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“Will you be okay?” Ammu said, worried. Estha nodded. Through the red Formica door that closed slowly on its own, Rahel followed Ammu and Baby Kochamma into HERS. She turned to wave across the slipperoily marble floor at Estha Alone (with a comb), in his beige and pointy shoes. Estha waited in the dirty marble lobby with the lonely, watching mirrors till the red door took his sister away. Then he turned and padded off to HIS. In HERS, Ammu suggested that Rahel balance in the air to piss. She said that Public Pots were Dirty. Like Money was. You never knew who‟d touched it. Lepers. Butchers. Car Mechanics. (Pus. Blood. Grease.) Once when Kochu Maria took her to the butcher‟s shop, Rahel noticed that the green five-rupee note that he gave them had a tiny blob of red meat on it. Kochu Maria wiped the blob away with her thumb. The juice left a red smear. She put the money into her bodice. Meat-smelling blood money. Rahel was too short to balance in the air above the pot, so Ammu and Baby Kochamma held her up, her legs hooked over their arms. Her feet pigeon-toed in Bata sandals. High in the air with her knickers down. For a moment nothing happened, and Rahel looked up at her mother and baby grandaunt with naughty (now what?) question marks in her eyes. “Come on,” Ammu said. “Sssss…” Sssss for the Sound of Soo-soo. Mmmmm for the Sound of Myooozick. Rahel giggled. Ammu giggled. Baby Kochamma giggled. When the trickle started they adjusted her aerial position. Rahel was unembarrassed. She finished and Ammu had the toilet paper. “Shall you or shall I?” Baby Kochamma said to Ammu. “Either way,” Ammu said. “Go ahead. You.” Rahel held her handbag. Baby Kochamma lifted her rumpled sari. Rahel studied her baby grandaunt‟s enormous legs. (Years later during a history lesson being readout in school–The Emperor Babur–had a wheatish complexion and pillarlike thighs–this scene
would flash before her; Baby Kochamma balanced like a big bird over a public pot. Blue veins like lumpy knitting running up her translucent shins. Fat knees dimpled. Hair on them. Poor little tiny feet to carry such a load!) Baby Kochamma waited for half of half a moment. Head thrust forward. Silly smile. Bosom swinging low. Melons in a blouse. Bottom up and out. When the gurgling, bubbling sound came, she listened with her eyes. A yellow brook burbled through a mountain pass. Rahel liked all this. Holding the handbag. Everyone pissing in front of everyone. Like friends. She knew nothing then, of how precious a feeling this was. Like friends. They would never be together like this again. Ammu, Baby Kochamma and she. When Baby Kochamma finished, Rahel looked at her watch. “So long you took, Baby Kochamma,” she said. “It‟s ten to two.” Rub-a-dub-dub (Rahel thought), Three women in a tub, Tarry awhile said Slow… She thought of Slow being a person. Slow Kurien. Slow Kutty. Slow Mol. Slow Kochamma. Slow Kutty. Fast Verghese. And Kuriakore. Three brothers with dandruff. Ammu did hers in a whisper. Against the side of the pot so you couldn‟t hear. Her father‟s hardness had left her eyes and they were Ammu-eyes again. She had deep dimples in her smile and didn‟t seem angry anymore. About Velutha or the spit bubble. That was a Good Sign. Estha Alone in HIS had to piss onto naphthalene balls and cigarette stubs in the urinal. To piss in the pot would be Defeat. To piss in the urinal, he was too short. He needed Height. He searched for Height, and in a corner of HIS, he found it. A dirty broom, a squash bottle half-full of a milky liquid (phenyl) with floaty black things in it A limp floorswab, and two rusty tin cans of nothing. They could have been Paradise Pickle products. Pineapple chunks in syrup. Or slices. Pineapple slices. His honor redeemed by his
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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
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still, tea-colored puddles the way
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his life, Khubchand, who had the be
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usiness as the Inevitable Consequen
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sternmouthed nuns seated behind her
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look straight, though it wasn‟t.
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would ask to try on their slippers
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the westernmost verandah of the Kal
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found that the senior sisters monop
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peaked red cap. Baby Kochamma spent
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with a towel). She even locked her
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difficulty that their family had wi
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Still, to say that it all began whe
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RejOice, And again I say rej-Oice.
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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 62 and 63: hair. Estha wondered how that could
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 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
Page 112 and 113: Those last few tortured nights befo
Page 114 and 115: wondered idly if it had indeed been
Page 116 and 117: He stayed in constant touch with th
Page 118 and 119: no more than a swollen drain now. A
Page 120 and 121: labeled with edifying placards that
Page 122 and 123: Rahel tried to walk past unnoticed.
Page 124 and 125: “That is most unfortunate,” he
Page 126 and 127: efore the doctor saw him, and to co
Page 128 and 129: pressed together, smiles frozen on
Page 130 and 131: 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
Page 136 and 137: eeze. Adoor Basi, the most popular,
Page 138 and 139: 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
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Little Girls Playing. Sweet. One be
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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
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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
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hooting, helpless laughter. Meanwhi
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friend he had ever had. Not just th
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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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