Talent and Life of Arundhati Roy

 What is it that makes Arundhati Roy different? She is certainly a woman of substance, an undefined entity who attracts and repels people in equal measure. I have just finished her book, memoir or biography titled " Mother Mary comes to Me". It is indeed a remarkable book, difficult to define as in different places it tells a tale of two remarkable women. Their biological relationship of mother and daughter was unlike a conventional one and was instrumental in creating Arundhati Roy, a worthy daughter of a remarkable woman shaped by the oscillatory nature of a hate love relationship. The torture inflicted by the mother on the unwanted daughter seemed at odds with a mother who fought against her brother and society to establish women's right to inherit ancestral property. She got the Supreme court to overturn the Travancore and Cochin Succession Act which prevented women from inheriting their share of property. 

A lot of her writing both fiction and non fiction carried the stamp and influence of her real life in Kerela and her life in Delhi where she ran away from a toxic relationship with her mother. The scars of a broken family and an absent father and her giving birth to an unwanted daughter made her mother a strong woman. She had to fight a lot of odds, including family, patriarchy, ill health and relative poverty, yet her education, family pedigree and determination to create a school which became an institute of repute near Kottayam made her famous. The story of her struggle, her ways and the blurring of lines between how she treated her children to ensure her image as a tough lady would be reinforced in the eyes of society made a fascinating tale. While this in itself is a story, the story of Arundhati Roy’s own struggle in a school of Architecture, her love life and almost settled existence in Goa is also full of adventure and unpredictability. I also marvel at the fact that her past troubled relationship with her mother and family meant that she was a free spirit unable to have a normal conventional settled life. She refused and could not be slotted in a "normal" relationship. She had her share of drugs, bidis and sexual escapades but was not really ever completely unhinged. Her talent, creativity and unconventionality made her ready to become a side star in a movie Massey Sahib directed and created by Pradeep Kishan her husband in later life who was a genius in his own right. Later she was involved in a few writing scripts and films for DD but soon she realized that there was a book and a flow of writing in her which was almost like a natural writing skill of a magnitude hard to define or describe. While I had read her first book The God of Small Things years back, the memories of her description of her birthplace the river its creatures the human beings was such a word picture that my trip to Kerela later in life was like bringing the memories of the word, as feeling that I had seen this place before. 

Then came the time she associated with social causes and her backing of the Narmada Bachao Andolan through the power of her pen and bringing to life of as scientific argument against dams in general and her fight for justice. Even as she and Medha Patkar were as different as cheese and chalk she decided to swim against the tide and wield her pen for the service of society instead of writing another book. Later her backing of the Kashmiri locals, living and understanding the Naxalites, fighting for justice for Gujarat riot victims and standing up for the rights of natives and displaced Indians in USA and aboriginals in Australia were all examples of a rare courage and fortitude. Even so once she earned money she supported and helped every person who were her associates, quietly without making the beholden to her. 

Her battles with justice, courts and politicians were such that more often her witty sarcastic remarks were hardly understood by many and therefore they could not attack her without making a fool of themselves. While she could never be considered a conventional beauty her persona, smile and presence literally lit up a room like her writing and books light up the lives of so many around the world. Her second fictional novel was certainly was good but different but was certainly to my mind second best, but I may read it again after reading "Mother Mary comes to Me." 

I am copying the description of herr collection of non fiction writing just to educate readers about how one single gutsy woman has written about various subjects and topics with a rare understanding and depth.  THE ALGEBRA OF INFINITE JUSTICE brings together Arundhati Roy’s early political essays, from the iconic ‘The End of Imagination’ and ‘The Greater Common Good’ about India’s nuclear tests and the dam industry to the equally influential ‘The Algebra of Infinite Justice’ about the 9/11 attacks and the US government’s War Against Terror. The essays in AN ORDINARY PERSON’S GUIDE TO EMPIRE draw the thread of empire through seemingly unconnected arenas, uncovering the links between America’s War on Terror, the growing threat of corporate power, the response of nation states to resistance movements, the role of NGOs, caste and communal politics in India, and the perverse machinery of an increasingly corporatized mass media. THE SHAPE OF THE BEAST is a collection of fourteen interviews, conducted between January 2001 and March 2008, that examine the nature of state and corporate power as it has emerged during this period, and the shape that resistance movements are taking. In eleven powerful, and closely argued, linked essays, LISTENING TO GRASSHOPPERS takes a hard look at the underbelly of the world’s largest democracy. BROKEN REPUBLIC consists of four essays including ‘Walking with the Comrades’, a travelogue that reports on the conflict in the forested heartland of India where indigenous peoples' lands have been handed over to corporate companies, and the widely read ‘Capitalism: A Ghost Story’ about the complex ways in which modern Capitalism works. THE DOCTOR AND THE SAINT is about the debate between two of India’s most beloved and iconic figures, Dr B.R Ambedkar and Mohandas Gandhi.

My fear is that with her powerful prose and imagination there may be a lingering doubt about the blurring of lines between fact and fiction. After reading the memoir my respect for her has increased manifold even if I am not in total synch with all the causes she espouses as there can be two sides to any controversy. I feel persons like her are needed in society to wake us up from apathy and urge us to stand for justice. 

Dr Vispi Jokhi