Tai the Boatman

" 'Smile, smile, it is your history I am keeping in my head. Once it was set down in old lost books. Once I knew where there was a grave with pierced feet carved on the tombstone, which bled once a year. Even my memory is going now; but I know, although I can't read.' Illiteracy, dismissed with a flourish; literature crumbled beneath the rage of his sweeping hand."
- Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

At this point in the story Tai, the speaker, and Aadam, his young listener, are great friends. However, when Aadam returns from Germany where he studied medicine there is a huge gulf between the two. Tai is unwilling to excuse the new doctors Western ideas and love of literature and Aadam is unwilling to give way to a foolish, superstitious ferryman.

In many ways Tai is a stereotypical member of the oral culture. He is one of the wise elders, so old that no one can remember a time BEFORE Tai was old. As noted in this quote, Tai has forgotten the location of the temple, but he remembers the location where water demons pull suicidal foreign women down and drown them. This information is more germaine and therefore remains. Homeostasis at work. Also, Tai has a general dislike and disregard for western thinking, especially western medicine because it means invasive, unnatural procedures. And of course, he's not illiterate- he simply can't read. He's a remnant of oral culture, not a failed literary scholar.

I came upon this quote while doing some for-pleasure reading and preparing for the Salman Rushdie master class. While reading Lolita I came upon a lot of interesting quotes on memory, but nothing quite as specific and demonstrative as this. Clearly it's kismet!