by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books, Politics
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : Booker winning novelist Arundhati Roy’s second novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” — written after a hiatus of two decades — is the universe, she says, imagined in many languages which like its characters have no choice but to co-exist. The longing to come home after the companionship it built in 49 languages will see its fulfilment as the Hindi and Urdu editions of the novel — the two closest to its characters as well as the novelist — will release on February 2.
Speaking to IANS ahead of the scheduled launch, the writer extraordinaire said that her novel is structured in a manner that layers after layers have to be peeled to reach to the bottom truth.
“But is there a truth at all?” she asks, maintaining that only fiction can narrate the complexities of our times and that as a novelist, she was also exploring how the written word can give expression to the “strange psychosis” that is happening all around us. It was a novel in progress for about two decades but Roy says she had reached a point when it just needed to flow.
Roy said that she, as a novelist, doesn’t believe in making it “all too easy” for the reader. She toys with her protagonists in the novel, engages in a constant process of exerting and releasing control over their thoughts, actions as well as words — all in a fictional narrative — and suddenly drops it all after taking the reader to a high-point.
She explains that “The Ministry” is a bit like a third-world city, a metropolis submerged under water, and one is only “swimming with the fish” while reading it superficially. “You cannot get through it in one go,” she contends, before pointing out that there are plenty of secret trails and underlying comparisons that are in play in her novel.
You read it once and you are swimming with the fish on top, and then you read it again and you are with the bottom feeders but cannot get through it in one go, she asserts.
At the same time, Roy is mindful that it is written in many tongues and yet no tongue is akin to all. They have their individual characteristics; similarities and dissimilarities with each other, but when placed together in the narrative of a novel, the languages, like its characters, have no option but to co-exist.
Translation for them, she says, is “not a high-end literary art performed by sophisticated polyglots” but it is a part of their “daily life”. She said translation was the primary act that led to the creation of “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” because the novel is all the time translating, and its adventures with translation is not only limited to languages but also to interpretations and things said, or unsaid between the lines.
Roy, according to Rajkamal Prakashan, who is publishing both the Hindi and Urdu editions of the book, has played an active role in the process of its translation and has spent lengthy hours with the respective translators Manglesh Dabral and Arjumand Ara — both highly revered and masters at the art in respective languages.
She said that the translated works remain faithful to the original text and is translated with a keen attention to the reading experience that the novel presents in its original avatar. The process was not easy as the distinct difference between the literal language and the local street language that some of her characters speak became evident in the first few days of the process.
There were also many words in the original text for which a suitable word wasn’t around in the language it was being translated into.
It was a process of “negotiations”, not “contradictions” and a “protocol” was developed between the writer and the translator(s) so that “The Ministry” retained its original bliss.
The Hindi edition of the novel is titled “Aapar Khushi Ka Gharana” and the Urdu “Bepanah Shadmani Ki Mumlikat”, which will both be launched at India International Centre here.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The arrest earlier this week of civil rights activists was carried out to “Divert and Rule”, writer-activist Arundhati Roy alleged on Thursday and expressed fear that in the run up to the 2019 general elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will “try to derail everything” with “some surprise attack”, urging people to hold the government accountable for its actions.
Launching a series of attacks on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government, the Booker-winning novelist and activist at the forefront of many social and environmental struggles, asked the people to not allow their “attention to stray from even when strange events befall us”.
“Modi government is following divert and rule. We will not know from where and how and when and what kind of fireball is going to fall on us. They are trying to distract us,” Roy said at a press conference here to condemn the arrests, before firing a series of salvos that targeted the government on its “anti-dalit” “anti-poor” “anti-minority” policies such as demonetisation and the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
“While the poor have suffered enormously, several corporations close to the BJP have multiplied their wealth several times over. Businessmen like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya have run away with thousands of crores of public money while the government looked away,” Roy alleged.
“He (Modi) said that every man and woman will get Rs 15 lakh in his account if the BJP comes to power in 2014. On the contrary, poor of this country have been robbed. What kind of accountability can we expect from this government?” she asked.
Roy pointed to the investigation by the Karnataka Police into the assassination of firebrand journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh and said that it has “unveiled several Hindu right-wing organisations like the Sanatan Sansthan”.
“This has shown the existence of a full blown terror network with hit-lists, hideouts, safehouses, arms, ammunition and plans to bomb, kill and poison people… As it prepares for the 2019 general elections, the BJP has emerged by far the wealthiest political party in India. Outrageously, the electoral bonds ensure that the source of the donations to political parties can remain anonymous.
