September 8, 2002

When you are Arundhati Roy, it is difficult to look ‘the other way’. It is difficult to wallow in the jingoistic delights of nuclearization, not when 300 million people of India live below the poverty line. It is difficult to snuggle in a comfortable bed and sleep, not when 33 million people are displaced in your country as a consequence of building big dams. And then, if you are Arundhati Roy watching the fractious seepage of globalization threatening to waterlog the cultural diversity of your country, what do you do if not look ‘the other way’? The writer within her roll calls Ms Roy to write.

Once she starts interweaving her thoughts with words, the sluiced out emotions cannot be controlled. If Arundhati Roy sees certain things, she cannot un-see them because she believes that ‘seeing nothing is as political an act as seeing something’. “The end of imagination” serves as an account of the writer in Arundhati Roy who cannot be content with the honour of becoming the first Indian to win the Booker Prize for The god of small things, while her country joins the select force of globe terminators.

Incidentally, India’s first nuclear test at Pokhran, conducted successfully in 1998, coincided with her Booker prize ceremony in London. What should have been a personally, momentous occasion for Arundhati Roy, turned out to be the saddest: the nuclear test forever changed her perception of life. She, along with the rest of the Indians, was now living under the constant threat of human-manufactured destruction.

Not being able to look ‘the other way’, she pours her soul out in “The end of imagination”, ripping through the artificially inflated bubble of nationalism, turned sacrosanct with a nuclear test. Written in 1998, the essay touched base with thousands of peace and anti-nuclear supporters. But the government did not regard it with the same deference as her award-winning book. She was accused of being anti-national. “It was so frightening, the nationalism in the air.....” Arundhati Roy told a journalist in the US. “....The nuclear tests were a way to shore up our flagging self-esteem. India is still flinching from a cultural insult, still looking for its identity. It’s about all that....”

And so, building up a brigade of words, she opens war on another front. This time it is to protect the people of the Narmada valley from being displaced after the government’s decision to construct a multi-million dollar, World Bank funded, dam.

“The greater common good”, written for an Indian magazine, questions the Indian government’s claims of developing the area and improving the living standards of the people of the Narmada valley. Her article manages to separate truth from fallacy, exposing the inhumane realities of the developmental project. By not being able to look ‘the other way’, the article brought a barrage of criticism from India’s elite. But Ms Roy’s verbal crusade did not end on paper. She was among the 5000 demonstrators protesting at the dam’s site against the Supreme Court’s decision to resume work on the Narmada dam.

In a fierce baton-charge Ms Roy, as well as thousands of others, was arrested, but was released two days later. It was a long battle between India’s apex court and its most acclaimed writer. Last year, the Supreme Court handed down the verdict, awarding a symbolic sentence of one-day imprisonment and a fine of Rs2000 to Ms Roy. The two essays have been put together under the title of, The cost of living.

“Power politics” is Roy’s latest affront to globalization and India’s upper class, that she believes, is mutually colluding to turn India into a big franchise. “Is globalization about the eradication of world poverty, or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally operated?” questions Arundhati Roy.

The writer in her never leaves her. In fact she wonders “why it should be that the person who wrote The god of small things is called a writer, and the person who wrote the political essays is called an activist”. She flinches when she is called a “writer-activist” although she is a writer with an agenda. Her book was written by Arundhati Roy as a personal expression of life, the novel succeeded in touching the intrinsic sensibilities of readers. Relying less on a heavy measure of baroque style, Roy takes her readers on a visit to her hometown of Ayemenem, in Kerala, by expertly steering them with language at its most simple, most evocative and most poignant. Ayemenem becomes accessible to a reader, just as much as it is to the author.

To put Roy’s premiere novel in a pedantic portfolio is as inaccurate as it is to wrap it in a morally instructive cover. Roy moves beyond morals to dwell on the unexceptional, ordinary, commonly comprehensible, and yet, individually profound moments of life. There are no edifying characters, for Roy does not believe in absolutes. There are no infallible heroes or invincible villains. Everything proceeds to an unformatted end.

