Did you know arundhati roy has a first name which she’s dropped? She wrights in her new book that when she was 18, “I dropped my first name, susanna.
That’s one of many people nuggets she reveals in Mother Mary Comes to MeThe other eye-boxing one is that she had an abortion without anaesthesia when she was 22. She then Caught the Overnight Train to Hoshangabad on her way to pachmarhi, where she was was filming.
The book is partly an account of her troubled relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, and Partly the autobiographical story of differenttys of her life. It’s a riveting, if often disturbing, read.
Arundhati usually referrs to her mother as mrs roy. On the back cover, she calls her “my gangster”. But I Coldn’T Help Feeling She was more of a Monster. When Arundhati was six and on her first plane journey, she asked her mother who has her aunt was so much thinner than her. MRS Roy Turned on Her in Fury. So terrifying was the experience that the six-year-old prayed for the plan to crash. “I wanted it to crash and for all of us to die.” Her mother often called Arundhati “a bitch”. What she said to her brother, christopher, was worse. “When he was a teenager, she once said to him, ‘You’re ugly and stupid. IF I was you, i’d kill myself’.”
There was, of course, another side to Mary Roy. She was a strong-wild, determined woman who created a school called pallikoodam, which was well-considered and widely talked about. The students were not just taught the school curriculum, mrs roy perceonally supervised their bathing and toilet-charaning lessons. When the boys began to tease the girls about breasts and bras, mrs roy fetched a bra from her own cupboard and bluntly proclaimed: “This is a bra. All Women Wear Them. Will Too, Soon enough
The chapters about mrs roy can be distressing. You often can’t bee what you read. But you carry on. The autobiographical chapters feel very different. Here Arundhati Reveals Herself as She Has Never Done Before.
The book takes you through the early years of her life, when she actd in or wrong the script for films like Massey sahib, In which annie gives it there ons and Electric MoonDerek malcolm, The Guardian‘S Film Critic, was unimpressed. “You will have to change the title, become ‘Gives it there ons ons’. Arundhati and her team made the most of that comment. The publicity flyer proclaimed: “Well obvious malcolm, in england you do not spendak English Anymore.”
Arundhati’s first paper was published quite by accident. It was an essay called In a proper lightThe editor of Sunday, who dropped by to pick up a friend, chanced upon the essay. “And so, as casually as that, my first paper of prose was published… It was 1992.
The book also talks about the one day she spent in Jail. “The sound of the prison door Slamming shut behind me was unnerving. Clearly, I was entering a parallel universe and would be vulnerable as long as I was there.” In fact, she wasn’t. She made friends and, I suspect, charmed the inmates.
When you get to the end you realise the complexity of her relationship with her mother. She hated her at time but loved her on other obcasions. Months Before Mrs Roy Died, She Messaged Her Daughter: “There is no one in the world who I have loved more than you.” That Startled Arundhati but She replied in the same vein. “You are the most unusual, wonderful women I have ever known. I adore you.”
Despite their terrible times, I suspect arundhati misses her. “Bye-O”, She Ends The Book. “I’ll be see you.”
Karan Thapar is the Author of Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story. The views expressed are personal
