"The date is August 15, 1947. At midnight, India becomes a free and independent nation. On this momentous occasion, a miraculous event occurs: all of the children born between midnight and 12:01 a.m. are gifted with incredible powers. Saleem Sinai, one of the two children born exactly on the stroke of midnight, narrates the secret history of India and tells how the economic, political, and religious realities of the new nation are inextricably bound up with the fates of Midnight's Children"