This blog is an outcome of the Film Screening Activity on Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children (2012), assigned by Prof. and Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. The activity was designed to help us critically engage with the film through a postcolonial perspective and to connect cinematic representation with concepts such as hybridity, national identity, history, and language. As part of the activity, the class was divided into three groups, with each group given a specific task: Group 1 explored Hybridity and Identity, Group 2 focused on Narrating the Nation, and Group 3 examined the Chutnification of English. These activities encouraged us to look beyond the film’s narrative and understand how Midnight’s Children represents the complexities of postcolonial India. In this blog, I reflect particularly on Group 3’s activity on Chutnification of English, through which I explored Salman Rushdie’s creative transformation of English and the way Indian words, expressions, cultural references, and storytelling practices reshape the language.
Introduction
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981), adapted into Deepa Mehta’s 2012 film, presents the story of Saleem Sinai alongside the turbulent history of postcolonial India. Born at the moment of Independence, Saleem becomes closely connected with the nation’s changing identity. Through hybridity, the narration of the nation, and the chutnification of English, the novel and film question the possibility of a single and unified postcolonial identity. Reading the film through Bhabha, Chatterjee and Rushdie, this reflection explores how identity, history and language become sites of negotiation in postcolonial India.
1. About Film
- 👉Film: Midnight’s Children
- 👉Director: Deepa Mehta
- 👉Year: 2012
- 👉Based on: Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children (1981)
- 👉Central Character: Saleem Sinai
- 👉Historical Context: Saleem is born at the moment of India’s Independence on 15 August 1947.
- 👉Major Concerns: Identity, hybridity, nationalism, memory, history, language, and postcolonial experience.
- 👉Approach of this Blog: The film is examined through both literary and cinematic perspectives, with particular focus on the postcolonial themes identified in the screening worksheet.
2. Questions That Guided My Viewing
Before watching Midnight’s Children, I considered three central questions from the worksheet: Who narrates history—the victors or the marginalized? What makes a nation—geography, governance, culture, or memory? And can the language of the colonizer be decolonized? These questions helped me move beyond the film’s narrative and examine how it represents history, national identity, marginalised voices, and language from a postcolonial perspective.
Group 1: Hybridity and Identity
- Saleem and Shiva's Birth-Switch
One of the most significant moments in Midnight’s Children is the switching of Saleem and Shiva at birth. Mary Pereira exchanges the two babies, causing them to grow up in families different from their biological origins. This incident immediately complicates the idea of a fixed identity because family, religion, class and social environment become as important as biological origin.
Saleem and Shiva represent different forms of identity within postcolonial India. Saleem grows up in a relatively privileged Muslim family, while Shiva grows up in a poorer social environment. Their lives therefore demonstrate how identity is shaped by cultural, religious and political circumstances rather than being determined by birth alone.
The birth-switch can also be understood as a symbol of postcolonial dislocation. The characters are displaced from their original identities and placed into new social and cultural spaces. This makes their identities hybrid and unstable, reflecting the complexity of a newly independent nation.
Connection with Bhabha's Third Space
Homi K. Bhabha's concept of the Third Space helps us understand this hybridity. The Third Space is a space of cultural negotiation where identities are neither completely one thing nor another. In the case of Saleem, his identity is formed through different cultural, religious and social influences rather than belonging to one fixed category.
Prompt: How does the film depict hybrid identity not as confusion, but as possibility?
The film presents hybrid identity as a possibility for creating new forms of belonging. Saleem's identity cannot be reduced to one biological, cultural or religious category. His experiences allow him to exist between different identities and perspectives. Therefore, hybridity becomes a source of complexity and possibility rather than simply confusion. Through Saleem and Shiva, Midnight’s Children suggests that postcolonial identity is fluid, negotiated and continuously constructed.
Group 3: Chutnification of English
Chutnification of English in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
Introduction
Language is one of the most important features of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Rushdie does not simply use English as it was traditionally written by British writers. Instead, he transforms English by mixing it with Indian languages, expressions, cultural references, humour, and local ways of speaking. This process is often described through Rushdie’s idea of “chutnification.”
