This one lured my attention when I was a fresh 10th grade pass out in the city of Jodhpur. All the elite international news channels in those days carried out the feat of an Indian woman who received the prestigious Booker Prize for the year 1997. Those days I was young and was really perplexed seeing a sexy woman in her curls and profile with an Enormous age of 33, at that point of time. I found it really disbelieving to see a woman achiever who was old but looked so young and sexy. Nevertheless I tried to get a hold of the book, but my parents were against any kind of reading that was outside the realm of school text books, so I just waited for my time to come. Years went by, and the first time I saw Ms. Roy's book in real was about 2 years later, in the summers of 1999. By then I was in the city of Amritsar, and had upgraded to be a fresh school pass out. I saw the book lying in the counter of an elite public school (I was the Kendriya Vidyalaya product) and was shining bright with the lake and lotus flower cover. Then also I could not land that book in my hands, of course I was not from that fashionable school, I merely happened to enter there with an acquaintance who studied in the school.
And now talking of the present day scenario, I have finally read the God of Small Things. It is winters of 2012 and I am in Vadodara. So, it took me 15 years and 3 cities to get acquainted with a strong crush. Well, this is the interesting life. And the life story depicted in the God of Small Things was also interesting, very interesting in fact.
Firstly, I loved the overall tone of the fiction. At least 85-90% of the story is observed, presented and written from an 8-10 years old's perspective. I recall the last time I read such a beautiful form of story telling was when I read the "To Kill a Mocking Bird.”
Ms. Roy’s story revolves around the family saga set in a small Kerala town and involves the relationship between the relationship and the adventures of a sibling girl-boy duo who happen to be fraternal twins from a broken marriage. They thrive with their loving mother in their paternal grandparent’s house. Both the grandparents are complex individuals representing a Syrian Christian household and are particular indifferent towards their daughter’s children cause their daughter eloped to get married with someone outside their high held clan and also ended up getting divorced. There is also a vamp in the story, who happens to be the children’s paternal grand-aunt (their grandfather’s sister) and is a bickering, manipulating spinster of 50 years of age, when the kids were about 9-10 years old. She is the one who turned the events in the story much to the misfortune of the kids and her mother. There is also a maternal uncle (kid’s mother’s brother) who kind of balances the bitterness of all the sum total of the characters mentioned. But somehow the vamp turns him also against the kids and their mother by the end of the story.
The story starts with the union of the kids after 23 years of being separated from each other, when they both had turned 31. The story goes back and forth with the present time and the deep detailed flash backs. If one merely has to tell the story of the “The God of Small Things”, it can be summarized in a single sentence as “Love, Sacrifice and Sex”. Yeah, there is a lot of detail on sex; in fact there is one full chapter (last chapter) dedicated to it, with the minutest of the minutest details of the act. Well, that will make one wonder then what exactly is different in the story. Difference or the USP is definitely there, else how can a first time writer, that too an Indian (that too a woman) receive a Man booker.
Well the USP is in the way it is written. The language is very simple and as I said before, mostly observed and written the way young kids do, with a lot of emphasis on the words and phrases that they like to speak again and again, that actually end up being stuck in their little exploring brains. Here I go with my personal favourites from the book:
1. Thiswayandthat
2. Beige
and pointed shoes
3. Re-returned
4. Ex-wife
chacko
5. Mundu
6. La-y-ter
Yes, most of the clichés of the Keralite pronunciation reminded me of the elegant Lola Kutty. :) Also, I loved the typical names of the characters – like the wicked aunt was “Baby Kochamma”, imagine being called a baby even when you are almost an octogenarian. :) And the uncle is called “Chacko”, that reminds me a funny character from one of my favourite Bollyood flick, Daud. :) There is more; the house-maid is called “Kochu Maria” :)
This one is my favourite, and yeah I waited for 15 long years to read it. Few of the sentences and descriptions are so beautiful that I ended up re-reading them again and again.
I can go on and on with applause for the book, but I do not feel the same for the writer. It is because I hate her for never writing another fiction ever again. I wished she took out a little time from her busy humanitarian work to write another such delightful and delicious story.
P.S: All you pervert and naughty ones do not start the book from the last chapter….
