The traffic inside her head seemed to have stopped believing in traffic lights. The result was incessant noise, a few bad crashes and eventually gridlock.’ 

--Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.

9/11, Atal Bihari Vajpayee (the ‘moderate face of far-right), Gujarat, (The Chief Minister of Gujarat Modi who didn’t acknowledge Newton of course, because, in the prevailing climate, the officially sanctioned position was that ancient Hindus had invented all Science ) Bhopal gas leak, Iraq, Kashmir…Arundhati Roy’s insistence on cramming too many catastrophes of contemporary history in the Ministry of Utmost Happiness, interrupts the otherwise free flowing  narrative (signature Roy) affecting the work come across as contrived, at least in patches.

The narration happens to pick up pace, swaying and moving, the reader, when it shifts to Kashmir (Tilo & Musa) which is the high -point of the novel.

A tad let down. Maybe as a consequence of over -expectation.

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Meena Kandasamy springs a surprise with When I Hit You, going a notch up from her first novel, The Gypsy Goddess. When I Hit You is a breezy yet searing read, about a despot's cruelty towards the exploited; the way State acts towards the masses.

The canny Power, as we knew, is scared of intellectuals. (Power dreads beauty and poetry. Hence desires to conquer it.) But history shows the tyrants its place. Amazing work!

Ends