The word “chutnification” itself is significant. Chutney is made by mixing different ingredients to create something new. Similarly, Rushdie mixes English with Hindi, Urdu, Indian idioms, local expressions, historical references, and Indian speech patterns. The resulting language is neither completely British English nor a direct Indian language. It becomes a distinctive form of Indian English.
In Midnight’s Children, this linguistic mixing becomes a way of challenging colonial authority. English was historically the language of British colonial power, education, administration, and cultural prestige. Rushdie takes that language and makes it serve Indian experiences. In doing so, he demonstrates that English can be appropriated, transformed, and made Indian.
For this activity, I have selected a passage from Tai’s speech to young Aziz. The passage is particularly interesting because Tai’s language combines English vocabulary with Indian words, measurements, cultural history, exaggeration, humour, and oral storytelling.
The Selected Passage
'Oh, you don't believe?'-licking his sore lips with a grin, knowing it to be the reverse of the truth; 'Your attention is wandering?'-again, he knew how furiously Aziz was hanging on his words. 'Maybe the straw is pricking your behind, hey? Oh, I'm so sorry, babaji, not to provide for you silk cushions with gold brocade-work-cushions such as the Emperor Jehangir sat upon! You think of the Emperor Jehangir as a gardener only, no doubt,' Tai accused my grandfather, 'because he built Shalimar. Stupid! What do you know? His name meant Encompasser of the Earth. Is that a gardener's name? God knows what they teach you boys these days. Whereas I'... puffing up a little here ..'I knew his precise weight, to the tola! Ask me how many maunds, how many seers! When he was happy he got heavier and in Kashmir he was heaviest of all. I used to carry his litter... no, no, look, you don't believe again, that big cucumber in your face is waggling like the little one in your pajamas! So, come on, come on, ask me questions! Give examination! Ask how many times the leather thongs wound round the handles of the litter-the answer is thirty-one. Ask me what was the Emperor's dying word-I tell you it was 'Kashmir'. He had bad breath and a good heart. Who do you think I am? Some common ignorant lying pie-dog?
[From - eText Midnight Children pdf. page n.10]
The selected passage begins with Tai teasing Aziz:
“Oh, you don't believe?”
Tai continues by calling Aziz “babaji” and referring to cushions with “gold brocade-work.” He then speaks about Emperor Jehangir, his weight, and the measurements of his body and litter. He uses terms such as “tola,” “maunds,” and “seers”, and finally challenges Aziz to question him about the Emperor.
This speech sounds much more like an energetic conversation than formal written English. Tai's voice is full of interruptions, repetitions, exaggerations, questions, insults, and cultural references. Rushdie uses this style deliberately to reproduce the flavour of Indian oral storytelling.
👉What is “Chutnification”?
Rushdie’s “chutnification” refers to the process of transforming English by mixing it with Indian linguistic and cultural elements.
Just as chutney combines different ingredients, Rushdie combines:
English vocabulary
Hindi and Urdu words
Indian idioms
Indian measurements
Local speech patterns
Historical and cultural references
Repetition and oral storytelling
Humour and exaggeration
Indian rhythms of conversation
The result is a hybrid language.
Rushdie therefore does not treat English as a fixed or pure language. He makes English flexible enough to express Indian realities.
👉How Tai’s Speech Chutnifies English
1. Use of Indian Vocabulary
One of the clearest examples of linguistic mixing is Tai’s use of the word “babaji.”
The word “babaji” carries a cultural meaning that cannot be completely captured by simply translating it as “sir” or “young man.” It has an Indian cultural and social flavour.
Similarly, words such as “tola,” “maund,” and “seer” belong to traditional Indian systems of measurement.
For example, Tai speaks about knowing Jehangir’s weight:
“to the tola”
He also challenges Aziz to ask:
“how many maunds, how many seers!”
