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hair. Estha wondered how that could be. He tried to think of whom to ask. The Waiting filled Rahel until she was ready to burst. She looked at her watch. It was ten to two. She thought of Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer kissing each other sideways so that their noses didn‟t collide. She wondered whether people always kissed each other sideways. She tried to think of whom to ask. Then, from a distance, a hum approached the held-up traffic and covered it like a cloak. The drivers who‟d been stretching their legs got back into their vehicles and slammed doors. The beggars and vendors disappeared. Within minutes there was no one on the road. Except Murlidharan. Perched with his bum on the burning milestone. Unperturbed and only mildly curious. There was hustle-bustle. And Police whistles. From behind the line of waiting, oncoming traffic, a column of men appeared, with red flags and banners and a hum that grew and grew. “Put up your windows,” Chacko said. “And stay calm. They‟re not going to hurt us.” “Why not join them, comrade?” Ammu said to Chacko. “I‟ll drive.” Chacko said nothing. A muscle tensed below the wad of fat on his jaw. He tossed away his cigarette and rolled up his window. Chacko was a self-proclaimed Marxist. He would call pretty women who worked in the factory to his room, and on the pretext of lecturing them on labor rights and trade union law, flirt with them outrageously. He would call them Comrade, and insist that they call him Comrade back (which made them giggle). Much to their embarrassment and Mammachi‟s dismay, he forced them to sit at table with him and drink tea. Once he even took a group of them to attend Trade Union classes that were held in Alleppey. They went by bus and returned
y boat. They came back happy, with glass bangles and flowers in their hair. Ammu said it was all hogwash. Just a case of a spoiled princeling playing Comrade. Comrade! An Oxford avatar of the old zamindar mentality–a landlord forcing his attentions on women who depended on him for their livelihood. As the marchers approached, Ammu put up her window. Estha his. Rahel hers. (Effortfully, because the black knob on the handle had fallen off.) Suddenly the skyblue Plymouth looked absurdly opulent on the narrow, pitted road. Like a wide lady squeezing down a narrow corridor Like Baby Kochamma in church, on her way to the bread and wine. “Look down!” Baby Kochamma said, as the front ranks of the procession approached the car. “Avoid eye contact. That‟s what really provokes them” On the side of her neck, her pulse was. pounding. Within minutes, the road was swamped by thousands of marching people. Automobile islands in a river of people. The air was red with flags, which dipped and lifted as the marchers ducked under the level-crossing gate and swept across the railway tracks in a red wave. The sound of a thousand voices spread over the frozen traffic like a Noise Umbrella. Inquilab Zindabad! Thozhilali Ekta Zindabad! “Long Live the Revolution!” they shouted. “Workers of the World Unite!” Even Chacko had no really complete explanation for why the Communist Party was so much more successful in Kerala than it had been almost anywhere else in India, except perhaps in West Bengal. There were several competing theories. One was that it had to do with the large population of Christians in the state. Twenty
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Arundhati Roy God of Small Things
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locked. The front verandah bare. Un
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meant for. Free funerals. Of course
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made. Lying broken on the hot churc
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desk and approached Ammu with his b
Page 12 and 13: still, tea-colored puddles the way
Page 14 and 15: his life, Khubchand, who had the be
Page 16 and 17: usiness as the Inevitable Consequen
Page 18 and 19: sternmouthed nuns seated behind her
Page 20 and 21: look straight, though it wasn‟t.
Page 22 and 23: would ask to try on their slippers
Page 24 and 25: the westernmost verandah of the Kal
Page 26 and 27: found that the senior sisters monop
Page 28 and 29: peaked red cap. Baby Kochamma spent
Page 30 and 31: with a towel). She even locked her
Page 32 and 33: difficulty that their family had wi
Page 34 and 35: Still, to say that it all began whe
Page 36 and 37: RejOice, And again I say rej-Oice.
Page 38 and 39: money to raise a suitable dowry, no
Page 40 and 41: She didn‟t notice the single Siam
Page 42 and 43: welcomed. To Ammu, her twins seemed
Page 44 and 45: a high-wax shoulder polish. Sometim
Page 46 and 47: Ammu said that the billboard made t
Page 48 and 49: told that his moth had finally been
Page 50 and 51: effeminate pout-the kind that child
Page 52 and 53: and despise ourselves.” “Marry
Page 54 and 55: Earth Woman‟s eye. That Worse Thi
Page 56 and 57: Ammu said. Chacko said, “What‟s
Page 58 and 59: know what Malayalam was. They told
Page 60 and 61: Chacko lit a Charminar. He inhaled
Page 64 and 65: percent of Kerala‟s population we
Page 66 and 67: Kerala was reeling in the aftermath
Page 68 and 69: A bun. A banana. Another balled fis
Page 70 and 71: Memory was that woman on the train.