But the emotional subtleties, skilfully constructed by Ms Roy, hit the readers forcefully. They communicate with the twins, Rahel and Estha’s special bond. They are overwhelmed with resentment against the manipulative Baby Kochamma, their aunt. They approach the strong attraction between Ammu, the twins’ mother, and Velutha, an untouchable, with sorrowful compassion. The god of small things is about a family of these average people bound by birth and riven by birthright rules. It is about normal emotions taking a destructive turn.

Declaring the book as a modern day classic is perhaps the critics’ greatest tribute to Roy, but that would be undervaluing it and what it stands for. It is about a human being’s freedom to choose and live as required by happiness, and not as validated by customs. The god of small things is for her, him and them. It touches everybody with its simplicity and is mutually exclusive to classics.

Arundhati Roy recently visited Pakistan to speak on “Peace and freedom in South Asia”. In a one-on-one interview with Books and Authors, taken under the most trying of circumstances, Arundhati Roy accused India of sponsoring state terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, quickly throwing a few words of rebuke at Pakistan for supporting cross border terrorism. Looking less threatening than the contents of her critical essays, the softly spoken words of the willowy Ms Roy were heavily loaded with criticism of both the countries for whipping up the war fever. Following are some of the excerpts of the interview:

B&A: Ms Roy, will you tell your readers if you have any intention of writing another book or was The god of small things simply a catharsis?

AR: No, it was not a catharsis by any means. I am not the sort of person who spends her life living up to people’s expectations. If I did, I’d be some middle-aged, married woman with a brood of children in Kerala. And when I feel like writing another book, I will know when I’m ready. I don’t think it matters whether I write another book or not. People should take it easy.

B&A: Did you foresee the impact your book would have on people? Some of your readers could not get out of depression for days. Please comment.

AR: Writing has to come from a position of honesty. I can’t write thinking that I want people not to sleep for two or three days, so let me write a book, you know.

B&A: Was The god of small things based on your personal emotions?

AR: Yes it was.

B&A: People of this country want to know if, in your opinion, a bad democracy is better than a good dictatorship?

AR: I would say, yes. Democracy is not a given thing. It’s something that needs to be nourished, improved and made more sophisticated. I don’t believe in absolutes and maybe, theoretically, it is possible for a dictatorship to be better than a bad democracy. But dictatorship is a very fragile thing. It’s not possible for one mind to understand millions of minds.

B&A: Is not your suspicion of nationalism a contradiction of the honour you received as Arundhati Roy, the winner of the Booker Prize from India?

AR: No, it is not. I’ve got an ambiguous attitude towards everything, including prizes. I don’t think the Booker Prize means that I wrote the best book. You don’t have to take it so seriously.

B&A: Considering your open denunciation of your state, do you not give India a little credit for tolerance?

AR: I’m not grateful to the state for that. If it were left to the state, it would put me away in an instant!

B&A: How do you feel when people mark you as a person speaking for the underprivileged?

AR: I feel very uncomfortable. I don’t like it when people say that I speak for the poor. I don’t speak for anyone! The reason why the fight in the Narmada is so wonderful and resilient is because people make alliances. It’s not about poor or rich, it’s about the world-view. It’s about believing that you would be richer if you lived in a more egalitarian society.

B&A: Ms Roy, do you think it is fair to assume that the rich are always wrong and therefore opposing them is justified?

AR: No, of course not! Aa.. ummm.... I don’t know how to answer that. One of the things about being poor is that you have to survive, so it’s not a question of being good or bad. But, you can argue that not everyone is morally pure.

B&A: You have written about the Indian rigidity in Kashmir, can you assert unequivocally that it is sponsoring state-terrorism.

AR: Yes, it is, and so is Pakistan in encouraging cross-border terrorism.

B&A: Were you not Arundhati Roy, would you have been heard nation-wide as an activist? Has not your status given you an edge?

AR: Philosophically, that’s an untenable question. I am heard because I am who I am. I have been given international recognition because of my writing, and The god of small things is one of the things I have written. All my writings are part of me. I am not trying to compete with myself. And, to be very frank, I don’t care why they give me attention.

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