Editing Midnight's Children (section)

==Major themes==
The technique of [[magical realism]] finds liberal expression throughout the novel and is crucial to constructing the parallel to the country's history.<ref name="Stewart"/> The story moves in different parts of Indian Subcontinent – from [[Kashmir]] to [[Agra]] and then to [[Mumbai|Bombay]], [[Lahore]] and [[Dhaka]]. Nicholas Stewart in his essay, "Magic realism in relation to the post-colonial and Midnight's Children," argues that the "narrative framework of ''Midnight's Children'' consists of a tale – comprising his life story – which Saleem Sinai recounts orally to his wife-to-be Padma. This self-referential narrative (within a single paragraph Saleem refers to himself in the first person: 'And I, wishing upon myself the curse of Nadir Khan...;' and the third: '"I tell you," Saleem cried, "it is true. ..."') recalls indigenous Indian culture, particularly the similarly orally recounted ''[[One Thousand and One Nights|Arabian Nights]]''.<ref name="Stewart">{{cite web|url=http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/rushdie.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061230072709/http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/rushdie.htm|last=Stewart|first=N.|title=Magic realism as postcolonialist device in ''Midnight's Children''|date=21 June 1999|archive-date=30 December 2006|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref> The events in the book also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in ''Arabian Nights'' (consider the attempt to electrocute Saleem at the latrine (p.&nbsp;353), or his journey in the 'basket of invisibility' (p.&nbsp;383))."

He also notes that, "the narrative comprises and compresses Indian cultural history."<ref name="Stewart"/> "'Once upon a time,' Saleem muses, 'there were [[Radha]] and [[Krishna]], and [[Rama]] and [[Sita]], and [[Layla and Majnun|Laila and Majnun]]; also (because we are not unaffected by the West) [[Romeo and Juliet]], and [[Spencer Tracy]] and [[Katharine Hepburn]]' (259)." Stewart (citing Hutcheon) suggests that ''Midnight's Children'' chronologically entwines characters from both India and the West, "with post-colonial Indian history to examine both the effect of these indigenous and non-indigenous cultures on the Indian mind and in the light of Indian independence."<ref name="Stewart"/>

''Midnight’s Children'' anticipates Rushdie’s later preoccupation with the socio-political responsibility of the writer, as articulated in his essay “Imaginary Homelands” (1991). In this essay, Rushdie reflects on the changing world and calls for politically committed writing that unmasks political shams and legerdemains. Both the novel and the essay express this concern by aiming to present the world differently, in ways that might bring about positive change. As Rushdie writes, “I once took part in a conference on modern writing at New College, Oxford. Various novelists, myself included, were talking earnestly of such matters as the need for new ways of describing the world.”<ref>Rushdie, Salman (1992). “Imaginary Homelands," ''Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991'', London: Granta, p. 13</ref> He contends that describing the world is inherently political, and that “redescribing a world is the necessary first step towards changing it.”<ref>Rushdie, Salman (1992). “Imaginary Homelands," ''Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991'', London: Granta, p. 14</ref> Therefore, he argues, the act of writing is political because “it is particularly at times when the state takes reality into its own hands, and sets about distorting it, altering the past to fit its present needs, that the making of the alternative realities of art, including the novel of memory, becomes politicized.”<ref>Rushdie, Salman (1992). “Imaginary Homelands," ''Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991'', London: Granta, p. 14</ref> Likewise, in ''Midnight’s Children'', writing becomes a political act as Rushdie offers alternative realities that challenge the politician’s version of truth. Saleem, the protagonist, represents the author-figure who strives to assemble voices from diverse cultural centres to bring about positive change in a disconnected world, symbolized in the 1947 partition of India.