These words are not merely decorative. They locate Tai’s speech within an Indian cultural environment.
If Rushdie had used only modern British measurements, the passage would sound more standardized and less culturally specific. By retaining Indian terminology, Rushdie allows Indian culture to remain inside the English language.
2. Indian History Inside English
Tai refers to Emperor Jehangir, Shalimar, and Kashmir. These references create an Indian historical world within the English sentence.
Tai rejects Aziz’s simplified understanding of Jehangir:
“You think of the Emperor Jehangir as a gardener only”
He then explains the meaning associated with Jehangir’s name and connects him with Kashmir.
The important point is that the English language is being used to tell an Indian story from an Indian cultural perspective.
Rushdie does not translate the cultural world into British terms. Instead, he brings the Indian world directly into English.
3. Oral Storytelling and Repetition
Tai’s speech does not sound like formal academic English. It sounds like someone speaking passionately and dramatically.
He repeatedly asks questions:
“Ask me…”
and challenges Aziz to test his knowledge.
The repeated questions and commands create the rhythm of oral storytelling.
This is another form of chutnification. Rushdie brings the Indian conversational voice into English.
Tai's speech feels spontaneous, dramatic, humorous, and exaggerated. His personality becomes inseparable from his language.
4. Humour and Exaggeration
Tai frequently exaggerates his knowledge of Emperor Jehangir.
He claims that he knew the Emperor’s exact weight and even describes carrying his litter. He also says that Jehangir became heavier when he was happy and was “heaviest” in Kashmir.
These statements have the quality of a storyteller who wants to impress his listener.
The humour is created not only through what Tai says but also through how he says it.
Rushdie therefore uses English creatively rather than conventionally. English becomes a language of comic Indian storytelling.
5. Mixing Formal History with Everyday Speech
Another interesting feature is the combination of historical information with informal and humorous expressions.
Tai moves from discussing Emperor Jehangir to teasing Aziz and making jokes about his appearance. The passage therefore moves between:
history + humour + insult + storytelling + local vocabulary.
This mixture makes the language unpredictable.
A conventional historical narrative might separate serious historical information from casual conversation. Tai does not. His speech mixes everything together.
This mixture itself is an example of chutnification.
6. “Pickling” as a Metaphor
The idea of pickling is closely connected with chutnification in Midnight’s Children.
Pickling preserves something by placing it in a mixture of ingredients. Rushdie uses this idea metaphorically for memory and history.
In the novel, language becomes a kind of pickle jar in which different elements of Indian experience are preserved:
history
memory
culture
regional vocabulary
humour
political events
personal experiences
Tai’s speech demonstrates this process. His language preserves an older Indian cultural world while presenting it through English.
English therefore becomes a container for Indian memories.
👉Translation into “Standard” English
If we translate Tai’s speech into standardized English, it might sound approximately like this:
“You do not believe me? Are you no longer paying attention? Perhaps the straw is uncomfortable. I apologize for not providing you with luxurious silk cushions like those used by Emperor Jehangir. You probably think that Jehangir was merely a gardener because he built the Shalimar Gardens. You know very little. His name meant ‘Encompasser of the Earth.’ Does that sound like the name of a gardener? I know exactly how much he weighed. Ask me how many traditional units of weight he had. When he was happy, he became heavier, and he was heaviest in Kashmir. I used to carry his litter. You still do not believe me! Ask me questions and test my knowledge. Ask how many times the leather straps were wrapped around the handles of the litter—the answer is thirty-one. Ask me what the Emperor’s final word was. I will tell you: Kashmir. He had bad breath but a good heart. Do you think I am an ordinary ignorant liar?”
This version communicates the basic meaning of Tai’s speech, but something important has disappeared.
👉What Is Lost in Standard English?
The most important question in this activity is not simply whether the passage can be translated. It is what disappears through translation.
1. Cultural flavour
Words such as “babaji,” “tola,” “maund,” and “seer” carry cultural associations. Replacing them with “sir” and standardized measurements makes the passage easier for a global reader but removes some of its Indian identity.