“How many of these groups do we know about? How many of these are still working in secret? They have the assurance and blessing of the powerful and even the police. With the elections coming what plans do they have in store for us? What surprise attack, where will they be, in Kashmir, in Kumbh mela, or in Ayodhya. They will attempt to derail everything with some minor or major attack,” Roy alleged.
Referring to the “manner in which the education institutions are being dismantled”, she said that the government is carrying out “re-brahmanisation of education” by rapid privatisation.
“Even the poorest beneficiaries of reservation are now being denied and pushed out at an alarming rate. This turning over of the educational institutions to the corporates is going to create a level of patronisation that we cannot recover from,” she said.
She termed the arrest of the five activistsas “illegal” and asked people not to forget that “by arresting public interest lawyers and human rights activists, the government is actually isolating lakhs of people because these are their representatives, the helpers of the poorest of the poor.”
“You are arresting and silencing those who work for the poor, you are stripping away the constitutional rights of whole population. When they arrested these people, it was their way of discrediting the dalit aspiration,” she said.
Pune police had on Tuesday arrested lawyer-activist Sudhar Bharadwaj and civil liberties activists Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Fereira and P. Varavara Rao from different parts of India, triggering a massive outcry.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
(2017 In Retrospect)
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : A novel that takes its readers into the abyss of poverty and patriarchy, thereby narrating the sordid uses of power and the agony it unleashes; a dystopian satire that draws a telling portrait of our times; and finally an international bestseller from India weaves together a writer’s experiences as a social and environmental activist — all of this in fiction.
Two years ago, there was a spontaneous protest by leading Indian writers who returned their Sahitya Akademi awards in the wake of what they called a growing climate of intolerance and a threat to free speech in the country. Later, these writers were dubbed as those with “vested interests”, seeking “cheap publicity” at a time when their books had “stopped selling”. Those opposed to them pointed out that, as writers, the ideal way to put their perspectives before the public was through their writings — and few could disagree with this fundamental point.
Cut to the present: The year 2017 witnessed the release of at least three powerful novels, along with two short story anthologies, all of which use the medium of art and fiction to reflect the burden of society.
Leading the charge with huge publicity and global media attention was the return of writer-activist Arundhati Roy with her novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”. The novel came after a hiatus of two long decades, during which Roy was actively involved in a number of social and environmental campaigns — a lot of which is reflected in the offering. From Kashmir to Maoists and transgenders to crony capitalism, it is an inward contemplation of a master storyteller on the times and surroundings she is living in.
“I speak as a reader and a publisher when I say that I turn to fiction, as much as to non-fiction, when I seek to make sense of our times, or any time that has gone past us. ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ is a stellar example of the sheer humanity of the art of the novel. What such a book does is stand up for integrity: It shows us both searing beauty and the fearsome ugliness. Arundhati Roy’s book is an empathetic, hopeful and fiercely idealistic response to the epic tale of Independent India. What more can one ask of a great Indian novel,” Meru Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief, Literary Publishing, of Penguin Random House India, asked while speaking to IANS.
Soon after Roy’s novel came “When the Moon Shines By Day” by Nayantara Sahgal, a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family and a noted writer who spearheaded the “award wapsi” campaign in 2015. The moon obviously does not shine by day nor does the sun shine by night. “Something is wrong if one is forced to agree with such propositions, or be punished for refusing to agree,” Sahgal said, pointing to the larger narrative that she presents in her novel.
Thus, a character finds her father’s books on medieval history disappearing from bookstores and libraries. Her young domestic help, Abdul, discovers that it is safer to be called Morari Lal on the street, but there is no such protection from vigilante fury for his Dalit friend Suraj. Kamlesh, a diplomat and writer, comes up against official wrath for his anti-war views.
And finally, the year closed with the recent release of Kiran Nagarkar’s “Jasoda”, a commentary on society narrated as fiction. The readers question the protagonist Jasoda, seeking to understand whether she is a mother, murderer or saint?
