a creative condition that enables new forms of belonging and self-understanding. It challenges colonial narratives that sought to fix identities in rigid categories and instead celebrates the complexity and richness of postcolonial identity.
Belonging to a postcolonial nation means living in the creative tension between past and present, between inherited colonial legacies and the desire to forge a new, self-defined identity. In India, this tension is most visible in its complex relationship with English—the language of its colonizers—and in the fractured yet dynamic identities of its people. Deepa Mehta’s film adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children vividly portrays this condition through the intertwined lives of Saleem Sinai and Shiva. Their stories reflect how personal histories are inseparable from national histories, and how hybridity—though often born from displacement—can become a site of possibility and transformation.
Language: From Colonizer’s Tool to Cultural Expression
English was introduced to India as a language of power, administration, and cultural dominance. It was intended to create a class of people “Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste,” a deliberate colonial strategy of control and assimilation. Yet, as Midnight’s Children shows, English is no longer the exclusive property of the colonizer. Rushdie’s concept of the “chutnification” of English—its playful blending with Hindi, Urdu, and local idioms—transforms it into a language capable of carrying Indian rhythms, humor, and cultural references. This linguistic hybridity is not merely stylistic; it is an act of decolonization. Rushdie writes, “This English... celebrates the hybridity of Indian speech” and reclaims the language for Indian voices rather than colonial masters (Rushdie 67). In this way, English becomes a site of postcolonial creativity rather than colonial oppression.
Fractured Identities in a Postcolonial World
The birth switch between Saleem and Shiva is a powerful metaphor for postcolonial dislocation. Saleem, biologically born to a poor Hindu woman, is raised in a wealthy Muslim household, while Shiva, born into privilege, grows up in poverty. This exchange fractures their “natural” identities, illustrating how historical forces—colonialism, Partition, political upheaval—disrupt intimate markers of selfhood. Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of the “Third Space” helps illuminate this condition. This “in-between” space is where identities are not fixed but constantly negotiated, enabling hybridity as a dynamic process. Saleem inhabits this Third Space fully, embodying multiple cultural, religious, and political influences simultaneously. Shiva also occupies this liminal space, though his experience is marked by anger and ambition (Bhabha 38). Through them, the narrative reveals that identity is not a fixed essence but a product of historical and social forces.
The Nation as Personal Narrative
Midnight’s Children refuses to tell India’s story through the voice of political victors or nationalist triumphalism. Instead, Saleem’s intimate, often unreliable narration weaves national events with his personal life, challenging Eurocentric ideas of nationhood as a linear, homogeneous construct. Partha Chatterjee argues that Indian nationalism diverged from Western models by rooting itself in cultural memory and everyday lived experience rather than abstract political ideals (Chatterjee 6). Saleem’s story mirrors this: the history of India is also the history of his family, his body, and his relationships. The nation thus appears as a hybrid, fragmented entity shaped by multiple, often conflicting narratives—much like the postcolonial individual.
Belonging as Burden and Possibility
To belong to a postcolonial nation like India is to carry the weight of historical fractures—the trauma of colonization, the scars of Partition, and the contradictions of modern democracy. Yet it also means inheriting a rich cultural mosaic full of diverse languages, religions, and traditions. The film and novel depict hybridity not as confusion or loss, but as creative potential. Saleem’s “in-betweenness” grants him empathy, adaptability, and a unique perspective bridging divides. Hybridity emerges as a form of cultural capital, a resource for navigating the complexities of postcolonial life.
🔷Group Discussion :
Hybridity and Identity – Our Group Discussion
👉🏻 In our group discussion, we examined how hybridity and identity play a central role in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.
Shruti begun the discussion by explaining hybridity as a mix of cultures, religions, and ideas. Saleem grows up in a rich family but actually belongs to a poor background, while Shiva grows up poor but has a rich family background. This accidental birth switch creates social and cultural hybridity, shaping their entire lives.
Smruti added that religious hybridity is equally significant. Saleem is born Hindu but raised Muslim, while Shiva is born Muslim but raised Hindu. This shows that identity is not fixed by birth but is constructed through upbringing and environment.
Jay focused on political identity, saying Saleem becomes idealistic and supports unity in diversity, whereas Shiva is ambitious and violent, wanting power. Their contrasting political choices show how hybrid experiences influence ideology.
Trupati connected this to postcolonial dislocation, comparing the birth swap to colonial history, where borders and identities were forcibly changed. It reflects how individuals in postcolonial nations often face fragmented identities.
Bhumi brought in Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space, where Saleem and Shiva live between two identities. This space allows them to negotiate and create new hybrid selves, but it also brings confusion and conflict.
Rutvi said hybridity is not only about struggle but also about creativity and adaptation. In the Third Space, people can reshape identity and find new meanings.
And me emphasized hybridity as strength. Saleem uses his mixed identity to connect with diverse people and tell India’s story, while Shiva uses his hybridity as a weapon for survival and dominance.
Additional Points Discussed:
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Hybridity in language: Rushdie mixes English with Indian words, creating a hybrid narrative voice.
