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Roy on Roy – II

Arundhati Roy on her mother Mary Roy

In 372 pages of alluring prose, often evocative, at times pulling heartstrings, Arundhati Roy has told the story of her ‘difficult’ relationship with her mother, whom she described as 'my shelter and my storm.’

The book begins with Roy’s description of her mother in a chapter titled ‘Gangster,’ and ends with the erection of a memorial to her, a year after her death in 2022, with the word ‘BELOVED’ inscribed on its rough granite facade.

In my first reading of ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’ I was overwhelmed by the hype of the book release. It was a book release as no other. Suddenly, ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’ and its author with a charming smile were everywhere through foreign and domestic channel interviews, podcasts, reading sessions and social media posts of hundreds or admiring fans.

The book release itself was multi-centric, the glitz and the glamour were there at all places and socialites and literary buffs made it a great occasion to meet and interact with the author and get a copy of the book with her prized signature.

And from all these the impression one got, deliberately purveyed, perhaps, was that the author suffered in her childhood because of a mother who was an abominable specimen of motherhood. A tormentor personified.

In my slow, second reading I was more guided by what I thought Mary Roy would have felt. Guided also by the many accounts of former students of Pallikkoodam, the prestigious school founded by her, with nostalgic recollections of the goodness and grace and motherly affection that made up Mary Roy. Many carrying a monument to her in their hearts.

Where did I go wrong in my assessment? Or, how did I go wrong? Or why did I permit myself to come to a twisted assessment of that remarkable lady?

If Mary Roy was personification of anything, it was, I think, of grit, courage and determination in the face of heavy odds. A single mother with two children, after her separation from an alcoholic husband, and with no means of a livelihood, she studied, graduated in Education, worked as a teacher, started a great school and raised her children till, in their early adulthood, they chose to leave her, nay, abandon her.

She also took on the whole of her Syrian Christian community in her relentless fight up to the Supreme Court to upset an archaic law that discriminated against women in the allocation of family property.

She may be moody and short-tempered, but those traits should not be allowed to judge her down, as such character fluctuations go with anyone in similar circumstances, especially with one painstakingly building a small empire of her own out of absolutely nothing.

If Arundhati Roy has reasons to denounce her mother for the way in which she was treated during childhood and teens, her mother definitely would have her own reasons to behave the way she did.

And many of the instances of Mary Roy’s alleged harsh treatment of her daughter as recounted in the book may be seen as hyperbolic reactions of a young mind. The book is replete with instances which show the contrast in character of both the mother and the daughter.

One example is the first meeting the two had after a break of several years. When Mary Roy went to New Delhi in connection with the Supreme Court case relating to the Travancore Christian Succession Act, she knocked at Arundhati’s door, carrying a surprise gift for her. A portable typewriter that Arundhati had left behind when she abandoned her home and her mother seven years ago. Why should she do this unless she cared?

That all was not rosy in regard to the children also was brought out clearly in many anecdotes. One of the people attending the funeral of Mary Roy was the master mason of architect Laurie Baker who constructed the school buildings of Pallikkoodam. “She made all this from nothing. She was an amazing woman. I saw how she worked. What she did. What she created. All alone.”

Then he asked: “She had two children who were always running wild. Where are they?”

Arundhati also met her brother in New Delhi after a gap of seven years. He too had a surprise for her. Her father Rajib (Micky) Roy whom she had met only as a child. And, strangely, the first question the father asked his daughter over phone on the eve of that meeting was: “D’you still use bad language?”

What the father, meeting his daughter for the first time after two decades, had embedded in his mind were the choice obscene epithets she used to mouth as a child, epithets, he remembered, she had picked up from estate labour.

This episode cannot be glossed over as it tells a lot about the father as well as about the daughter and the way she has been growing up under his tutelage. This may be one of the reasons why Mrs Roy chose to be rather harsh in her child management ways back in Kerala.

Apart from the mother-daughter relations and their hurtful ramifications, the book contains a lot of reminiscences by Arundhati Roy of her cultural, social and political stands, many of which became controversial at times.

One chapter has the headline “You Are Not Showing India In A Proper Light.” The quote is a comment by a bureaucrat suggesting certain cuts in her film ‘Electric Moon,’ produced for a British Television Channel.

It is not certain whether those cuts were called for or not. But in ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’ she has an aside on India that would have been better if avoided.

After the Supreme Court Verdict in the Christian Succession case a journalist from New Delhi arrived at Kottayam to interview Mary Roy. Here is what Arundhati Roy has to say on that:

“A well-known journalist from Delhi arrived in Kottayam to make a documentary about the Mary Roy case. His name was Rashid Talib. (This was in the time before Muslims began to be pushed out of public life in India. Out of politics, out of business, out of journalism, out of housing colonies and Hindu neighbourhoods).

How preposterous is that bracketed assertion! Can anyone with a basic understanding of the conditions in India, or minimum commonsense, make such an obviously silly, and supremely harmful, statement? In spite of concerted attempts by vested interests to polarize our society on communal lines, the scenario picturised by Arundhati Roy is far, far from the truth.

The book is published in the U K and the author, being a Booker Prize winner, has an assured international readership. What will be the impression on India that is going to be generated globally by this highly motivated statement?

Perhaps it can be said that her mother and her motherland are equally at the receiving end when it comes to such ill-conceived assertions from the celebrity author.