Everything started with the newspaper ’’Malayala Manorama’’ - India’s most circulated regional language news paper. Vulgarity of American tabloids stand no chance against this crap of paper the Malayalee wakes up to.
Why has malayalee’s writing (and of course reading) become so tasteless? Is it because of too much sophistication ? ( If bad English Accent is not considered a disqualification to sophistication).
Or is it the Malayalee’s never-ending honeymoon with the Communism and Hypocrisy?
God of Small things has confirmed this fact to me. How would any sane person in the world find this book despicable? Every aggressive critic of this novel is a Keralite. They hate the fact that ’Estha’ was molested by a man in a movies? They hate what seems to be a hint at sex.
When my reading gradually switched from Malayalam to English, I always missed something. Till I read ’God of Small things’, I never could say what I was missing. I could never visualize the situations with the same clarity as how the author has really portrayed it. Everything sounded so alien to me.
What would appeal to me were the human beings. Their aspirations, helplessness, pain and relationships. These must have a global appeal. That must be the reason ’God of Small things’ is globally acclaimed.
When I was told about the scent of pine, I could only imagine that it must be some great fragrance. But with ’God of small things’, I could really experience what I missed. The scents, the smells, the feelings, the pain, everything!!! Thank you Arundhati.
’God of Small things’ is a true depiction of ’God’s own country-Kerala’. I wouldn’t say this depiction is necessarily beautiful. It’s written with a courage that one requires to look at one’s own ugliness. It sneers at Malayalee’s ugliness.
This ugliness you can see at his vanity, his utter lack of spirit, his lack of respect for what is right, his suppressed and hence disgusting sexuality, the utter lack of self-importance in the once-poor, and utter lack of self-respect in the new malayalee.
There is no attempt to be politically correct by displaying everything that is great in this country just to look modest.
Although the hipocrite gets offended by all that is bad, He doesn’t even care to look at the beautiful things in the book.
The leading characters in the movie are not touched by these malices common to ’God’s own country’ - Velutha, Amu, Sophie Mol, Rahel and Estha. The realationships between all these people are portrayed beautifully
I don’t want to go to the details of the Novel.
It’s a Great Book !!!