Arundhati Roy came into limelight in 1997 after her novel bagged the prestigious Booker Prize for literature. Roy was born in Shillong and spent her early years of childhood at Ayamanam in Kerala. The present novel The God of Small Things revolves around this village. The natural ambience, the dialect, and the mannerisms of the people everything seems to revolve around this village. She was a child of a broken home of separated parents. She had to face lots of worries, problems, cares and mishappening in her childhood. The God of Small Things is a story of forbidden class-caste love and what community will do to protect the old ways. The Kochamma family business, Paradise Pickles and Preserves, is emblematic of the theme Ayemenem is practically pickles in history, Roy, an architect and screen writer who grew up in Kerala capably shoulders the burdens of caste and tradition a double weight that crushes some and her characters and warps others, but leaves none untouched. The novel takes on the big subjects- Love, Madness, Hope, Infinite Joy. Here is a writer who dares to break the rules. To dislocate received rhythms and create language she requires, a language that is at once classical and unprecedented. The story reveals itself not in traditional narrative order, but it jumps through time, wending its way through Rahel’s memories and attempts at understanding the hard fate deal.
Assistant Professor of English, M.L.S. College, Sarisab-Pahi, L.N. Mithila University, Darbhanga
