KOCHI: A rockstar of a book, that's how Arundhati Roy describes her latest book, Mother Mary Comes to Me. A memoir, her third fiction, has a real-life towering personal at its core. Her mother, whom she calls Mrs Roy. Inspired by the Beatles' famous Rock Anthem, Let it Be, Ms Roy says, the title came to her like it was displayed on a screen.
She recalls the anecdote by Paul McCartney, who co-wrote the song with fellow bandmate John Lennon. "It was about his mother, who was also named Mary. He lost her quite at a young age."
In a way, Mother Mary Comes to Me is a book about the rockstar, the "gangster" that was Mrs Roy. "But unlike McCartney's mother, she never said Let it Be."
"Taller in my mind than any billboard, more perilous than any river in spate, more relentless than the rain, more present than the sea itself," Arundhati describes her mother in the opening chapter titled 'Gangster'.
She is fiercely and unabashedly open in her memoir while describing her complicated, tumultuous relationship with Mrs Roy, who, for Kerala, and especially the women of the Syrian Malabar Nasrani community, was nothing short of a champion who battled against the then inheritance law in the Supreme Court and won. But to her children, she was a terrifying presence infamous for her turbulent temper.
At the historic property of Brunton Boatyard, a heritage hotel in Fort Kochi, Arundhati Roy, the battle-hardened daughter, opens up about her mother, who made her, destroyed her and then stitched her together, repeatedly. But she travels beyond the book, "I am aware, while we are discussing the book, while we are launching it, a genocide is happening in Palestine," she says. She is aware that Trump's tariff might spell catastrophe for India, that the world is going through a perilous time, and that the insidiousness of casteism is still prevalent in India.
While her publisher, David Godwin, greets her mid-interview and she jokes with him, Arundhati also tears up for her comrades who are languishing in jail on UAPA charges. She once again opens up, now outside the pages. "I stand by everything I say," she asserts.
Excerpts:
In 'Mother Mary Comes to Me', you are fiercely personal. Your mother, her relationship with you and your brother, her personality — you have penned it down for the world. Was writing this in a way you're coming to terms with your grief, the absence of your mother?
Not really. I think that kind of grief takes time, whether you write about it or not. I actually wrote the book because I feel that Mrs Roy deserves a space in literature, as all of herself and selves, not just as some nice person, or a great person. In some ways, what made her great was also the not-nice stuff.
Your first book, 'God of Small Things', was also a very personal one. Do you feel exposed when you write about your personal life so much and put it out there? Or do you have a fear about how people will take it?
I don't care. Because she didn't care. Sure, my brother and I absorbed a lot of her darkness. But she never could have done the things she did, or I could never have done the things I have done or written, if we were continuously polling public opinion.
There's a uniqueness to the relationship between a mother and daughter. There's love, rifts, everything. A lot of daughters grapple with it...
A lot of mothers, too, let's not forget that. I feel this book is not really about the mother and daughter. It is really about a daughter who was actually the mother, a daughter who became an adult and dealt with her as an adult. It is not about infantilising myself forever and complaining. Sure, it was hard for me. But it was hard for her too. I think there is a process, I am just simplifying it — when the feminist movement was rising in the West, the way of undermining it was to demonise the mother. And here, the way of putting so much pressure on women is to make the mother into some divine goddess, provided she behaves according to the norms that society lays out. In both cases, it is constricting and preventing someone from being able to breathe, make mistakes or be bad-tempered. So I feel that we should stop resorting to the cliches about mothers and daughters.
There's this scene you describe in the book. You're on the plane, coming back from your aunt's place in Chennai. You ask a silly question to your mother, angering her, which sets in motion her habit of mimicking you. Immediately, she also says, 'Your father and I love you double'. It is two different personas...
That was a constant process of destroying me and then stitching me together, tearing me up, again stitching me back. That was very much a part of the battle of our relationship. But the fact is that I just held on to the stitching-me-together part. And if I hadn't left when I did, I might have been destroyed. But I left.
Did your relationship with your mother change during the last few years of her life?
Well, it didn't change that much. Even in the last few years, I could never come home for more than two or three days before the darkness began to take over. But when her health was failing, it was very important to her that I show up. But the minute I did, she would start getting angry. 'These doctors, they only want to see you. These people, they only want you...' It was quite hard to manage. She was already physically helpless. But even after she became more and more so, she was always the kind to use that to control people.
You moved away from Kerala to Delhi so long ago. How will you describe your relationship with Kerala? Are you looking in from far away, or...
It is really interesting. When she was alive, I could not stay here for long. So my relationship with Kerala was more or less my relationship with her. However, after she passed away, it has changed. I can come here, hang around, and meet other people. It has become much easier in some ways. I have spent a lot more time here in the last three years than in my years since I turned sixteen. I feel such a great affection for this place. Even though I don't live here, I couldn't not think of it as home.
