The God Of Small Things

The God of Small Things

ARUNDHATI ROY

I finished this book just yesterday and this is the book that inspired me to create this blog. While reading, there are so many times, I had to just put the book down and think, and each time I thought this way, there was a tranquil silence in my mind(which is quite unusual for me). The story was a very layered and complex one, and in a few sentences, there were feelings and stories between the lines. The main setting of the book was in Ayemenem, Kerala, revolving around the Ipe family. Each member different, with their own shares of trauma, happiness and wishes. Each place described has it's own story to tell and however irrelevant to the main plot, it helps us understand a connection between everything- everything lost, everything seen, everything unseen. The characters that mainly affect the plot are- the twins (Esthappen and Rahel), Ammu (their mother), Chacko(maternal uncle), Sophie Mol(Chacko's daughter), Margaret Kochamma(Sophie's mother), Mammachi(Ammu and Chacko's mother), Pappachi (Ammu and Chacko's father) and Baby Kochamma (Pappachi's unmarried sister). It jumps in the timeline between two importan t times- one when the twins were still children and the other when they have grown up. Traumatic events is a heavy element throughout the story. It shows different faces of trauma and different outcomes of the same one. Trauma due to marriage issues, the one gifted by parents, sexual trauma, society's- not just the words spun by the evil's guard dogs but also of the expectations. Higher caste people are required to be polished idols(ofcourse it is created and perpetuated by them themselves, so no one else is to blame) and lower caste(in the story mainly untouchables) people expected to kneel for no other reason than the sin of their birth. I didn't quite understand the relationship between the twins. They were connected not just in views but by mind and soul; though suffering the same atrocities of life, their reply to life is totally different from each other, except the emptiness in them. Since I understood so little about it, I won't comment further on it and will try to reread someday again. Throughout the story, their is also an underlying loneliness. And what I understood in the end, in life the God of Small Things is nothing but "Love". For, love doesn't exist in grand gestures and in costly gifts. Love doesn't ask for beg or seek anything. It always lurks in the background. Love is found in small things, it is found in simple eye contacts and laughing together, it is found in looking at another person's mole and remembering the outline of the face. It is found in celebrating each others existence even on bad days. It also touches topics of sexual perversions that arises from sexual curiosities at a young age. And the taboo around the topic just makes the curiosity manifest in a complex way. However, not a single line in the story shames anything about it which I felt was a very sensitive line to tread. It also talks a little about the toxic relationship between a son-obsessed mother and her son, jealousy, neglecting children and the worship of colonialists. Overall, I enjoyed reading it.

Brute force is not a sign of superiority. Being in a position of physical vulnerability doesn't make you less valuable as a human being. Men hold brute force in high regard because that's the only domain where they can't lose. That is something important for us to understand as women: male values are not our values, they don't suit us. The way men weaponize their physical strength against women is the most important feminist issue. That's what makes men able to kill, rape, and keep us in fear. Discussions about cultural misogyny are important, but they are useless if we don't recognize the physical element that allows men to exercise their misogyny in the first place. But we can't even acknowledge this fact without being accused of treating women as eternal victims. It's so frustrating.

It doesn’t even comes to their minds that this is because of the opposition leader’s“promises” of caste census and freebie politics.

What do you think Rahul Gandhi was doing in Bharat Jodo Yatra? He was roaming around asking people for their castes and blabbering about caste census!

And the results are apparent. These stupid braindead lefties are celebrating casteism now!!

As a low caste hindu I’m appalled. India does not need more caste based politics, we’ve suffered enough already.

A very sensible man once said “Congress hatao, desh bachao.”

I’m sick of these people.

Above image is a pride flag with every color band represented by a NASA image. White is Earth clouds, pink is aurora, blue is the Sun in a specific wavelength, brown is Jupiter clouds, black is the Hubble deep field, red is the top of sprites, orange is a Mars crater, yellow is the surface of Io, green is a lake with algae, blue is Neptune, and purple is the Crab Nebula in a specific wavelength.

hello! hope ur doing fine :D im writing this ask to kinda get help(?) KSJSJ for writing fics?? like do you have any tips on writing fics / one shots etc? i love ur works and wanted to get into writing so 👉👈

hi anonie!!!

first of all, can i just say how flattered i was??? this made my day. im glad you like my works!!

and secomd of all, i think it varies based on the person.

But one thing i will say is: dont convert writing into work.

By that i mean write when you want to or when you feel like writing. Don't force yourself to write. If you force yourself the thing that was once a good past time will become a chore for you.

I started writing because i always had so many ideas in my head and i would constantly build on them and because of that my head was so crowded. Imagine a laptop with 1246 tabs open. That was my head.

For writing fics i think the best advice that i can give is to start with a sentence you dont think you'll hear, like ever because that kind of grasps attention. and you know how some people say planning is the best? well it helps but if youre like me, i love to write based solely on vibes and an overall image and then i wing it. The story starts writing itself.

Best thing is to put yourself in that position and then write. Writing it from an author's perspective might leave some blanks or holes you dk how to cover.

Pinterest is my bestfriend. If you aren't sure what vibes you're getting, search it up. make a collage, a board, then write. It helps loads.

