Hardiii's Blog: "SMALL THINGS + LITTLE KIDS = BIG CHAOS"

Here I'm writing a blog on the most famous Indian English author, actress and political activist who was best know for the award winning novel "THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS(1997)."

So let's discuss about some major information about Arundhati Roy...

FULL NEME:- SUZANNA ARUNDHATI ROY

BORN:- 24TH NOVEMBER, 1961

SHILONG MEGHALAYA.

Arundhati Roy, full name Suzanna Arundhati Roy, Indian author, actress, and political activist who was best known for the award-winning novel The God of Small Things (1997) and for her involvement in environmental and human rights causes.

Roy’s father was a Bengali tea planter, and her mother was a Christian of Syrian descent who challenged India’s inheritance laws by successfully suing for the right of Christian women to receive an equal share of their fathers’ estates. Though trained as an architect, Roy had little interest in design; she dreamed instead of a writing career. After a series of odd jobs, including artist and aerobics instructor, she wrote and costarred in the film In Which Annie Gives It to Those Ones (1989) and later penned scripts for the film Electric Moon (1992) and several television dramas.

The films earned Roy a devoted following, but her literary career was interrupted by controversy. In 1995 she wrote two newspaper articles claiming that Shekhar Kapur’s film Bandit Queen exploited Phoolan Devi, one of India’s most wanted criminals in the early 1980s and a heroine of the oppressed. The columns caused an uproar, including a court case, and Roy retreated from the public and returned to the novel she had begun to write.

Novels and nonfiction works:-

In 1997 Roy published her debut novel, The God of Small Things to wide acclaim. The semiautobiographical work departed from the conventional plots and light prose that had been typical among best-sellers. Composed in a lyrical language about South Asian themes and characters in a narrative that wandered through time, Roy’s novel became the biggest-selling book by a nonexpatriate Indian author and won the 1998 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

Set in Kerala in the 1960s, this Booker Prize winner follows Ammu’s family through both ordinary and tragic events, focusing most memorably on her “two-egg twins,” Estha and Rahel. The accidental death by drowning of a visiting English cousin is to have a pivotal effect on their young lives. The novel is told in nonlinear time through a jigsaw of vivid encounters and descriptions, recounted in exquisite prose. The reader pieces together a childhood world that is interrupted by adult tragedies and the effect these have on Velutha, the twins’ boatman friend who belongs to India’s “untouchable” caste.

The political concerns in The God of Small Things revolve around the notion of who decides “who should be loved and how much,” with Roy’s imaginative transgressions designed not so much to shock as to move the reader. A political figure who championed the cause of the oppressed and spent time in jail in 2002 for opposing the authority of the Indian court, Roy is concerned with the small powers of the human, powers that are shocking in their ability to redeem and destroy. She sacrifices neither structure, complexity, nor beautiful prose to convey her beliefs. The God of Small Things is a challenge to others who have attempted to tell us what love means.

Arundhati had dedicated her debut novel, 'The God of Small Things' to her mother: For Mary Roy, who grew me up. Who taught me to say 'excuse me' before interrupting her in Public. Who loved me enough to let me go.

A copy of the book that fetched her the Man Booker Prize for fiction had been placed by the side of Mary before she was cremated.

# SUMMARY & PLOT ANALYSIS:-

The novel is divided in 21 chapters...

1. Paradise pickles and preserves

2. pappachi's moth

3. Big man the laltain, Small man mombatti

4.Abhilash talkies

5. God's own country

6. Couchin Kangaroos

7. Wisdom exercise notebook

8. Welcome. Home our Sophie mol

9. Mrs. Pillai, mrs. Eapen, mrs. Rajagopal

10. The river in the boat

11. The god of small things

12. Kochu thomban

13. The pessimist and the optimist

14. Work is struggle

15. The crossing

16. A fer hours later

17. Cochin harbour terminus

18. The history house

19. Saving ammu

20. The Madras mail

21. The cost of living

So here I present character chart or like a family tree of "Pappachi & Mammachi":-

So now let's discuss the story...

