Current Topics - Apr 07
Lalu Prasad Yadav - Currently Union Minister for Railways
Manu Sharma - Currently appealing against a guilty verdict for murder
Arundhati Roy - Winner of the 1997 Booker Prize and now anti-globalisation/peace activist
Arundhati Roy - Against the flow!
Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for her first novel, The God of Small Things (TGOST) in 1997. Since then she has used her fame to push for change in politics, globalisation and poverty. She has written and been interviewed regularly in serious and popular press and pubilished several non-fiction books, articles and speeches of political statement and argument.
Born in 1961 in Shillong (Meghalaya), her childhood was in Kerala. She attended Delhi's School of Planning and Architecture and also made a living as, amongst other things, an aerobics instructor. She rose to prominence and wealth with TGOST which sold all over the world. Though sales do not match J K Rowling and she had not gone on to produce the range of novels of other prize winners such as Ian McEwan, she should be financially secure.
Like the characters in TGOST she grew up with her mother, Mary, as a lone parent, living on the fringes of society as Mary ran a tea plantation and later a school on her own. The usual rules of a formal education and the expected 'grow-up, be married off, have children' did not apply. She left home at 16 and going from the rural, mixed environment of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Marxism to the big city. Living in a shack, architecture, marriage & a spell as a flower child in Goa, back to Delhi alone, spotted cycling and offered a small film role (Massey Saab) and finally a scholarship for 8 months in Italty where she realised writing was her future.
She started writing screen plays; the cancelled 'Banyan Tree' for ITV/Doordeshan, the films 'In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones' (Doordeshan) and Electric Blue (Channel 4). Both films had their fans but were not great successes. Controversy followed over her critique of the movie 'Bandit Queen', the life of the dacoit turned politician, Phoolan Devi, led to a court case and Arudhati's withdrawl into a private life. TGOST resulted soon afterwards.
TGOST had some mixed reviews and criticism in India, for both the mildly explicit sex that closes the book (and the subject of another court case) and the negative light shed on the caste system.
Success gave Arundhati a voice and access to the media more than she had previously had. Rather than the usual run of the mill promotional interviews (although there were several to promote the book and after the Booker Prize) she used the media stage to promote her views and the plight of the poor, downtrodden and war torn. Her 'rants & tirades' against globalisation, the greed of capitalism, her anti-communist sentiments, social & environmental concerns over displacement of people for the Narmada hydro-electric project and the middle east peace plan have their fans and detractors. She has moved away for fiction and screen plays to non-fiction (The Algebra of Infinite Justice - Essay Collection, War Talk, End of Imagination - Comment on India's Nuclear Testing, Baby Bush Go Home - She's not a fan of George W, The most Cowardly War in History - Speech on Iraq, The New American Century, Instant Mix Democracy: Buy One Get One Free - Speech on the US, Iraq, War & Globalisation).
Arundhati Roy was in a position to stand as a politician in India. She has the inclination, the way with words, global experience, understanding of the poor & rural issues - she could have made a fortune and lived a comfortable and dote upon life. She has chosen the less smooth, abrasive and more global path. Hated by some she does, I hope, get through to the young and young Indians in particular. India needs to create wealth, needs to help the vast swathes below the poverty line but not submerge it's culture totally. India does need change in the political culture and in some attitudes towards society, education and corruption.
Below is a video of an Arundhati Roy speech that has been overlaid on suitable images and a modern sound track. Whilst we don't agree with all of it, it shows Ms Roy's views without more of my dull prose.
Courtesy of www.weroy.org