Books: “Mother Mary Comes to Me” by Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy’s touching, funny memoir “Mother Mary Comes to Me” is about a daughter seeking her mother’s approval, never getting it and succeeding wildly in spite of it.
Part of the tiny Syrian Christian minority in Kerala, southern India, Mary Roy has a habit of driving people mad. Fiercely independent and temperamental, she manages to escape her strict parents early on by marrying a member of the Bengali bourgeoise then quickly abandoning him when he turns to drink.
Later, Mary starts a small primary school in Kerala where she teaches impoverished children how to read and write. Her students come to regard her as a surrogate mother; unfortunately she is anything but maternal with her own daughter.
Fed up by the age of 18, Daughter escapes to Delhi and enrolls in the School of Planning and Architecture. Gradually she drifts into filmmaking and eventually turns to writing best-selling novels. Her book “The God of Small Things” eventually wins the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography.
Will success finally improve matters between Mom and Daughter? Regretfully, not one bit. To her dying day Mary remains hypercritical of her daughter’s every move while remaining passionately committed to bigger issues—such as challenging laws that relegate Indian women to second-class status. The case she pursues goes all the way to the Indian supreme court, and resulted in the annulment of the law.
Moral of the story: a mother’s tough love can take you far.
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