Salman Rushdie's narrator begins: >I was born in the city of Bombay [...] On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came.< At the time of day when I was born the clock-hands were imitating a plane flying at a fatal angle about to crash down - the right wing sticking out towards the sky, the left one ready to dig the ground. That day the sun was shining and it was snowing at the same time.