Many-headed Monsters
- Saleem spends a bunch of time talking about fancy egghead stuff like the nature of truth and the properties of time, but then he gets back to business.
- Even though she's been waiting to see Shri Ramram Seth, Amina is waiting for the best moment: the moment that her husband is out of the house.
- She finally gets her moment one evening when he leaves mysteriously with a bag of money stuffed underneath his shirt. Totally not suspicious at all.
- While she sneaks out of the house, Ahmed Sinai and his friends shove themselves into a taxi so that they can pay the ransom money to Ravana.
- Amina Sinai is in a taxi too, headed off to see Shri Ramram Seth. As they get closer she sees more and more poor people, and it gets so scary that she wants to run away. But Lifafa Das won't let her. She's past the point of no return!
- Ahmed is stuck waiting to pay some mobsters and thinking that he could've been a contender, erh, he could've been rearranging the Koran. Never thought he was much of a religious man, did you? Instead of his religious calling, he's getting fleeced.
- Amina is going higher and higher, and deeper and deeper into the world of Lifafa Das. Finally she gets to the top, and there is Shri Ramram Seth floating six inches off the ground. Yup—floating.
- Back with Ahmed, monkeys are running around destroying the Old Fort. When he and his friends leave their bags of money, the monkeys destroy that too.
- When Ahmed and friends discover what happened, and Ravana leaves empty-handed, they decide to take their chances and grab the money that the monkeys threw away.
- Are you getting used to this switching thing yet?
- Turns out that Shri Ramram Seth was not really floating. He's just sitting on a shelf. It looks like this is going to be a boring read until something a little different happens.
- When he touches Amina's stomach he goes into a trance and it tells the craziest prophecy about her son. You should go read it because it basically summarizes the rest of the novel.
- Back to Ahmed. He and his friends are covered in poop, tomatoes, and who knows what else. But at least they got the money. Unfortunately, they no longer have a storehouse because it went up in flames. You win some, you lose some.
- The fire has inspired Ahmed Sinai to make a decision: They're moving to Bombay.