The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

Men‟s bums never grow up. Like school satchels, they evoke in an
instant memories of childhood. Two vaccination marks on his arm
gleamed like coins. Hers were on her thigh.
Girls always have them on their thighs, Ammu used to say.
Rahel watched Estha with the curiosity of a mother watching
her wet child. A sister a brother. A woman a man. A twin a twin.
She flew these several kites at once.
He was a naked stranger met in a chance encounter. He was
the one that she had known before Life began. The one who had
once led her (swimming) through their lovely mother‟s cunt.
Both things unbearable in their polarity. In their
irreconcilable far-apartness.
A raindrop glistened on the end of Estha‟s earlobe. Thick,
silver in the light, like a heavy bead of mercury. She reached out
Touched it. Took it away.
Estha didn‟t look at her. He retreated into further stillness.
As though his body had the power to snatch its senses inwards
(knotted, egg-shaped), away from the surface of his skin, into some
deeper more inaccessible recess.
The silence gathered its skirts and slid, like Spider Woman,
up the slippery bathroom wall.
Estha put his wet clothes in a bucket and began to wash them
with crumbling, bright blue soap.
Chapter 4.
Abhilash Talkies
Abhilash Talkies advertised itself as the first cinema hall in
Kerala with a 70mm CinemaScope screen. To drive home the
point, its façade had been designed as a cement replica of a curved
CinemaScope screen. On top (cement writing, neon lighting) it
said Abhilash Talkies in English and Malayalam.
The toilets were called HIS and HERS. HERS for Ammu,
Rahel and Baby Kochamma. His for Estha alone, because Chacko
had gone to see about the bookings at the Hotel Sea Queen.