Suzanna Arundhati Roy is an Indian author best known for her novel The God of Small Things (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the biggest-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. She is also a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes. She was the winner of the 2024 PEN Pinter Prize, given by English PEN, and she named imprisoned British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah as the “Writer of Courage” with whom she chose to share the award.
I still remember reading The God of Small Things during my ‘O’ levels final year and being captivated by the world that Roy had created. After a long hiatus, when it comes to novels, she published The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and being a life-long admirer of hers, I immediately purchased the book. However, I had a habit of reading reviews at the time, and I read one that was not too positive: it said that you needed a dictionary to go through the book. So, although I was only 20 to 30 pages in, I put it back on my shelf.
Recently, when I was looking for a classic to read, my eyes fell upon Roy’s Ministry of Utmost Happiness and I thought to myself, “Surely, I must give this book the respect it deserves.” I’m happy to tell you I was thoroughly pleased with my cover to cover reading, and I littered it with post-its.
For those of you who haven’t read the novel, Roy intertwines the lives of a multitude of marginalised protagonists to tell us the story of modern Indian society and its fragmented political history. The book delves into layers of strength, love, identity all against a backdrop of struggle and social justice.
The novel is an extensive non-linear narrative that primarily follows the lives of two women: Anjum and Tilo. The first half of the novel tells us about Anjum’s life as a hijra (a transgender woman), her parents, her music lessons and her struggles. Born intersex in Old Delhi, Anjum leaves her family when she’s rather young to join the Khwabgah (House of Dreams) which is a community of hijras. However, after seeing a massacre in Gujarat during a pilgrimage to a shrine, she becomes cynical and finally moves into a graveyard which she turns into a “Jannat Guest House and Funeral Services” (Jannat meaning paradise). This guesthouse becomes the meeting point for a variety of outcasts, including an abandoned baby girl and the Dalit Saddam Hussain.
Roy intertwines the lives of a multitude of marginalised protagonists to tell us the story of modern Indian society and its fragmented political history
The second part of the novel focuses on the life of S Tilottama (Tilo) a defiant architect and activist and her three college friends and suitors: Musa, Naga and Biplab. Their lives, intertwined, are strongly affected by the decades-long Kashmir struggle. In fact, Musa becomes a militant “freedom fighter” for independence (Azadi), Tilo turns into an activist documenting human rights abuses, Naga a mainstream journalist and Biplab an intelligence officer. We are taken through the harrowing torture chambers of Kashmir, how real Kashmiris feel each day and Roy makes one thankful for one’s life, because what one sees in Kashmir is real horror daily. Death and destruction.
The two plots combine together when Tilo finds a baby deserted at a protest site in Jantar Mantar and takes the child to the Jannat Guest House for safety. Tilo starts teaching at the graveyard. In this way, Anjum, Tilo, and the extended, eccentric family that they have created as a community are a demonstration of hope and survival in a ruptured world.
The novel thoroughly explores the lives of those on the margins, particularly through Anjum's experiences as a transgender woman circumnavigating a society with inflexible gender norms. Roy mixes real-world historical events, such as the ongoing Kashmir insurgency, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Bhopal disaster to criticise state violence, corruption, and the impact of political chaos on people. Despite the depressing portrayal of modern India's conflicts, a strong sequence of human strength and hope persists, told by the characters’ capability to form new families and communities based on love and approval. Roy’s narrative emphasises the rigid caste system and religious fundamentalism in India, while the Jannat Guest House serves as a miniature place of radical inclusivity, a place where people from all backgrounds find sanctuary. Roy showers us with poetry throughout the novel, at one point she quotes:
“For one stuck down by Cupid’s bow
Life becomes burdensome, isn’t it so?”
Even Umrao Jaan is quoted:
“Why just my heart, take my whole life too
Just this once, my love, grant me my wish.”
At one point while explaining the Kashmir insurgency Roy asks the question:
“Q1 Why is it not sophisticated?
Q2 What is the acceptable amount of blood for good literature?”
And further:
“The Kashmir we have irrigated with our blood! That Kashmir is ours!”
Roy deals with issues of gender, caste, insurgency, conflict, love, hate, jealousy, violence, all so intricately weaved together in this novel which is very relevant today in 2026 as we are faced with the ongoing Kashmir conflict and the Palestinian genocide. One must ask oneself, honest questions, are we not privileged to wake up to peace while millions are waking up to war, and it is books like The Ministry of Utmost Happiness which open your eyes to the depth of the conflict and the body-bags that the Kashmiri have to deal with on a daily basis. Roy is a master story teller and if she’s put Hindi and Urdu in the book, she has translated it, so I for one didn’t need a dictionary to read her work. I would strongly recommend you to go back to this book if you’ve already read it, or give it a read if you haven’t. Roy deserves all the praise and laurels that she rightfully gets and more, much more.