At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 — the exact moment India's independence is declared — Saleem Sinai is born in Bombay, his fate bound to the new nation's destiny. Rushdie's novel follows Saleem's discovery that every child born in that midnight hour possesses supernatural gifts, and that his own power — telepathic communion with all 1,001 midnight's children — comes freighted with a responsibility he can barely survive.