Arundhati Roy; The God of Small Things

In The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy paints an elaborate portrait of the lives of twins, Estha and Rahel, growing up in the complex social environment of castes and Syrian Christianity in post-colonial India. Rahel and Estha see the world through the simple, amazingly insightful eyes of childhood and innocence: “When people died at sea, they were wrapped up in white sheets and thrown overboard with millstones around their necks. . .Estha wasn’t sure …

…are truly alive. They are the ones who come out to touch the river while the others perform elaborate plays of respectability. There are numerous elements that linger in the memory after reading this novel. For example, the recurring theme of hopeless love: the hopeless love of Baby Kochamma for Father Mulligan, the hopeless love of Chacko for Margaret Kochamma, and the more than hopeless, but tragic love of Ammu and her twins for Velutha.