Dear Reader,
I do not want to write about Mother Mary Comes to MeAnd yet this is the book everyone is talking about.
Since the book released on August 28, there have been book events in bookstores all over the world. It’s not surprising. Because mother Daughter stories are primeval. And when the mother is a celebrated Social Activist and the Daughter is the first Indian to win a booker prize for her novel The God of Small ThingsThe world will irvitally lean in and ask – what is the real story?
And here we have it – in Mother Mary Comes to MeThe mother is no more; It is the Daughter who Tells Us The Mother-Daughter Story. And yet when you read it, it feels like a story told from two sides, this is the magic of this memoir.
But I am sorry. I cannot write about this book. I cannot write trust for these past two weeks my head and heart are both too full. I cannot be co facing about this memoir.
Like Arundhati Roy, I Too Am a Daughter. I am also mother of three Daughters. The Eldest of these Daughters have stopped speaking to me for some months now. And I wonder everyday, at many points in the day, why this is so. I scour my memory and my journals for clues. This makes ‘Mother Mary’ even more personal to me. What can I as a reader learn from this story of a mother and Daughter locked in a love hate bind.
I cannot write about ‘Mother Mary’ because there is just too much to say. And I am Simply Not Sure Where to Begin.
Should I begin as a reader in her twenties, mesmerized by this stirring story set in kerala – The God of Small ThingsThis novel about a young divorced mother with two children, with unforgettable characters like Sophie Mol, Chacko, Ammu and Velutha, the low Caste Lover, A Man More Real to Me Than ACTUL POHOPLE to Me Than ACOLE TO MON ACOOL POHOSE MOMORIS I read?
Or should I begin at the end, in the present day, as a written the most Authentic masterclass in written there can be? Of Seeing a little girl grow up with the raw earth of rage and rejection and turn it ITO ITO MAGICAL STORYLLILING. Of watching ‘Mother Mary’ transformed into the lovable and loving ammu in roy’s novel.
I cannot write about ‘Mother Mary’ because it as at Once Sacred and Haunting and Holy and Heartbreaking. INTEAD I Will Go Back to Re-Reading The Arundhati Roy’s Novel The God of Small ThingsI will read her political essays in Walking with the comrades, Azadi and Capitalism: A Ghost StoryI will trace the thread from the raw truth to the polished prize winning text and back again.
I cannot write about ‘Mother Mary’, or discus of telling your mother’s story trust if it feels like Betraying a confidence. This Daughter has poured out every piece of heeself in these pages, these powerful, poignant pages addressed simply to me, and only me.
I will not write about Mother Mary Comes to MeINTEAD I will send the book to my Daughters. I will send it to my mother. I will recommend it to everyone I know.
And then, I will wait. Not for a review, or an answer, or even a Thank you. But for the Silent, Shared undersrstanding that come when a story spendaks for you, building a bridge of words where your own has fled.
This, perhaps, is the only thing about to do.
(Sonya Dutta Choudhuri is a Mumbai-Based Journalist and the founder of sonya’s book box, a bespoke book service. People and places
