“A few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes/ And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned clock… must be resurrected from the ruins and examined.” This is the premise of Arundhati Roy’s 1997 novel "The God of Small Things." Set in a town in Kerala, India called Ayemenem, the story revolves around fraternal twins Rahel and Estha, who are separated for 23 years after the fateful few dozen hours in which their cousin drowns, their mother’s illicit affair is revealed, and her lover is murdered. While the book is set at the point of Rahel and Estha’s reunion, the narrative takes place mostly in the past, reconstructing the details around the tragic events that led to their separation.
„Nekoliko sati može uticati na konačan ishod više života a kada se to desi, neophodno je tih nekoliko sati, sličnih ostacima ugljenisanog sata... izbaviti iz ruševina i pažljivo ispitati.” Ovo je glavna ideja romana iz 1997. godine „Bog malih stvari” od Arundati Roj. Smeštena u gradu Ajmenem u državi Kerala u Indiji, priča se bavi životom brata i sestre, blizanaca, Rahel i Este, koji su razdvojeni na 23 godine nakon kobnih nekoliko sati u kojima se njihova rođaka utopila, otkrivena je zabranjena afera njihove majke, a njen ljubavnik je ubijen. Iako se knjiga bavi trenutkom ponovnog susreta Rahel i Este, pripovedanje je uglavnom smešteno u prošlost i rekonstruiše detalje u vezi sa tragičnim događajima zbog kojih su razdvojeni.
Roy’s rich language and masterful storytelling earned her the prestigious Booker prize for "The God of Small Things." In the novel, she interrogates the culture of her native India, including its social mores and colonial history. One of her focuses is the caste system, a way of classifying people by hereditary social class that is thousands of years old. By the mid-20th century, the original four castes associated with specific occupations had been divided into some 3000 sub-castes. Though the caste system was Constitutionally abolished in 1950, it continued to shape social life in India, routinely marginalizing people of lower castes.
Rojin bogati jezik i majstorsko pripovedanje obezbedili su joj prestižnu Bukerovu nagradu za „Boga malih stvari”. U romanu preispituje kulturu svoje rodne Indije, uključujući društvene običaje i kolonijalnu istoriju. Jedna od tema na koje se fokusirala je kastinski sistem, tj. način klasifikovanja ljudi prema nasleđenoj društvenoj klasi koja je hiljadama godina stara. Do sredine XX veka, prvobitne četiri kaste povezane sa naročitim zanimanjima su podeljene na nekih 3 000 podkasti. Iako je kastinski sistem ustavom ukinut 1950. godine, nastavio je da oblikuje društveni život u Indiji, rutinski marginalizujući ljude iz nižih kasti.
In the novel, Rahel and Estha have a close relationship with Velutha, a worker in their family’s pickle factory and member of the so-called “untouchable” caste. When Velutha and the twins’ mother, Ammu, embark on an affair, they violate what Roy describes as the “love laws” forbidding intimacy between different castes. Roy warns that the tragic consequences of their relationship “would lurk forever in ordinary things,” like “coat hangers,” “the tar on roads,” and “the absence of words.”
U romanu, Rahel i Esta imaju prisan odnos sa Velutom, radnikom iz njihove porodične fabrike kornišona i pripadnikom takozvane kaste nedodirljivih. Kada Veluta i majka blizanaca Amu započnu ljubavnu aferu, krše ono što Roj opisuje „zakonima ljubavi” koji zabranjuju intimnost između različitih kasta. Roj upozorave da će tragične posledice njihove veze „zauvek vrebati u svakodnevnim stvarima”, poput „ofingera”, „katrana na putevima”, i „odsustva reči”.
Roy’s writing makes constant use of these ordinary things, bringing lush detail to even the most tragic moments. The book opens at the funeral of the twins’ half-British cousin Sophie after her drowning. As the family mourns, lilies curl and crisp in the hot church. A baby bat crawls up a funeral sari. Tears drip from a chin like raindrops from a roof.
Roj u svom pisanju stalno koristi ove svakodnevne stvari, obogaćujući obiljem detalja čak i najtragičnije trenutke. Knjiga počinje sahranom polubritanske rođake blizanaca, Sofi, nakon što se utopila. Dok je porodica oplakuje, ljiljani se suše i drobe u vreloj crkvi. Mladi šišmiš se sklupčava u pogrebni sari. Suze se cede sa brade poput kišnih kapi sa krova.
The novel forays into the past to explore the characters’ struggles to operate in a world where they don’t quite fit, alongside their nation’s political turmoil. Ammu struggles not to lash out at her beloved children when she feels particularly trapped in her parents’ small-town home, where neighbors judge and shun her for being divorced. Velutha, meanwhile, balances his affair with Ammu and friendship with the twins not only with his employment to their family, but also with his membership to a budding communist countermovement to Indira Ghandi’s “Green Revolution.”
Roman zadire u prošlost kako bi istražio teškoće likova da funkcionišu u svetu u koji se baš i ne uklapaju, kao i politička previranja njihovog naroda. Amu se bori da ne iskali bes na svoju voljenu decu kada se oseti naročito zarobljenom u malenom domu njenih roditelja gde je komšije osuđuju i izbegavaju jer je razvedena. Veluta, pak, žonglira aferom sa Amu i prijateljstvom sa blizancima, ne samo zato što je zaposlen u njihovoj porodici, već i zbog članstva u rastućem komunističkom pokretu suprotstavljenom „zelenoj revoluciji” Indire Gandi.
In the 1960s, the misleadingly named “Green Revolution” introduced chemical fertilizers and pesticides and the damming of rivers to India. While these policies produced high-yield crops that staved off famine, they also forced people from lower castes off their land and caused widespread environmental damage.
Tokom 1960-ih, varljivo nazvana „zelena revolucija” je uvela hemijska đubriva i pesticide, kao i izgradnju brana na indijskim rekama. Iako je ova politika rezultirala visokim prinosom žitarica, čime je izbegnuta glad, takođe je proterala ljude iz nižih kasta sa njihove zemlje i uzrokovala je raširenu štetu po okolinu.
When the twins return to Ayemenem as adults, the consequences of the Green Revolution are all around them. The river that was bursting with life in their childhood greets them “with a ghastly skull’s smile, with holes where teeth had been, and a limp hand raised from a hospital bed.”
Kada se blizanci vrate u Ajmenem kao odrasli, posledice zelene revolucije su svuda oko njih. Reka koja je bujala životom u njihovom detinjstvu pozdravlja ih „avetinjskim osmehom bezube lobanje i dizanjem mlitave ruke sa bolničke postelje.”
As Roy probes the depths of human experience, she never loses sight of the way her characters are shaped by the time and the place where they live. In the world of "The God of Small Things," “Various kinds of despair competed for primacy… personal despair could never be desperate enough... personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible public turmoil of a nation.”
Roj preispituje dubine ljudskog iskustva, nikada ne gubeći iz vida način na koji su njeni likovi oblikovani vremenom i prostorom u kome žive. U svetu romana „Bog malih stvari”, „Različite vrste očajanja se bore za preimućstvo... lično očajanje nikada ne može da bude dovoljno očajno... lični nemir, skrenuvši s puta, kroči u hram golemog, silovitog, uskovitlanog, olujnog, besmislenog, suludog, nepojmljivog,