Saleem Sinai of the novel and the significance of its main character, calling "Midnight's Children" "an extraordinary literary jewel (it was awarded the Booker of Bookers in 1993, and a host of other prizes), focusing on the fates of two children that are inextricably linked by the hour of their birth, literally 'handcuffed to history'". Sinai is the product of extra-marital intercourse and is raised by a Muslim family after being exchanged at birth by his nurse, Mary Pereira. Over the course of the novel he goes from riches to rags. He has telepathic and other supernatural powers that are part of
Saleem Sinai a special connection with those born in South Asia at the same historic moment. He is also unusual in having an unsightly nose that constantly runs and bulging temples. Rushdie grants the character supernatural powers and he comes to symbolize and embody the struggle and strains of a nation being born and torn into pieces all at the same time. The character is borrowed from the draft of an earlier novel called "The Antagonist". In a theatrical version of the novel, Zubin Varla played Saleem Sinai. He said he identified strongly with the story as, "His own family hailed from