The God of Small Things (Book)

 The God of Small Things

          Trauma isn't always caused by a big distressing event. Sometimes it caused due to a series of small overwhelming amounts of stress due to certain events and terrible accidents. It tends to leave a person unhinged in a way society doesn't understand. The book The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy explores the effect of certain incidents on various characters of the story. Each event that happens to us shapes us. We are the result of things that have happened to us.

Draupadi strangely angry only with the men that won her, not the ones that staked her has sworn that she will never tie up her hair until it is washed in Dushasana's blood.

          The God of Small Things is a story of fraternal twins with a siamese soul- Rachel and Estha. They are ordinary but their life was not ordinary. Their Ammu married to get away from the family. However, her husband turned out to be an alcoholic and became violent. He even tried to use his wife as a pimp for a Britisher. This was the last straw for Ammu and she returned to her family in Ayemenem, Kerala. Ammu's family didn't believe her as they didn't believe any Englishmen would do such a thing. However, they let her stay. The twins were the result of this marriage.

The thing to remember was that the very fact that she had a choice was a great privilege. 

          Chacko is the twin's maternal uncle. He is elder to Ammu. Chacko is a former student of Oxford. He got married to a cafe waiter Margaret and had a child Sophie. However, he is divorced and has returned to Ayemenem. Chacko once stopped his father from hitting his mother, since then he has been Mammachi's favorite. Mammachi took special care of Chacko. She even had a side door made to his room where she could help Chacko fulfill his man's needs. 

          One Christmas holiday, after Sophie's step dad's death, Margaret and Sophie come to Ayemenem to spend their time. It is in this time period, that it is central to the story. During this time span, Ammu had fallen in love with a man who was loved by her children in the day and by her at night. The man, Velutha,  was untouchable. Ammu's caste could not allow such love to occur. Hence, all they had was the night. Velutha was an active member of the local communist movement. 

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.

          Meanwhile, Rachel, Estha, and Sophie tired of the restraints and strict discipline decided to run away on a boat. In the process, a storm came and took Sophie's life. The blame for Sophie's death was put on the twins and their Ammu. Erstwhile, Baby Kochamma filed a fake FIR against Veutha due to her personal grudges. According to Baby Kochamma, the only way out for the twins was to put a rape and kidnapping blame on Velutha. Baby Kochamma was a manipulative lady. To save her ass, she was ready to sacrifice Velutha.

          To me, it seemed that Baby Kochamma (twin's maternal great aunt) hurt from within. She fell in love with an Irish Catholic priest. To pursue him, she converted into a nun. However, she soon realized that her dream wouldn't be fulfilled. Hence, she returned home and got a degree in garden designing from the USA. She decided to never marry. Her own emptiness and failure sparked bitter spite for her sister's children, further driven by her prudish code of conventional values. Her spite ultimately condemns the twins, the lovers, and herself to a lifetime of misery.  

The major themes of the book include:

• Indian history and politics
• Caste relations and cultural tensions
• Forbidden love
• Social discrimination
• Betrayal
• Misogyny and women in India

          One of the things that I find the most interesting in this book is that the conclusion is revealed in the first chapter itself. The rest of the chapter just traces the events that led to the end and the events that occurred after such an end. The end being Sophie's death. Hence, the storyline isn't consistent. It moves forward and backward. The perspective changes after every few chapters.

It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that it purloined.

          How did Ammu's divorce affect the twins? What was the twin's view of their Ammu's affairs? How did society dictate the twin's life? How did the family's affection for Sophie affect the twin? What did Velutha mean to the twins? How did Estha's molestation influence his future decisions? 

There are things you can't do like writing a letter to a part of yourself. To your feet or hair. Or heart.

Rating: 5/5