“You could characterise ‘Jasoda’ as a novel that explores the incidence of female infanticide, its causes and its consequences in Indian society, particularly in the hinterland; or a novel that bridges the urban-rural divide through the theme of migration, a live issue for our times; or a novel that depicts the generation gap between the acquiescent pre-liberalisation generation and the ambitious, confident post-liberalisation generation; or a novel that shows how power tends to be all-consuming, and yet how vulnerable the votaries of power eventually are; or a novel that paints the inequities of gender disparity and discrimination in horrifying, poignant ways,” Udayan Mitra, Publisher, Literary, HarperCollins India, told IANS.
” ‘Jasoda’ is all of this and more; for it is above and beyond everything a Kiran Nagarkar novel, written in his inimitable style and marked by his unique perceptions; it captures and transcends reality. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the book is that the central character is a woman, she is a mother, and her name is Jasoda — a name everyone familiar with mythology knows. What the book is ultimately about, for me, is how myth and reality are at cross-purposes in today’s India,” he added.
Above and beyond these names are “When Danniel Comes to Judgement” by Keki Daruwalla and “Up Country Tales” by Mark Tully — both short story anthologies — bringing many societal issues to the fore. The biggest achievement of these books lies in the fact that they have transported their settings to the ground realities of the times we are living in, moved away from an elitist urbanscape (the current trend) and, in doing so, they have only rekindled the rich legacy of the likes of Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan, who gave expression to traditional cultural ethos of India and its ground realities in their writing.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Arundhati Roy
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : Just when the credentials of Booker winning author Arundhati Roy as a fiction writer were being questioned in literary circles, the acclaimed novelist, after a hiatus of two decades, returned with her second novel and, boom — it is again long-listed for the much-coveted award.
The author, however, feels there’s a world of difference between fiction and non-fiction.
“For me, there is a universe of difference between the two. So when I am writing non-fiction, I am writing usually with a tremendous sense of urgency. I am writing when something is closing down, some Supreme Court order has come or something very, very urgent. And I am writing to intervene. I am writing to argue. I am writing to try and open a space for discourse.
“But when I am writing fiction, I am absolutely without urgency. I have been epicly without urgency. I am trying to construct a universe very carefully, very minutely, and in the case of ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ I was also experimenting a lot with what fiction can do and how much it can push the walls. So there was absolutely no hurry for me in fiction whereas I have always written non-fiction with a great sense of urgency,” Roy told IANS in an interview.
On closer observation, Arundhati Roy’s tryst with writing has been carefully divided between carefree periods spent in writing fiction and the “urgent moments” of writing non-fiction.
Her first novel, “The God of Small Things”, may have introduced her to the literary world but it was not written overnight. After the separation of her parents, Roy spent a large part of her childhood in Kerala, where she came face to face with caste segregation.
There was also an underlying impact of her parents’ divorce on her life.
“My parents were divorced when I was about two years old and so I never knew my father. I had never seen him. It was just an absence, a void. My mother was and is very wonderful, but she was also very harsh; so I left home very early. Now it’s okay, I go back. But in a way, whereas everyone thinks of divorce as a very terrible thing, I don’t necessarily think that way. I think it was better to have a woman asserting her independence and growing into something wonderful like she did, than to live a life of suffering and to transmit that suffering to us. It wasn’t easy, but I don’t think it was a tragedy either,” she recalled.
All of these experiences and personal memories helped shape the larger narrative of “The God of Small Things,” at the centre of which was a broken heart. While it may not be well known, Roy’s first novel too took a couple of years to take its final shape.
But in the period between “The God of Small Things” and “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, she engaged in writing several books of non-fiction. These books, like “The End of Imagination,” which she wrote soon after India’s second nuclear test in May 1998, were her responses to urgent issues.
Her return to fiction with “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” has been the most significant literary event of 2017 so far.
“I started writing it about 10 years ago but I was not in a frame of mind that I have to finish this book by so and so date. In fact, I wanted to live with these people (characters) for a long time to see how we got along together. I think writers are all different, but I am not that interested in writing at a very high speed. However, there is nothing wrong with writing quickly, there are writers who do it brilliantly. But to me it is a very layered universe,” she maintained.
The author also said that just like the nuclear bomb splits the atom, a lot has changed in the past 20 years and as a writer, she has evolved too along the journey.
“I am that much older, I have lived that much longer, I have seen that much more, I have been through so many universes and the world has also changed so much. I think we live in a time when technology has split the moment. It’s like Tilottama (a character from ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’) is sitting there and watching the Jaguar and getting messages about Ghaziabad flats. The most intimate moments are shattered now,” she contended.