Page 72 and 73: Entomology who first noticed little
Page 74 and 75: Vellya Paapen‟s good intentions q
Page 76 and 77: emember Velutha when he left. But i
Page 78 and 79: though they had successfully conclu
Page 80 and 81: eyelids the light was bright and ho
Page 82 and 83: and Rahel thought it was a nice pho
Page 84 and 85: Anabs-urd Litt-le Bird Is popping o
Page 86 and 87: them with the boys‟ luggage, his
Page 88 and 89: white-tiled bathroom, with sea-secr
Page 90 and 91: “Will you be okay?” Ammu said,
Page 92 and 93: grandmother‟s cans, Estha Alone o
Page 94 and 95: eathing people and hairoil. And old
Page 96 and 97: In the lobby, the orangedrinks were
Page 98 and 99: Estha went behind the Refreshments
Page 100 and 101: and pointy shoes. “You mustn‟t
Page 102 and 103: the question. I cannot love them. I
Page 104 and 105: “No. Thank you.” Estha looked a
Page 106 and 107: hostess‟s heart trapped in a bear
Page 108 and 109: window. He could taste the hot, sal
Page 110 and 111: “Goodnight,” Estha said, too si
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Those last few tortured nights befo
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wondered idly if it had indeed been
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He stayed in constant touch with th
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no more than a swollen drain now. A
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labeled with edifying placards that
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Rahel tried to walk past unnoticed.
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“That is most unfortunate,” he
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efore the doctor saw him, and to co
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pressed together, smiles frozen on
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Chacko, who usually wore a mundu, w
Page 132 and 133:
Heel and Toe Heel and Toe Long flat
Page 134 and 135:
Ammu said, “Can you see her, Rahe
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eeze. Adoor Basi, the most popular,
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And Later became a horrible, menaci
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It would bea. “All right,” Ammu
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Ambassador Estha and Ambassador Rah
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“I‟m not,” Rahel said. “You
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Baby Kochamma suggested a car song.
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with spit, and taken half the paper
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and I was Little Nehru. Ammu had co
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white, it means it isn‟t ripe. Wh
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of the eternal fire became a red ro
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Nine steep steps led from the drive
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despised her anyway. Shopkeeper‟s
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on her behind. Kochu Maria‟s fan
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were let down. The gauze doors of t
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Even after her cornea transplant, M
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The man or her own child. Or just t
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“Where‟s Estha Mon?” Velutha
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And truth be told, it was no small
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“Oower Kochamma,” the Blue Army
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Kochamma, who didn‟t answer. “V
Page 176 and 177:
Little Girls Playing. Sweet. One be
Page 178 and 179:
spent a whole day saying. She and E
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Gloom swallowed the garden. Whole.
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performed in the front verandah and
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fire till fruit is soft. Sqweeze ou
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Love-in-Tokyo. She heard a nun‟s
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eceipt for the dues that Velutha pa
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What was Estha sitting on? On what
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Here they learned to Wait. To Watch
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The boat-on-legs approached the hut
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sudden silence from inside. Kuttapp
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“Has Chacko Saar‟s Mol come?”
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Hey Mr Monkey Man Why‟s your BUM
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He squeezed the water out of it (sa
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His skin was salty. Hers too. He le
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“I was happy,” Ammu said, and r
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mentioning his name, she sensed tha
Page 210 and 211:
was taut and smooth. Under her hand
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The bedroom with blue curtains and
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his name on it) that lay open on th
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up-like a bubble. He wrestles it to
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soft and womanly, a man with breast
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mother. The air grew warmer. Less d
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Comrade Pillai. Ayemenem‟s egg-br
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side of her face, making her cheekb
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out on either side of his head like
Page 228 and 229:
hooting, helpless laughter. Meanwhi
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friend he had ever had. Not just th
Page 232 and 233:
Margaret Kochamma was physically at
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comfortable, committed friendship.
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had the keys. She called through th
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“It‟s his eye,” Kochu Maria s
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thoughts with unctuous oils. She bl
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makes fishermen pray. At the Kottay
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could not possibly be, unconnected.
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When Margaret Kochamma saw her litt
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still asleep. Chacko, on his way to
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cupboard stood next to the table. I
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they hung down on either side of he
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snacks. Comrade Pillai, grateful fo
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the house, or perhaps from the mome
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“Yes. He is good worker,” he sa
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completely. “That may be,” he s
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People‟s War joined the racks of
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een flattened into a neat illustrat
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appreciation, and went to the door.
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silver. It took him only a few minu
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expeditions across the river and th
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had gone) to divest his sister-in-l
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to a change of faith. Fifteen years
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A nagging sound started up in his h
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But this time, for Ammu and her two
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The Kottayam Police. A cartoonplato
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slow death of dancers. The toy hist
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history‟s henchmen. Sent to squar
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Still they brought out the handcuff
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“ssenetiloP,” he said. “ssene
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The sight of Baby Kochamma made the
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policeman‟s desk. Estha could see
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mangled genie invoked by a modern l
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erths green. The floor green. The c
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“And Real Teachers teaching.”
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irds go to die? Why don‟t dead on
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chair below the moldy, button-eyed
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She didn‟t see the knob of his he
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with an equal measure of pain. As t
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what seemed like an eternity, but w
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He died of natural causes. That fir
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