So, this is your home?
Yes.
And one can feel this in your writing, the way you describe Meenachil, Ayemenem, the fish... And then at sixteen, you uprooted yourself to Delhi, a completely different terrain. How different was Delhi?
Unbelievably stark. Apart from the usuals — the big city, food and language — the biggest difference for me was the way people behave with each other, that caste hierarchy. It is just so stark over there. I remember thinking when I first arrived there, the way people were talking to vendors and vegetable sellers, etc., I used to say, in Kerala, the naxalites would just behead you for this. You can't talk like that to people. That was shocking to me, the disrespect that people had for each other.
What is your process? How do you write something very personal? Is it different from writing non-fiction?
Well, it is very different in terms of the genre, but it's not different in terms of the craft and the discipline that any writing requires. Whatever you write, whether it is an essay or a novel, you research for its own unique language and form, its own idiom. Writing means being obsessed night and day. Thinking about it, sleeping with it, waking up with it, playing around with it...
So far, you have written only two novels. While in between, you have written several non-fiction works...
Because of the kind of fiction I write. It is not some story that I write. It's about a universe, and to do that, it takes a long time. I am not interested in producing a lot of books. I am interested in living the life of a writer who actually lives and doesn't actually sit down and just write. Sometimes, I am writing in the crowd, sometimes when I am with my comrades in the forests, sometimes in Kashmir. I am not the kind of person who can just read and write. I need to live.
Arundhati, as a writer and an activist. You talk about how much you don't like that term being linked in your memoir.
Yes. I make many jokes about it in the book. It is like saying I am a sofa-bed. I don't understand why people think I am an activist. Because they have decided the writer's job is just to entertain people and not write about the politics of the time we are living in. But historically, that is what writers did. Now, we are supposed to just create a product and place it in the market; the political work is left to someone else. It is a way of reducing activists and writers.
Have you felt this about God of Small Things? The way, many forget the politics of it. Dissociate that part and then make it all about Kerala, the beautiful place...
And children. Initially, you know, how it was. People were filing cases against me. And then, when it won the Bookers, it became akin to a book about children. That's what people tend to do — make it easier for themselves.
You mention in God of Small Things the dichotomy of the Communist Party. How the comrades were dismissive or reluctant to support Velutha when he was wrongly accused. Do you think that facet of the party has changed?
The absolute dismissal of the idea of dealing with caste by saying class is caste. All the while, actually being casteist yourself and all the leaders at that point being upper-caste people. I hope it has changed. I don't live here, so I don't want to sound like I am an expert. I think all political parties have had to deal directly with the question of caste. They have just begun to. Which is not to say there is no casteism or that terrible things are not being said. I recently read about what Adoor Gopalakrishnan said, and that was shocking.
In the book, you talk about your mother gifting a typewriter to you, and you writing in it after meeting your father in a hotel in Paharganj...
Actually, the first time I met my father was a hilariously strange scene. And I came home and wrote it with the typewriter gifted to me by my mother. That entire account, almost all of it, is in the book. The first time I met my father was when I was 25.
Is that when you started writing, a beginning, so to speak, into literature...
At that time, I was still practising. There were some experimental screenplays and things like that. But yes, it was around then.
When did God of Small Things take root in you?
After I finished the film, Electric Moon, I decided I wanted to work alone. Until then, I had no money or a place to live. All I used to think about was money — how to survive, how to pay the rent, how to manage from one week to the next. But after I wrote Electric Moon, I had enough money saved for a year at least to start thinking about what I really wanted to write. The films were just me practising, honing my skills, therefore not taking on the big themes.
You have a knack for the titles. The Algebra of Infinite Justice, God of Small Things... When do you come up with them in your process of writing?
While writing, they just appear on the screen, proclaiming — Hello, here I am, this is what I am.
And Mother Mary Comes to Me. Was it like that? Were you listening to the Beatles?
Obviously. Nobody talks much to me about how this — this is a rock n roll book. It is from the song ‘Let it be’ and I have said this in the dedication: For Mary Roy, who never said Let It Be. Because Paul McCartney’s mother’s name is also Mary, who died when he was very young. My mother was not his mother (laughs). Very quickly into writing the book, the song came and landed on my wrist like a butterfly. Mother Mary Comes to Me, there wasn’t going to be any other title.
Why after her death?
Because I was shocked by my reaction to her death. I was shocked and humiliated because I couldn't understand why I was so devastated. It's not like I was young or she was. And also because, from the time I was three to now, I could never talk to her as she had asthma. You just had to hold it in. I never said anything or reacted to anything ever. By the time I was beyond all that emotional blackmail, I never wanted to defeat her. I always wanted her to go out like a queen. Which is what she did, and I wanted to write about this extraordinary person and in the most honest way possible.
What is your relationship with religion? You had written that you were not indoctrinated to caste because you were always left alone. What about religion? Are you an atheist?