In a “world that is connected in a way like it never used to be and at a speed which it never used to be”, Roy, through her latest novel, has attempted to explore how fiction can take this challenge of changing times.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Arundhati Roy
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : As a five-year-old, she learned to stand still in one position, silently, for hours, to catch fish. “Perhaps that’s what made me a writer in the end,” said the much-acclaimed Arundhati Roy, winner of the 1997 Man Booker Prize, talking of her early life and the journey to her second work of fiction, “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”.
Roy was born in Meghalaya but spent a large part of her childhood in Kerala after her parents divorced.
“I grew up in a small village; there wasn’t a phone or a television or restaurants or cinema halls. But a library used to send us a hundred books every three months and this was the high point of my life. I waited eagerly for the next set of books to arrive… While it wasn’t a village like in the north of India, where it would have meant deprivation, there was caste segregation. There was horrible caste segregation and that is what ‘The God of Small Things’ was about,” Roy said, recalling in an interview with IANS her first book which got her the Booker.
She says “it was a luxury” to grow up in this fashion because her mind was not shattered by social media or SMSs coming her way. “The ability to concentrate was incredible,” she said.
But it was not all wonderful over there, and writing wasn’t even an option for many early years of her life.
“Even though we were not at the bottom of the caste ladder, there was a sort of understanding that nobody is going to marry her and so on. It was perhaps because of this that the idea of independence started quite early for me. And then the only way you could be independent was to be financially independent, which meant do something so that you could start working really early,” said Roy.
So she left home at 17, when the thoughts uppermost in her mind were how she would pay her rent or how she would last till the end of the month. “There were many years when writing was just not an option,” Roy said, adding that at that point, it didn’t seem possible that one could ever become a writer because “I spent many, many years only thinking about the money”.
And then, of course, came “The God of Small Things”, which sold millions of copies across the world and made her famous — and financially independent. She also became the first Indian to win the Man Booker Prize for fiction and donated the prize money to the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
“The impact of winning the Booker was tremendous. It happened so quickly that I had no time to absorb what was happening. And it took a long time for me to deal with it afterwards because while it was a tremendous sense of accomplishment, at the same time — being the kind of person I am, living in a country where so many people can’t read, can’t eat — being successful in such an unfair and violent society is a bit complicated to deal with,” she said.
Notwithstanding this complication, Roy emerged as a global phenomenon after winning the Booker — an incredible voice of fiction from a third-world country, also hailed gloriously in India.
And then, in May 1998, India conducted its second nuclear test.
“What happened was that the timing of that test was so close to the time when I was being celebrated, that for me to stay quiet was as political as saying something. If I said nothing, somehow I was part of that celebration — a celebration that was repugnant to me,” she said.
She wrote a critique of the test, “The End of Imagination”. Political and social Roy was born. The angst, lying dormant within her, found utterance after the bombs went off in India — and in Pakistan. “That became the beginning of another kind of journey for me,” said Roy, who has since been at the forefront of many social, political and environmental struggles.
Roy’s return to fiction after a gap of 20 years delves into a parallel universe inhabited by people who dictate terms to her and boss around in her house, as she curiously engages with them to see how well they get along together. This “magical bonhomie” of the novelist transpires into characters who breathe life into the pages of her fiction.
The opening of “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” ends on a thoughtful note: “Not many noticed the passing of the friendly old birds. There was so much else to look forward to.”
This also stands true for her tryst with writing. There has been “so much else” to make noise around her that the ethereal and sublime aspects of her creative genius often go unnoticed. Just like this little hint that Roy left in the opening of her book — again leading the Man Booker Prize longlist — her fiction appears to be too deep to be read superficially. It is structured like an onion where layers have to be peeled to get closer to the underlying messages.
It took her ten years to write the book. She says she allowed the plot and characters to take their own course and was never in a hurry to finish the book. For a decade she lived with Anjum, Tilottama and other characters travelling through several universes like the Khwabgah, and taking a much bigger risk, in terms of experimentation, than “The God of Small Things”.
“A novel is a magical thing. It is a very layered universe. And it can only take that much time. I could not have written it faster or slower. It had its own pace and it dictated its own terms,” quipped the author.
“The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” is much broader in its context than “The God of Small Things”, and yet it is very intimate in its moments too. Her first novel is about a family, at whose centre is a broken heart. Her latest is about shattered people, who bring together little pieces and make a mended heart in a graveyard.
And in the world of fiction she’s too big a name for her work not to succeed.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
