Mother Mary Comes to Me - Arundhati Roy
My Rating: 4/5
After loving her “The God of Small Things) twice, once in college and again last year, I had to get this one at the earliest, but it was too pricey, so I waited for discounts, but then got it in our library last month and gladly grabbed it at a throwaway price. So far, I have read one more from her, “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, and haven’t yet read any of her non-fiction because I am not too much into politics. Now, after reading this sort of Autobiography and knowing her real story in her own words, I feel like getting all her books in publication order and reading them back to back. Do let me know if you have read more of her, and if that's going to be a good idea for me or not. Now this one was totally terrific, the rags to riches story of Arundhati, right from the start of her life to writing and the grand success of God of Small Things, and so much more going on in between. It covers almost everything anyone would like to know about her in the first place. I didn’t know that he acted in movies and was even a part of a few that she made with her then partner, who later became her husband. Coming from a broken family background with a good-for-nothing alcoholic father who vanished pretty often from their life. Although she kept mentioning and talking about him in a very loving manner, his histrionics were laugh-out-loud affairs, bringing so much delight to her life story. Her mother (Mary) was a fighter, who not only fought for her own two children (with her husband too), her own brother and parents and even fought a furious battle with the state of Kerala for women’s right in paternal property, you’ve got to read the book to know the totally amazing outcome. Mother Mary started her life as a single parent with no support, even from her own parents or siblings, and she faces animosity as she starts her own school and takes it to the next level. How she does that was incredible to read. Loved the way she has captured the mother-daughter relationship, at times it had me in splits, and at other times it not only made me emotional but brought tears to my eyes. Reminded me so much of my own mother with a stiff back, full of self-respect and a head always held high, come what may attitude. I believe we all had those kinds of parents back in the day, and now God doesn't make them anymore :).
The entire book and the story behind the making of Arundhati Roy is a roller coaster ride of a totally different kind. Her language is so good, easy on the eyes, and pretty connecting on heart front, I loved it right from the very start and was initially shocked by the way she kept calling all the names without a thought, especially her days in college, first few assignments, making adjustments with no money, no fallback plans, and so much more. The book is hardly 350+ pages, but it reads like a charm for only the first 250 pages till her struggles continue. But the moment it crosses the God of Small Things chapter, and she starts with her opinions on the political front and all the current issues, it simply becomes very tough to read. Of course, India is a democracy, and everyone has a right to his or her opinion, nothing wrong in that, but the way she takes the fascism head-on, it is scary even to think, let alone imagine how she was or still is doing it, and her ideologies, again, nothing wrong in that, but to what extent she takes it was totally unbelievable. Reason enough for me to pick up a few of her non-fiction books now to get into more details of all the episodes that she has touched on in this one, briefly. I loved the book cover and back page as well, as you can see the front has her own younger self smoking a “bidi” and on the back page is her current picture with almost no expression on her face. The book jacket, for some reason, is half the size of the book and makes it tough to hold while reading the book, but my smart librarian has solved the problem by taping the jacket from the inside to make it stick to the hardback. Undoubtedly, the book will be remembered more for her mother than herself as she has written it for her mother with so much love, affection and unresolvable differences with her (I guess we all had that with our own parents at one point or another). I, for some reason, still find it tough to handle them (Mom, if you are reading this, please don’t take it to heart, but you are one tough cookie to break, you know that, and you only made me, and let’s not even start about Dad, more when we meet at the end of July).
Do let me know if you have read this one and how it turned out for you. Also, let me know if you have a personal favourite non-fiction from her. I will be starting with her first book in publication order and will read it at the earliest.
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