2. Tai’s voice
The original sounds like a particular person speaking. His repetitions, interruptions, teasing, and sudden changes of thought create his personality.
The standardized version becomes more grammatically organized and logical. As a result, Tai sounds less eccentric and less entertaining.
3. Oral quality
The original passage has the rhythm of spoken language. The repetitions and questions make us imagine Tai actually speaking.
Standard English makes the speech more polished but also less oral.
4. Humour
Some of Tai’s humour depends upon cultural context, unusual expressions, and exaggeration. Once these are standardized, the comic effect becomes weaker.
5. Historical atmosphere
The Indian measurements and references to Jehangir help create the atmosphere of another historical period. Modernized language can make that atmosphere feel more distant.
👉Is English Still a Colonial Language?
The passage raises an important question: If English came to India through British colonialism, can it now be considered an Indian language?
There are two possible perspectives.
English as a Colonial Language
English has a colonial history in India. It was associated with British administration, education, government, and social power. Therefore, English cannot be separated completely from its colonial past.
From this perspective, using English may still remind us of colonial structures and cultural dominance.
English as an Indian Language
However, writers such as Salman Rushdie demonstrate that English has changed after entering the Indian context.
Indian writers have adapted English to express Indian experiences. They have introduced:
Indian words
Indian idioms
Indian rhythms
Indian cultural references
Indian humour
Indian ways of storytelling
Therefore, English in Indian literature is no longer simply the English of Britain.
Rushdie does not ask permission from “standard English.” He takes English and reshapes it according to the needs of Indian storytelling.
👉Chutnification as Resistance
Rushdie’s linguistic experimentation can also be understood as a form of resistance.
Colonialism often establishes the idea that one form of language is more “correct” or “pure” than another. Rushdie challenges this hierarchy.
By mixing English with Indian languages and cultural expressions, he suggests that English does not belong exclusively to its original colonial users.
The colonized can take the colonial language and transform it.
Thus, chutnification becomes more than a stylistic technique. It becomes a form of cultural and linguistic appropriation.
Rushdie effectively turns English into a language capable of carrying Indian memories, histories, humour, and identities.
My Reflection
While analysing this passage, I found that the original version is much more powerful than its standardized translation. The standardized version communicates the information, but it does not fully communicate Tai's personality.
The original language feels alive because it contains cultural references and the rhythm of spoken Indian English. Words such as “babaji,” “tola,” “maunds,” and “seers” make the passage culturally recognizable. They remind us that English is being spoken from within an Indian environment.
The exercise also shows that translation is not simply a process of changing words from one language into another. When we translate culturally mixed language into standardized English, we may preserve the literal meaning but lose voice, humour, cultural identity, rhythm, and atmosphere.
This is precisely why Rushdie’s chutnified English is significant. Its “impurity” is actually its strength.
Conclusion
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children demonstrates that English can be transformed when it enters a new cultural environment. Through Tai’s speech, Rushdie mixes English with Indian vocabulary, historical references, traditional measurements, humour, repetition, and oral storytelling.
The result is a language that is neither purely British nor completely Indian in a conventional sense. It is a hybrid Indian English.
The concept of chutnification therefore challenges the idea of a single, standardized English. Rushdie takes a language associated with colonial power and makes it speak in an Indian voice.
The passage also teaches us that what may appear to be “incorrect” or “non-standard” English can actually contain a rich cultural meaning. When the passage is translated into standard English, its basic meaning remains, but much of its cultural flavour and individuality is reduced.
Therefore, Rushdie’s chutnification is not a mistake or a failure to use English correctly. It is a deliberate creative strategy through which English is Indianized, reshaped, and made capable of preserving Indian history and experience.
In this sense, Rushdie’s English is like chutney itself: made from different ingredients, impossible to reduce to a single original flavour, and uniquely Indian in its final form.
References
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991. Granta Books, 1991
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