Midnights Children- Padma

Padma is the lover turned wife of the narrator Saleem in the novel Midnight’s Children by renowned author Salman Rushdee. Her character is one of prime importance in the novel as the whole book is based on the narration of Saleem and then Padma’s response to it. Padma embodies the audience of the novel, acting somewhat as a representative of the reader. In the novel Padma is portrayed as a very compassionate and loving lover, albeit one who’s extremely impatient and cynical. Padma can be seen as representing the lower classes of India as she is portrayed as being illiterate and superstitious, characteristics that the author perhaps the author finds indigenous to the lower strata of the Indian society. She’s described as having strong and hairy forearms to add perhaps a touch of humour in the book. She is the main critic in the story, judging her husband’s comments and narratives rather harshly. She could be described as a lovely person inside with an edge to her that creates a sort of balance in the couple. Her character personifies the old saying that opposites do indeed attract in the fact that she is quite unlike her husband in several ways. She is the perfect opposite for him countering his enthusiasm, somewhat unrealistic and lax narratives with her criticisms, impatience and judgmental opinions. Her character highlights impatience all through the book. She makes him hurry through the stories showing very little tolerance for his habit of putting a magical spin on everything and asking him to get to the point. The author has penned her character in such a way that it becomes obvious from her remarks that she has somewhat of a narcissistic personality. She is not one who’ll believe something without seeing something if it seems farfetched or unreasonable. This characteristic has been solidified by Padma’s reluctance throughout the story to believe the stories of Saleem. She voices her doubts over and over again in the book. She also shows disapproval at her husband’s habit of being overly expressive, asking him to stay to the point. Most importantly, her character serves as an oratory tool for the author and the audience. She allows the author to take care of any complaints that the reader might have. Being the critical voice of the book, she allows the readers to voice their frustrations at the book, which in turn allows the author to address these issues and move on himself in the book and not get caught up in writing out explanations. She can be viewed as a vent of sorts if you may, voicing the concerns of the reader. However by doing so, she provides us with a complete reading experience. The author finds a balance in her character. She keeps the character of Saleem and some of the more flamboyant themes of the book alive by voicing her opinions again and again giving them that much needed touch of reality. It is in the end that we discover that padma is actually saleems wife , the exact details as to when this happened are not stated explicitly.