News was out last week that author Salman Rushdie’s epic 1981 book ‘Midnight’s Children’ is to be adapted as a television series by Netflix. For this truly wonderful book, the author won the Booker Prize in 1981, the Best of Booker twice – first in 1993 and then again in 2008 – and the James Tait Memorial Prize. We remember that when we read this novel during our teens, we felt a rush of thrill that was quite unique as we were introduced to the world of magic realism for the very first time – which mixed historical events with magical events as told through the eyes of its narrator Saleem Sinai (who happened to be Rushdie’s alter ego). The book follows the life of Saleem, who is born on the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947, the exact time of India’s independence. Saleem’s every act is mirrored in events that affect the course of India’s national affairs – his health and well-being are tied up inextricably to those of India. His life is bound up indistinguishably from the history of this country. Rushdie, incidentally, was born on 19 June 1947, which is pretty close to India’s Independence and was brought up as a boy at Breach Candy in Mumbai. Though there are some vivid Mumbai references in the book, the novel moves from Kashmir to Agra, Lahore to Dhaka with a swift-footedness that only Rushdie could have achieved through his use of magic realism. In our opinion, there is only one other book by an Indian author that equals ‘Midnight’s Children’ in terms of storytelling and of being a publishing milestone during the course of our lives – the other one is Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’!