‘ You've got a nerve, coming into this muhalla! I know you: my father knows you: everyone knows you're a Hindu!! ' screams the Midget Queen. Boys in their school whites and snake buckle are joining in, 'Hindu! Hindu! Hindu! From his window Midget Queen’s father joins in, hurling abuses at the new target… ‘Mother rapers! Violator of our daughters…!’ and the schoolboys have begun to chant 'Ra-pist! Ra-pist! Ray-ray-ray-pist!' without really knowing what they're saying. Their victim, Lifafa Das is trying to get away but by now he is surrounded by voices filled with blood- This episode from Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children , placed in the turmoil and unrest of partition, portrays the complex magic of words. Words have strange power; they can stir emotions and cause commotions in turbulent times. And these are turbulent times. It seems as if speech has been given a free hand to prey on the life of heads that donned skullcaps, shoulders that were draped i