I am a person who never allows the circle to close. As Proust said, I believe in the possibility of everything. I don't believe that I know everything, and I don’t believe in the Books. But I believe in wonder and magic and miracles and beautiful things, and whoever created all of us has also created a lot of beauty, for which I will not be interested in a scientific explanation.
There have been a lot of political attacks against you throughout your career as a writer. How did you gain the courage to move forward amid all that?
See, it would be surprising in this scenario if there weren’t any attacks. There are so many of my friends like Sai Baba or Umar Khalid, who are in jail. If I were not sort of well-known as a writer and protected by my readers from across the world, I think I would not have survived. Keeping quiet is not a choice for me. It's not because I am brave or that I can change the world. Only because if I don't write what I am thinking, I should just stop writing, go and teach yoga or something. I do it to preserve the integrity of my writing self.
Is this your first time launching in Kochi?
Yes. There is a little bit of upset in Delhi. We only did a small function there that was not public. The public launch is in Kochi.
How do you come to terms with the responses of your relatives who read your works?
I am not a family person. I left when I was 16, and I am not really in touch with them. I just deal with relatives like I deal with anybody else. For me, there is nothing there. Except for my brother, whom I adore.
You have been vocal against the political scenario in India. What hope do you have in the current situation, when you're once again facing charges against you?
I am very aware that this book is written and is coming out when the most horrific genocide in the 21st century is being carried out. I am talking about Gaza. It is very different from other genocides as it is live-streamed. It is easier for us to reach the images of dying Palestinian children who queue up for a glass of water. Everybody is watching. I thought that at least in Kerala, people would come out onto the streets. But not really. Today, Modi and this government have brought us to this space, where, if the Trump tariffs kick in, which they have, we are actually poised for a catastrophe. So many jobs would be lost. So yeah, I am aware of the context. This is in the backdrop of severe situations all over the world.
You speak for the people who are suffering all over the world. Even when we are aware of the things, we are reduced to only spreading the awareness. What do you think about it?
There is no such thing as the voiceless. There is only the deliberately silent and preferably unheard. There is an increasing crisis in democracy all over the world. If you currently look at polls and surveys from around the world, the public is always against the governments on the issue of Palestine. There have been several direct actions and public protests, which are incredible. This has forced some change, at least in the mainstream media. I don’t know what’s going to happen now. The strange thing is that the regimes and rulers of democratic countries are on the side of Israel, the one committing the genocide, the oppression, the apartheid. India, shamefully, once a friend of Palestine, is now a friend of Israel.
Was it unexpected?
No, Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu have been paddling in the sea, buying Pegasus and exchanging weapons. As I had said before, America supports Israel with its wealth and India supports it with its poverty, sending thousands of poor people to work there, as it expelled Palestinians. In India, especially in the north, the Hindu right is so pro-Israel. Anyone coming out is immediately beaten up. Then, in Kerala, a lot of Christians are pro-Israel for their own reasons. So is in the North-East. It is shameful. We are a country that has lost its way, its dignity and moral standing in the world.
Coming back to the books, the Delhi in ‘Ministry of Utmost Happiness’, is that your Delhi? Your love for the city?
My Delhi. But it is also so much more than Delhi, it is Kashmir too and more. I know that Ministry is a much more difficult book than the others I have written. The point is, I don't always have to produce baby food. The idea of the Ministry, the graveyard of Anjum, the general guesthouse... It is a revolution. In the Ministry, what I am saying is that the other way very much exists; all you have to do is look for them. In Mother Mary, it is another way of handling relationships. Everyone doesn't need to react the same way — as we are trained to in the olden days by tradition or in the modern days by therapy. Everyone is trained to wrap themselves in a language that isn’t necessarily theirs.
Mrs Roy, for Kerala, is a towering figure. She has changed the lives of many women here. And it's here that you are releasing the book. Is it a full circle moment?
It's a sign of love and respect. Even a sign of believing in the intelligence of people, that they don't want some hagiography. You may love somebody, but they are complicated people. There is a part in the book where I meet her after seven years of being estranged. She and I went to an older Syrian Christian woman's home. She was talking to her about the case. After everything that woman said to her: "Mrs Roy, what will we do with these rights that you want us to have? Why are you trying to destroy our community?" I wanted to tell her ‘Wait a minute, she is not just fighting for equal rights for inheritance for women. She is fighting for the right not to be a perfect mother, not to be an obedient woman, and most of all not to be a bore like you.' So we have to be able to give ourselves that space to be bad as well. It's okay. I wanted to give her that space here.
What are you up to next?
I don't work on projects. Somebody once told me, I write like they have already killed me. You have just done it, now there is nothing. And you have to reinvent yourself. I have to reinvent myself. After you do something, it's important to be completely empty for a while.
Are you still seditious at heart?
Yes. Always will be.