For example, i started my black eye fic thinking that ill write it about vernon but it ended up about seokmin because i realised it fit him more. I also had no idea what or how to start writing so i pinterest-ed and based it on the photos i saw.

My what do you even know? fic was originally about wonwoo or maybe even cheol but then halfway i impulsively changed it to seungkwan. The reason was somwthing weird like 'but cheol doesn't wake up early to go on runs'

Also something i discovered recently. Sometimes it is easier to write an smau then an actual fic. The corpse flowers au was fully planned out in my head but no matter what i did i couldn't word it. So i didn't. I made it into an smau.

For oneshots i think the best strategy is to pick one (and only one) situation/scene and stick with that. Once that scene is over, that's it. Think of an oneshot like a descriptive essay. Only write what's happening then and there. You dont need that much of a backstory. Instead of writing about how you and bf met, just introduce the character as 'my/your boyfriend'.

For me the biggest issue is never knowing how to stop. And i learned this super recently but as soon as your prompt or original scene finishes, end it.

Oneshots are like little timeframes so just pause a moment and describe that as much as you can.

Honestly, personally speaking, i always write as if said prompt or thing was happening to me. What would i want a bf to behave like? Or i replace it with anyone else who i know well. This way you can remain assured that its realistic enough.

For smaus, wing it. Seriously. I have no idea what to tell you except just wing it.

Also don't ever feel shitty if it's not working out. Give yourself a break. It doesn't matter what. If a certain fic cant be written according to your personal standards, leave it and start another one if you want.

But sometimes the best thing to do is write on actual paper. When you cant think up anything good writing on paper with a pen helps because you cant delete it. Don't look back and keep writing. Then just edit + proofread at the end. My jun soulmate au ia currently being written like that.

Another piece of advice that i think is really important (personally). Wait before you reread or check a fic. Don't edit it just after you finish writing it. Sometimes your brain might skim over the actual mistakes in a fic. Checking/editing it after a day or even a couple of hours works best.

And lastly and most importantly:

Do not pressure yourself

Its a hobby, for fun. Dont make yourself hate writing. It's gonna suck ass.

Dont shy out of needing hiatuses. Its okay. Sometimes a break is exactly what you need most to get the creative juices flowing.

Anyway thank you anonie!! I hope my ramblings worked, i still think you need to find what suits you best as a person but i hope these helped somewhat!!

The thing is, I do think that sometimes both sides take it to the extreme, as people do. But it's the sheer hyprocrisy and self-hatred among Indian leftists that makes me stay the hell away from them. I don't think they are entirely wrong; I myself have an opinion that's somewhere in the middle. But these leftists try to call themselves open-minded and progressive and then constantly post some of the most asinine, close-minded and unempathetic takes on the planet. You'll see them talk about how the right never talks about hate-crimes against Muslims, while they do. But hate crimes against Hindus also happen, and they never talk about that either! And yet they feel justified in calling out the other side, like... the call is coming from inside the house, no? And it's even worse in a way, because I actually haven't seen any Hindu person deny that crimes happen against Muslims in India, but these leftists are constantly saying that Hindus are not persecuted in India at all, that we just have victim mentality and all that. I'm sorry, I must have imagined the genocide of the Kashmiri Pandits, the governments that tear down our temples, the governments that are able to just go and say that we need to wipe out Hinduism without any repercussions multiple times.

And then they try to say that Hindus co-opt the trauma of others and use it for sympathy, cause god forbid we try to relate to others, I guess. They'll say we use others' trauma to further our own agenda, and then go ahead and say things like "the Kashmiri Pandits wouldn't want you to fight for them like this," or "their trauma doesn't deserve to be used for Islamophobia." And it's right, but their intentions aren't good here. They only ever talk about the pandits trauma when they are trying to prop up their views and when they are talking about hate against Muslims. They never talk about the actual trauma Kashmiri Hindus have faced, because then they would have to admit that Hindus also suffer, and they can't do that.

And let's not forget the other hypocrisy. The way they'll talk about Hindus "colonizing" Kashmir and turn around and suck up to the Mughals and even the British. They'll raise a massive stink about us taking back one temple on one of our most holy sites that was razed to the ground by colonizers to build a Mosque that wasn't even being used. You'll never find these people talk about the impact of colonization on India, because that would mean they have to address the fact that Hindus suffered a lot under Islamic invasion. And it's annoying and sad to me that people have become so unable to criticize Islamic invaders without being seen as Islamophobic. Muslims have unfortunately faced a lot of racism, but that doesn't mean that Islamic colonization did not happen and that it did not affect us almost irreparably. We have to talk about it. But these people are allergic. They think criticizing a man who killed thousands, raped women and did such heinous crimes is bigotry. It's why I can't even agree with them even when our values align.

The thing is, I do think that sometimes both sides take it to the extreme, as people do. But it's the sheer hyprocrisy and self-hatred among Indian leftists that makes me stay the hell away from them.

PERFECTLY SAID. There's a reason I do not stick around with full leftists anymore.

Absolutely amazing, anon. Did not hold back and I love it. 10/10 ask.