Roy's debut novel, is a story about the childhood experiences of fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by the "Love Laws" prevalent in 1960s Kerala, India. The novel explores how small, seemingly insignificant occurrences, decisions and experiences shape people's behavior in deeply significant ways.

The events of ‘The God of Small Things’ are given in bits and pieces, usually moving back and forth between scenes from 1969 and 1993, with backstory scattered throughout. The storyline is set in Ayemenem, Kerala, India, and revolves around the affluent, land-owning Syrian Christian Ipe family. The majority of the story takes place in 1969, and it centers on Estha and Rahel, seven-year-old twins who live with their mother Ammu, grandmother Mammachi, uncle Chacko, and great-aunt Baby Kochamma. Arundhati Roy’s first and only fiction novel is this one.

The story starts in 1969, when fraternal twins Rahel and Estha were 7 years old, and ends in 1993 when they reunite at the age of 31. The story begins with their family history and how Pappachi, their grandfather, missed out on becoming a well-known entomologist. Pappachi used to beat Mammachi, their grandmother, daily throughout his life. They had a daughter named Ammu and a son named Chacko. Chacko completed his studies in England, where he married Margaret, an English woman. Their daughter’s name is Sophie. Their marriage, however, soon fell apart, and Margaret married another man, Joe. Chacko returned to India after his divorce.

Ammu, on the other hand, desired to live an adventurous life and therefore decided to move to Ayemenem to live with a relative. There, Ammu met and married a guy named Baba. Esthappen, a boy, and Rahel, a girl, are their twins. Baba was abusive and incompetent, which was why he was fired from his job. He allowed his boss to have sex with Ammu to reclaim his job. Ammu, on the other hand, refused and returned to her house with the children.

After the death of a man with whom she was in love, Chacko asked his ex-wife and daughter Sophie to visit his home in Ayemenem. As a result, Chacko and his family went to the airport to pick them up. However, on the way, they were stopped by a communist rally. Rahel noticed Velutha, who is a great friend, holding a red flag. Velutha worked in their family’s pickle factory as an untouchable maintenance worker.

They headed to the movies after the protest to see their favorite film. Rahel became jealous of the attention Sophie was getting. He visited Velutha to discuss it and told him that she spotted him at the march. But she wasn’t going to tell anyone. Ammu became jealous when she saw her daughter and Velutha talking.

Meanwhile, Estha informed his sister of his intention to take a vacation. They found a boat to fix up and get ready. During this time, Ammu and Velutha were revealed to be having an affair. Due to Velutha’s low social status, however, it was forbidden. Thus, Ammu was confined to her room by her family. Assuming that it was then the best moment to escape, Sophie and the kids left the house with the boat. Sophie drowned and died when a log collided with the boat on the way. Rahel and Estha managed to save their lives and went to a large place called “History House” to hide.

The family interpreted Sophie’s death as a message to keep Velutha away from Ammu, and they blamed him for everything. They told the cops that Velutha raped Ammu and kidnapped the children. Velutha died as a result of police brutality.

Estha moved in with his father, Baba, and Rahel stayed with Mammachi, while Ammu went out on her own. Rahel reunited with her mother after many years, who was suffering from a lung disease that would eventually kill her. Rahel decided to move to America after completing her studies. She married a white man she doesn’t truly love, there.

At the age of 31, Rahel comes to know that her brother, Estha, had returned to Ayemenem, and she travelled back to see him. She realized that her brother had become mute due to her Baba. Rahel, on the other hand, was determined to reunite with her brother, so she spent a lot of time with him and reminisced with him. As a result, they have intercourse for the first time, and they are with someone they love for the first time. The fraternal twins, Rahel and Estha, reflect the novel’s major themes, which include forbidden love, discrimination, and familial and social difficulties in such a huge family with so much at stake.

Here I'm sharing my whole presentation of "THE GOD OF THE SMALL THINGS" BY ARUNDHATI ROY....

(FOR BRIEF INFORMATION)...

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