Arundhati Roy

Arundhati is a multi-faceted Indian personality. She is a writer, an actor, an activist, and an essayist. Born on 24th November 1961, in the hilly area of Shillong in Assam (now in Meghalaya) she is 55 years old. Her best and most noted work includes The God of Small Things. She was born into a humble family, where her mother was a woman’s rights activist, and her father was a plantation manager. Arundhati never felt affected by the fact that her mother was a Syrian Christian from Kerala, while her father was a Hindu from Bengal because her parents divorced right when she was two years old. She lived with her mother and brother first in Ooty and then later elsewhere in Kerala. After having attended the Corpus Christi School in Kottayam, she joined Lawrence School in Tamil Nadu. She even has a degree in Architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture located in Delhi.

In 1984, on being offered a role of a goatherd in Pradip Krishen’s critically acclaimed movie, Massey Sahib, they started a torrid romance and married. She also tried her hand at screenplay writing and did an equally good job at it with her movies being popular and ground-breaking. After being spotted for her acting, she continued to play a few major and minor characters on the screen and TV shows, but she realized that acting was not what she wanted to do. At the same time, her marriage fell apart. The God of Small Things, published in 1997, went on to win the Man Booker Prize in the fictional work category in the same year. This book was extremely famous and is still well-received even after the generational change in readers. It also helped her gain financial traction and helped her realize her true talents as a writer.

She became an international sensation. She also utilized her writing skills to write essays on contemporary issues and burning topics. Apart from writing, Arundhati is also an activist who is very vocal on political issues. She has also associated herself with environmental causes and human rights fight. She has often been charged with sedition for quite a many matters that she has spoken openly about and has gained flak from many politicians, but that has never taken away her credibility or her zeal for working towards them. In 2007, Arundhati had the honor of being the receiver of the Sahitya Akademi Award for her compilation of essays. She lives in Delhi and is currently working on her second novel titled, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which is slated to release in June 2017. Her pet Pariah breed dogs are her companions, and she loves and pampers them. She greatly enjoys aerobics and is a health freak.