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Historical hybridity: The novel itself is a product of colonial and postcolonial influences, blending history with fantasy (magical realism).
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Identity crisis: Saleem’s confusion about “Who am I?” mirrors India’s struggle for a national identity after Partition.
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Multiplicity of identity: No character has a single identity — each is a fusion of religions, regions, languages, and cultures.
Nikita concluded by saying identity in Midnight’s Children is never stable. It is fluid, hybrid, and continuously shaped by history, culture, and personal choices.
🔷 Creative Task: Analysis of “Chutnification of English” in Rushdie’s Text
Here I analyzed how Rushdie uses chutnification of English—the deliberate mixing of English with Indian vernacular, cultural nuances, and localized expressions. The selected passage from Midnight’s Children (page 22) offers rich examples:
Original Text:
Meanwhile, the boatman, Tai, had taken his unexplained decision to
give up washing. In a valley drenched in freshwater lakes, where even the
very poorest people could (and did) pride themselves on their cleanliness,
Tai chose to stink. For three years now, he had neither bathed nor washed
himself after answering calls of nature. He wore the same clothes,
unwashed, year in, year out; his one concession to winter was to put his
chugha-coat over his putrescent pajamas. The little basket of hot coals
which he carried inside the chugha, in the Kashmiri fashion, to keep him
warm in the bitter cold, only animated and accentuated his evil odours. He
took to drifting slowly past the Aziz household, releasing the dreadful fumes
of his body across the small garden and into the house. Flowers died; birds
fled from the ledge outside old Father Aziz's window. Naturally, Tai lost
work; the English in particular were reluctant to be ferried by a human
cesspit. The story went around the lake that Tai's wife, driven to distraction
by the old man's sudden filthiness, pleaded for a reason. He had answered:
'Ask our foreign-returned doctor, ask that nakkoo, that German Aziz,' Was
it, then, an attempt to offend the Doctor's hypersensitive nostrils (in which
the itch of danger had subsided somewhat under the anaesthetizing
ministrations of love)? Or a gesture of unchangingness in defiance of the
invasion of the doctori-attache from Heidelberg? Once Aziz asked the
ancient, straight out, what it was all for; but Tai only breathed on him and
rowed away. The breath nearly felled Aziz; it was sharp as an axe.
How Rushdie “Chutnified” English in This Paragraph
👉🏻 Rushdie blends English with Indian and local cultural elements, creating a hybrid form of expression. Here’s how:
Local Words Inserted into English Syntax:
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chugha (a Kashmiri long coat)
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putrescent pajamas (mix of strong English adjective with a common Indian garment)
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nakkoo (local slang for a snub-nosed person)
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doctori-attache (mix of English word with Indianized style)
Code-Mixing & Cultural Markers:
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“foreign-returned doctor” → Indian English expression instead of “doctor who returned from abroad.”
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“calls of nature” → idiomatic, but Rushdie keeps it in a slightly humorous tone.
Exaggerated Metaphors & Indian Humor:
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“Flowers died; birds fled from the ledge…” → hyperbolic humor rooted in oral storytelling tradition.
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“His breath was sharp as an axe” → striking and folk-like simile.
Sentence Rhythm & Structure:
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Long, flowing sentences that mimic Indian storytelling, not clipped British English.
Translated into Standard English (with changes in bold):
Meanwhile, the boatman, Tai, had decided, for reasons unknown, to stop bathing altogether. In a valley full of freshwater lakes, where even the poorest people took pride in their cleanliness, Tai chose to remain unwashed. For three years, he neither bathed nor cleaned himself after using the toilet. He wore the same clothes without washing them, year after year; the only concession he made to winter was adding his coat over his dirty pajamas. The small basket of hot coals he carried inside his coat, in the traditional Kashmiri style, to keep himself warm in the bitter cold, only made his terrible smell stronger. He began to drift slowly past the Aziz household, spreading the dreadful smell of his body into the garden and the house. Flowers withered; birds flew away from the window of Father Aziz. Naturally, Tai lost his work; the English especially did not want to be ferried by such a filthy man. Rumor spread around the lake that Tai’s wife, driven mad by her husband’s sudden dirtiness, asked him why. He replied: ‘Ask our doctor who has returned from abroad, ask that snub-nosed German Aziz.’ Was it then an attempt to offend the doctor’s sensitive nose (which had calmed somewhat under the soothing power of love)? Or was it a gesture of resistance to the arrival of the doctor from Heidelberg? Once Aziz asked him directly why he did it; but Tai only breathed on him and rowed away. His breath was so foul that it nearly knocked Aziz down; it was as sharp as an axe.
2️⃣ Conclusion
Belonging to a postcolonial nation that speaks in a colonizer’s tongue and bears fractured identities means living in constant negotiation—between languages, histories, and selves. Yet it also means having the tools to reshape those inheritances into something new and vibrant. Midnight’s Children shows that while colonial history may fracture identity, postcolonial creativity can weave it back together in unexpected ways. English, once a symbol of domination, can be transformed into an Indian language. Hybridity, once a mark of displacement, becomes a source of belonging and strength.
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