Cultural Deracination Study in Arundhati Roy Novels

INTRODUCTION

The contribution of women writers to Indian literature in English is certainly too prominent to escape the attention of scholarly critics. Since women writers present ―the doubly colonized‖1 section of society in the Indian literature in English, the attempt to read their novels in the light of postcolonial theory is logical. Values are the internal precepts by which we make our decisions. When we are confronted by choices, opinions or moral dilemmas, the decisions we make will indicate what values we hold. The five human and moral values are righteousness, peace, truth, love and non-violence. Human Values give worthiness and respect to life. The world should realise that when Gandhi talked of non-violence, self-suffering, consideration for others, honesty, he had only fear of value erosion and wanted to save the humanity from self-destruction. For him the ideal human being was one who was concerned about others their needs, desires, miseries in which he could be of help to them. There is indeed a global need to project Gandhi's ways before the whole world that there is no other way than to adopting the human and moral values. The evolution of Indian literature in English is a direct consequence of the adoption of English and its literature by Indian society. Indians have produced a considerable amount of literature in the English language. Recently, many Indian writers have achieved fame and have claimed international recognition for their literature in English. Much has been said and written about the development of Indian literature in English. Especially, the recurrence of east-west encounter in Indian English literature has been frequently discussed by critics. The postcolonial positions of Indian writers in English and writers in the regional vernacular literatures are also a widely discussed issue.

Arundhati Roy acclaimed to be one of them who reflected those issues without any hesitation and had to undergo to a troublesome state. On the other hand she had won many awards for upholding such realistic themes in herwritings, for instance she bagged Sydney peace award in May 2004 for her social work. Toni Cade Bambara said that literature being the appropriate one to attack on the social evils creates awareness among the readers and make them to uphold their protest. Here I quote, ―A writer, like another socio-cultural worker, like any other member of the community, ought to try to put her/his skills in the service of the community‖.Arundhati Roy, who emerged as a figure head in the contemporary literature while reflecting the social issues in her writings and bagged the acclaimed Booker award for her debut novel ―The God of Small Things‖(1997), had not only employed the description of how the small things in life affect people's behaviour and their lives but also upheld the other conflicting issues of

etc. where she had employed the socio political conflicts that our country is facing till today, for she was known more or less as an activist rather than a mere novelist. Al-Quaderi and Saiful Islam (2011) in ―Complicity and Resistance: Women in Arundhati Roy‘s The God of Small Things‖ discuss the peculiar part played by the women characters in Arundhati Roy‟s The God of Small Things. They point out that the resistance against gender oppressionleads to resistance against caste, class oppression and spurring on anti-colonial thought andactioni. Such variants of resistant rebellion are articulated through the examination of the maritaland inter-gender relations of Ammu, Mammachi, Baby Kochamma and Rahel. Subhashini (2011) in her article ―Feminine Sensitivity with reference to The God of Small Things‖ talks about evolution of feminism as a revolt against ―conservative perception ofwomen's issues . M. S. Nagrajan Arundhati Roy Critical Perspectives: Murari Prasad Editor; Pencraft International article in the Hindu 30th January 2010. Not to have known Arundhati Roy argues you unknown. That she revels in stirring up a hornet's nest is a mild understatement. Her article "The Great Indian Rape Trick" on the film `Bandit Queen' in which she charged Shekar Kapoor that he had misrepresented Phoolan Devi is an instance in point. Besides her stunning debut novel The God of Small Things that won the Booker prize in 1997, she is the author of three screenplays, eight works of non-fiction and a dozen essays and articles. As journalist, social activist and intellectual, her impact on Indian public life cannot be easily disregarded. No wonder, then, that over the years, there has been an avalanche of articles on, and interviews with, her. Arundhati Roy: Critical Perspectives is a choice collection of some of these items that deal with the recurrent themes that have animated the whole of Arundhati Roy's oeuvre.

Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 in the Northeastern Indian region of Bengal, to a Christian mother and Hindu father. She spent her childhood in Aymanam in Kerala, which serves as the setting for her first novel, The God of Small Things (under the name "Ayemenem"). Roy's mother, Mary Roy, home-schooled her until the age of ten, when she began attending regular classes. She has been reluctant to discuss her father publicly, having spent very little time with him during her lifetime; Roy instead focuses on her mother's influence in her life. Mary Roy, a political activist, won an unprecedented victory for women's rights in Kerala. Through her persistence, the Supreme Court granted Christian women in Kerala the right to have an inheritance. Delhi. After graduating, Roy supported her by teaching aerobics while honing her writing skills. She eventually wrote several film scripts, which are recognized for their complex structure and biting social commentary. Roy wrote and starred in the film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, and she wrote the script for Electric Moon, directed by her second husband, PradipKrishen. (Her first husband was Gerard Da Cunha, whom she met while in college. Their marriage lasted approximately four years.) Both films garnered a cult following, setting the stage for the fiction-writing side of Roy's career. Penguin published the script for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones as a book in 2004. Even when she was a low-profile writer, Roy began to assert her political opinions loudly. She rallied media support for Phoolan Devi, a politician and former criminal of Robin-Hood fame, whom she felt was being misrepresented by the film Bandit Queen (directed by Shekhar Kapur). After the controversy surrounding Bandit Queen subsided, Roy took time to write her first and only novel to date, The God of Small Things. She received an extraordinary advance of half a million pounds on the book, making its release high-profile well ahead of time. After the novel's publication in 1997, the book won the prestigious Booker Prize, making Roy its first Indian woman and non-expatriate Indian recipient. In addition to her novelistic skills, Roy is widely known for political activism (perhaps along the lines of a Noam Chomsky). She has published many works of nonfiction including several essays as well as The End of Imagination (1998), The Greater Common Good (1999), The Cost of Living (1999), Power Politics (2002), War Talk (2003), The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile (2004, with David Barsamian), and An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2004). She also took part in the June 2005 World Tribunal on Iraq. In January 2006 she was awarded the SahityaAkademi award for her collection of essays, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, but she declined to accept it. Roy has faced accusations of being anti-American and was convicted of contempt of court by the New Delhi Supreme Court for her political activism. She remains relentless. For instance, she was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004 for her efforts toward social justice and peaceful conflict resolution. Roy continues to write, engage in advocacy, and live with her husband in New Delhi.

Family is the foundation stone of a society. Family system often determines the cohesion and disintegration of a society. It teaches us to be in favour of family interest. It modifies individual behaviour and cultivates tolerance, patience, respect for others, love and affection, dedication, care and sacrifices. It checks selfishness and restrains rigidity. In fact, a family is the first institution that cultivates social values and social behaviour among individuals. Social values are basically family values written at large. Had the family been absent, concepts like nationalism could never originate Traditional Asian Societies have survived for thousands of years mainly because there has been a consistent emphasis on enforcing family values. Collapse of the family system simultaneously leads to social breakdown.

SOCIETY:

In our present day society there is erosion of values and degeneration in every sphere of activity. The family has disintegrated in recent years significantly due to a number of changes in modern society and culture. As a cohesive unit with a singular purpose the family is no more replaced by a group of individuals with seemingly separate agendas. The contributing factors vary from a lack of parental involvement to changing cultural morality to personal indifference of the participants but they all have a negative impact in asserting and maintaining family values.

Arundhati Roy‘s is rich in cultural values of India in the time after the colonialism. It includes the phenomena of caste and gender bias. The system of caste in India has big impact to the position of people in society. It becomes an important consideration when someone wants to make relationship with other people. My paper will focus on the cultural values regarding caste and gender bias depicted in this novel. Besides the caste, gender is also an important consideration in arranging the position of men and women in Indian society. The gender rule in India is influenced very much by the cultural teachings. The rule has made the possibilities for man to dominate the woman. And for the people who break this rule, there will be some negative consequences from the society like what has happened to Ammu.

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Assistant Professor in English, R. C. Kharal, B. P. S. M. V, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat