Abstract
This research paper focuses on the transgressions and migrations in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and its consequences in the novel. The story is revolved around the village, Ayemenem, Ayemenem house, Paradise Pickles & Preserves on the riverbank, Meenachil but the story has connected with different places, nations and religions, and castes such as Kottayam, Cochin, Madras, Calcutta, Assam, America, Australia, Austria, England, touchables and untouchables. The highly orthodox Syrian Christian family and the members of this family's transgressions and migrations and tragic consequences, in the end, had presented in the novel through extra-ordinary language. The root cause of the rise and fall of this family is the transgressions and migrations as in the novel. This research paper has highlighted the lost dreams of the characters due to transgressions and migrations. The children Rahel and Estha still live with the psychological trauma of the death of Sophie Mol, Velutha, and Ammu after twenty-three years.
Keywords: Transgression, Migration, Love Laws, Untouchability, Divorce, Marriage.
Arundhati Roy once in an interview said that her book, The God of Small Things is not about history but biology and transgressions. The transgressions in history began thousands of years back. "That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. That Laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much. (The God of Small Things, 33) The scholars who read the novel might doubt that why should Christians be more concerned about the untouchable laws. The answer can trace from the novel and the history of Kerala. Syrian Christians in Kerala were originally from high caste rich Brahmins who voluntarily migrated into Christianity from the disciple of Jesus Christ, St. Thomas 2000 years ago. They felt very proud of their lineage and they married among themselves. Any type of transgression was intolerable and unthinkable for them.
This migration from one culture to another one was not completed in its full sense and this migration was itself a type of transgression to their original ancient religion. However, they did not renounce certain social practice and they inherited the age-old practice of untouchability even though they accepted Christianity. Untouchability was unknown to Christianity as per its principles. The Syrian Christians portrayed in the novel had many complexities due to this transgression from Brahminism to Christianity. Pappachi did not permit untouchables into the house. Caste Christians did not allow the untouchables to touch anything that touchables touched like Caste Hindus. In Mammachi's girlhood, Paravans were expected to crawl backwards with a broom for sweeping away their footprints. Therefore, Syrian Christians or Brahmins would not step into the footprints of paravans. She told the twins that untouchables were not permitted to walk on public roads. They were not permitted to cover their upper bodies and use umbrellas. They should place their hands over their mouths when they spoke to touchables for diverting their polluted breath away from the touchables.
For escaping from the social plague of untouchability, untouchables in Malabar converted into Christianity. They did not want to continue as untouchables in the Hindu religion. Several paravans, pelayas and pulayas were converted to Christianity and joined the Anglican Church at the time of British rule. This transgression happened as the incentive given to them like food and money. As a result, they were again transgressed and known as Rice-Christians. Later they realized that this transgression did not bring any expected results. On the other hand, they were placed from the frying pan into the fire. They were more segregated as Christians. They had separate churches, services, and priests. There was a special favour for them that they were given a separate Pariah Bishop. After independence, they were cheated that they were not entitled to government benefits like job reservations or bank loans at the lowest interest rates. Because, as per official records, they were all Christians and so considered as casteless. "It was a little like having to sweep away your footprints without a broom. Or worse, not being allowed to leave footprints at all." (The God of Small Things, 74)
When Velutha was eleven years old, Mammachi on vacation from Delhi noticed Velutha's remarkable skill. She persuaded Velutha's father Vellya Paapen to take admission to the untouchables' school that was founded by Mammachi's father-in-law Punnyan Kunju for the untouchables. Johann Klein, a carpenter from Bavaria came to Kottayam and conducted a workshop for the local carpenters under the Christian Mission Society. Every day after school, Velutha went to Kottayam and worked with Johann Klein. At the age of sixteen, Velutha finished his school education and became a talented carpenter. Traditionally, Paravans were not supposed to do the work of the carpenter. By the persuasion of Mammachi, Velutha became a skilled carpenter. Thus, he also transgressed his traditional work inherited from his ancestors.
All appreciated Velutha's transgression from the ancestral work into the carpenter's work. He made a Bauhaus dining table with twelve dining chairs in rosewood and made a manger for the Infant Jesus to be born. Besides these carpentry skills, he was an expert in repairing machines. "Mammachi (with impenetrable Touchable logic) often said that if only he hadn't been a Paravan, he might have become an engineer." (The God of Small Things, 75) Because he had repaired radios, clocks, water-pumps and looked after all the plumbing and electrical work of the Ayemenem house. Velutha was the designer of the sliding-folding door of the back veranda of the Ayemenem house. Velutha had freely touched the things that touchables touched. According to Mammachi, it was a big concession for a Paravan. Usually, she did not persuade Velutha to enter the house except for needy circumstances.
Velutha was an inevitable person in the Ayemenem house and Paradise pickles & Preserves because he reassembled the Bharat bottle-sealing machine and he maintained a new canning machine and an automated pineapple slicer. He was the man who oiled water pump and a small diesel generator. He built the aluminium sheet of the factory and the ground-level furnaces for boiling fruit. Velutha's father Vellya Paapen was against any type of transgression. He was a paravan who had seen the crawling backward days in his childhood. Therefore, he always tried to stick to the established social code. He was very loyal to the Ayemenem family because when he had an accident with the stone chip, Mammachi had paid for his glass eye. He always felt that his new eye was the eye of the Ayemenem family. "His gratitude widened his smile and bent his back." (The God of Small Things, 76)
Vellya Paapen was afraid of his son, Velutha. He felt that Velutha might transgress everything. He was not afraid of what he said or what he did in his life but the way he did everything. "Perhaps it was just a lack of hesitation. An unwarranted assurance. In the way, he walked. The way he held his head. The quiet way he offered suggestions without being asked. Or the quiet way in which he disregarded suggestions without appearing to rebel." (The God of Small Things, 76) According to Vellya Paapen, these qualities were acceptable for the touchables. For Paravans, these qualities to be construed as insolence. Any way Vellya Paapen felt that Velutha had already crossed the boundaries decided for the untouchables. He expressed his fear and anxiety about his son.
The novel, The God of Small Things presents the tragic consequences of migration from culture to another, transgressions of ethos and the evil influences of one country on the other. The family of Ayemenem was racially Brahmins, converted into Syrian Christians. Rev. E. John Ipe was a pious Christian, reputed and respected for his Christian ethos. It was reported that the chief head of the Syrian Christian church, the Patriarch of Antioch met Rev. E. John Ipe in Cochin. He had the honour of kissing the hand of Antioch. The pious and virtuous Christian origin of the family and its subsequent decay and decline suggests the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
In addition to this, the references to foreign countries, England, Vienna in Austria, America, and similarly the visitors from Australia, Ireland, and England in the novel, stressed the various roles played through the migration on the decline of the family. It is pertinent to note that these acquaintances and associations influenced the concerned characters to acquire new habits, qualities, and attributes. For example, Pappachi returned from Vienna with jealousy for his young and charming wife. He indulged in wife-beating and attempted to spoil the beauty of his wife. Pappachi's fashion and fascination for England made him Anglophile, and the resultant egoism, self-centeredness, inability to understand others' emotions made him an enemy of his wife and children.
Chacko visited England only to return as a scheming and selfish villain. Baby Kochamma went to America to study. She came back as a bloated cucumber. She was desperate, intolerant, and sadistic. She was unable to see Ammu having sexual satisfaction from Velutha because she was deprived of the same. Besides, the foreign elements introduced in the novel were the Australian missionary friend of Baby Kochamma, who played a secondary role in the destruction of the Ayemenem House. Irish Father Mulligan, who ultimately died as a Hindu sannyasi and English man 'Kari Saipu's the History House also witnessed many things. If we read the opinions of Arundhati Roy as expressed in her non-fiction, the mention of these foreign countries in the novel suggested serious and dangerous implications, and they also reminded us of the cross-currents and under-currents of foreign influences on the colonial as well as the post-colonial India.
The migration of communist ideology into the village, Ayemenem, gave a new hope of liberation to the untouchables who were dissatisfied with their plight in life. Velutha desired recognition and respect like any other human being. Therefore, when communism offered liberation, he joined them and carried the party flag in the march in Cochin. However, unfortunately, he was not only cheated but also robbed of his love and life. The corruption and moral degradation of some communist leaders embodied in K N M Pillai, who lacked qualms of conscience to deny the truth that Velutha was a card holding member of the party and to positively precipitate his death at the hands of the police. The communism in the novel and comrade K N M Pillai hadn't enough integrity to liberate the small beings at the bottom of the society, because the members consisted of new patriarchs like Chacko, an Oxford-educated communist-capitalist, lacking even ordinary morality when it comes to his 'man's needs' and Comrade K N M Pillai, an entrepreneur, who makes business with Chacko privately and calls him, 'management' in public and prides himself in organizing Kathakali, based on 'Mahabharata'.
Rahel's marriage was the story of another transgression. She was studying at the School of Architecture. Larry McCaslin came to Delhi for collecting study material for the thesis. He met her two times in two places. The first time he noticed her in the school library and after that a few days later he met her in Khan Market. He felt a jazz tune in him and he followed her into the bookshop. However, both of them were not looking at books. Arundhati Roy describes her transgression. "Rahel drifted into marriage like a passenger drift towards an unoccupied chair in an airport lounge." (The God of Small Things, 18) She went to Boston with Larry McCaslin. He thought about Rahel that he had received a gift in life. The emotional discordance between them was reflected when they made love. Her eyes offended him and her eyes behaved as they belonged to someone else. The hollowness in Rahel led immediately into divorce.
Baby Kochamma had many transgressions in her life even though her transgressions did not lead to marriage. For the sake of love, she did transgressions to her religious denomination. Her father was a priest of the Mar Thoma Church. Even though she decided to convert into Roman Catholic and joined as a nun. Later she refused to reconvert and preferred to remain in her life as Roman Catholic. When she was eighteen, she fell in love with a young Irish monk Father Mulligan. He was in Kerala for deputation from seminary in Madras. The purpose of the deputation was to study the Hindu Scriptures and denounce them intelligently. Instead of denouncing intelligently the Hindu Scriptures, he became a Hindu sannyasi after renouncing Christianity. Therefore, the story of Baby Kochamma and Father Mulligan was very interesting with a lot of ironies and complexities.
Father Mulligan and Baby Kochamma's father reverend E. John Ipe belonged to different denominations of the church. Every Thursday, father Mulligan visited the Ayemenem house to meet reverend E. John Ipe. Baby Kochamma at her tender age hovered around the dining table for the attention of father Mulligan. Baby Kochamma also tried to seduce the father Mulligan by exhibiting charity. Every Thursday morning, at the time of father Mulligan's arrival, she forcefully bathed a poor village boy at the well and addressed him with a good morning. In the pretext of asking biblical doubts, she used to meet father Mulligan every time. "Every Thursday, undaunted by the merciless midday sun, they would stand there by the well. The young girl and the intrepid Jesuit, both quaking with unchristian passion. Using the Bible as a ruse to be with each other." (The God of Small Things, 24)
Biblical doubts and charitable activity continued for a year and father Mulligan had to return to Madras. At last, Baby Kochamma transgressed her denomination of the church and became a Roman Catholic. She joined in a convent in Madras with the hope of legitimate meeting, father Mulligan, and discuss theology. She expected nearness of father Mulligan and dreamed them together. Very soon, she realized the futility of her transgression. Senior sisters in the convent already monopolized the priests and bishops with biblical doubts more sophisticatedly than Baby Kochamma. She became restless and unhappy in the convent. She knew that Mother Superior used to read all letters before posting. Therefore, she communicated her grief to the family in the name of Koh-i-noor befooling the Mother Superior. Her mother pointed out that it was Baby Kochamma in the name of Koh-i-noor. Reverend E. John Ipe immediately went o Madras and brought back Baby Kochamma from the convent.
Reverend E. John Ipe understood that her daughter achieved more than enough reputation improbable to find a husband. If she could not have a husband, then the next alternative was arranged an education. Her father arranged to study a diploma course in Ornamental Gardening at the University of Rochester in America. After two years of education at Rochester, Baby Kochamma became extremely large and there was no trace of the slim attractive girl. Baby Kochamma became more in love with father Mulligan instead of forgetting him. Her love was also more passionate than ever. Diverting her attention, her father made her the charge of the front garden of the Ayemenem house.
Father Mulligan had tried to condemn Hindu Scriptures intelligently and at last, he transgressed to his religion and faith. He became a Hindu sannyasi, a devotee of Lord Vishnu. Out of curiosity and a plan of denouncing the Hindu Scriptures, he contemplated for years. Father Mulligan's transgressions had more complications. Even though, he was in touch with Baby Kochamma for years. He used to write and send greetings on the occasions of Diwali and New Year. Baby Kochamma had a grievance against father Mulligan. She felt that father Mulligan offended her. Father Mulligan renounced the Roman Catholic vows for embracing Hinduism. Baby Kochamma expected that he would have renounced his catholic vows for embracing the love of Baby Kochamma. Instead of loving Baby Kochamma, father Mulligan loved the Hinduism very passionately and became the preacher of Hinduism. Father Mulligan sent a photo to Baby Kochamma in which he was addressing middle-class Punjabi widows. As a Hindu Sannyasi, father Mulligan was in a saffron-coloured dress and Punjabi widows were in a white dress with sari palloos over their heads. "A yolk addressing a sea of boiled eggs. His white beard and hair were long but combed and groomed. A saffron Santa with votive ash on his forehead." (The God of Small Things, 298)
The character of father Mulligan was not only migrated into India with the Roman Catholic faith. He never went back to Ireland and he settled in India as a Hindu Sannyasi. He was a typical symbol of transgression and migration in the novel. The novelist had ironically presented the character, father Mulligan. Father Mulligan's story was presented as a scathing attack on conversions of the Hindus into Christian faith by the Christian missionaries like Ancestors of the Ayemenem family who had converted the family of Velutha into the faith of Christianity from the Hindu religion.
Father Mulligan died in an ashram in Rishikesh because of viral hepatitis. His death did not stop Baby Kochamma's identical entries in her diary, I love you I love you. Father Mulligan was still alive in the memories of Baby Kochamma. "At least her memory of him was hers. Wholly hers. Savagely, fiercely, hers. Not to be shared with Faith, far less with competing co-nuns, and co-sadhus or whatever it was they called themselves. Co-swamis." (The God of Small Things, 298) Baby Kochamma tried to reconvert from Hindu Sannyasi and came to lunch on Thursday in her dreams. Thus, Arundhati Roy had presented the theme of transgression with a more sarcastic tone.
Arundhati Roy had beautifully presented the disagreement against the transgression through the photograph of the wedding of Chacko and Margaret Kochamma in Oxford. "Margaret Kochamma's mother was looking away, out of the photograph, as though she would rather not have been there." (The God of Small Things, 240) Margaret Kochamma's father did not attend the wedding because he did not like Indians. According to him, the Indians were dishonest people. He could not believe that why his daughter was marrying an Indian.
Margaret Kochamma was a waitress at a cafe in Oxford where she met Chacko first time. Both of them belonged to different nations and different socio-cultural backgrounds. Chacko was in the final year at oxford. He went there as a student and his purpose was to complete his education and return to India.
Margaret Kochamma's family lived in London, her father was an owner of a Bakery, and mother was a milliner's assistant. She left home for having an independent life. She preferred to do some work and save money for a teacher-training course. She would like to become a teacher at school. While doing a job as a waitress at a cafe, in a small flat in Oxford, she lived with a friend, a waitress working at another cafe. Like Ammu in the novel, Margaret Kochmma rebelled against her family and rules. While she was away from her home, she continued her small same tight life from which she was escaping in her life.
Under these circumstances, Margaret Kochamma had seen only his athletic body, his special eyes, and his happy shining eyes in Chacko. However, she did not notice many things in Chacko because of her infatuation towards him. Arundhati Roy described Chacko, "His rumpled shirt was buttoned up wrong. His shoelaces were untied. His hair carefully brushed and slicked down in front, stood up in a stiff halo of quills at the back. He looked like an untidy, beatified porcupine. He was tall, and underneath the mess of clothes (inappropriate tie, shabby coat), Margaret Kochamma could see that he was well-built." (The God of Small Things, 241) She could not see all these things in Chacko before marriage. These were the reasons for their divorce later.
One day, Chacko narrated the story of the Man with Twin Sons, Pete, and Stuart to Margaret Kochamma. One was an optimist and another was a pessimist. At the end of the narration, Chacko laughed at the joke till the tears poured down on his cheeks. Margaret Kochamma had missed most of the jokes in his narration. However, she also began to laugh at Chacko's laugh. They laughed together and climbed to a hysterical pitch.
The cafe owner noticed an undesired behaviour from a waitress. Cafe owner disapproved of Margaret Kochamma's behaviour and gave a lecture on Cafe Ethics. Anyway, she had expressed sorry for the way of her behaviour. However, her transgression as a waitress in a cafe caused her to strengthen her relationship with Chacko. Chacko used to visit the cafe with his friendly companion smile, he sought her with his eyes and they exchanged secret smiles and invoked the memory of their joint laugh. She was never light-hearted in her life. She never thought that it was proper to share unrestrained laughter with an extreme stranger. Later she realized that it was not the joke that made her laugh. She was looking for Chacko's visit and a sort of creeping affection developed in her. Arundhati Roy very ironically described their relation that led them towards marriage in this way. "Until the day she married him she never believed that she would ever consent to be his wife." (The God of Small Things, 244)
They had their reasons for their transgressions and these reasons were their light delusions in their life. In the company of Chacko, Margaret Kochamma felt that she had escaped from her narrow Island country into the vast, extravagant spaces of his. She also felt that the world belonged to them. These were the only romantic delusions of a young woman in Margaret Kochamma. However, in the case of Chacko, she was the first female friend and companion. Chacko had noticed the self-sufficiency in her. It was not a new thing among the English women but for Chacko, it was the most remarkable merit in a woman. Why it was the most important factor for him because he knew that she did not cling to him forever. Due to her self-sufficient approach, Chacko was not sure that she would marry him.
They got married without the consent of her family and the knowledge of his family. After their marriage, Margaret Kochamma came to understand that there were many differences between them. Their approach and attitudes were different and she was trying a futile attempt to bring the South Pole and the North Pole in one place. "He grew to depend on Margaret Kochamma for not depending on him. He adored her for not adoring him." (The God of Small Things, 246) After his examination, there was no scholarship money. Within a year of their marriage, Chacko became a fat man for matching his laugh. During this short period, Margaret Kochamma lost all charm for Chacko due to different reasons. They moved to London, where Margaret Kochamma's parents lived but they refused to visit her. Most of the tragic consequences presented in the novel are due to the transgressions. Margaret Kochamma was pregnant when she met her brother's old school friend, Joe. Arundhati Roy described Margaret Kochamma's sudden transgression in her life. "Joe was everything that Chacko wasn't. Steady, Solvent. Thin. Margaret Kochamma found herself drawn towards him like a plant in a dark room towards a wedge of light." (The God of Small Things, 248)
Mammachi wrote letters to Chacko from Ayemenem but he did not feel that he should give a reply to the letters of Mammachi. Before his marriage, Chacko had a transgressional approach towards his Mother and his family. He never felt that it was necessary to inform or sought the endorsement of the parents in his marriage. He never felt the shortage of money as he had a Rhodes scholarship. After his marriage, he could not find a job, he remembered his mother, informed about his marriage, and contacted her for money. Even though, he transgressed the family customs of the marriage. Chacko was like a prodigal son. Mammachi secretly pawned her jewellery and sent him money. When Sophie Mol was born, Margaret Kochamma felt that for her daughter's sake and herself, she had to leave Chacko and she asked divorce from Chacko.
Therefore, Sophie Mol lost her biological father, Chacko and she loved her biologist foster father, Joe. Margaret Kochamma was the victim of her delusions. At first, she had an infatuation towards Chacko. She married him and delivered his baby and she thought that the marriage was a mistake. She decided to correct that mistake to marry the wrong person. She completed a teacher-training course and got a job as a teacher in Clapham. Margaret Kochamma regularly wrote to Chacko and informed him about Sophie Mol. She also informed Chacko about her second husband, Joe. He was a wonderful and careful father for Sophie Mol and Sophie Mol also loved him back. This fact gladdened and saddened Chacko in an equal measure. Arundhati described the attitude of Chacko towards his divorced wife, Margaret Kochamma. "He spoke of her often and with particular pride. As though he admired her for having divorced him." (The God of Small Things, 249)
Margaret Kochamma was in the staff room when Joe's accident reported. For the sake of Sophie Mol, she faced the tragedy with equanimity. "Perhaps, it is true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes." (The God of Small Things, 32) In the case of Margaret Kochamma's life, it was right. What she expected in her life that never happened in her life. It was a great relief for Margaret Kochamma when Chacko invited her to Ayemenem to spend a Christmas. K V Surendran wrote, “When Chacko wrote inviting her to Ayemenem, she couldn’t resist her temptation to join him. She thought there was nobody in the world she would spend her Christmas with. She also felt that Sophie Mol also would take it as a welcome change.” (The God of Small Things: A Saga of Lost Dreams, 96) She decided the trip to India for the sake of Sophie Mol even though her friends at the school thought that it was inappropriate to run back to her first husband immediately after the death of her second husband. She migrated into the world of her first husband and hoped that it would be a solace to her life. However, her holidays were very horrible days for Margaret Kochamma. Her only daughter Sophie Mol drowned in the river during this period. "Margaret Kochamma never forgave herself for taking Sophie Mol to Ayemenem." (The God of Small Things, 251) Therefore, the tragedy in the life of Margaret Kochamma was the result of transgressions and migrations. She did all transgressions and migrations only for the sake of a safe place and more pleasure. However, Time had never forgiven her. Everything had shattered in her life. As a wife, she lost her biologist husband, Joe, and next she lost her little daughter, Sophie Mol. Two tragedies in her life collapsed her entire life like shattering of glass.
Ammu, the protagonist in the novel had transgressed and migrated into unlawful territories, which caused the tragedy in the story. All the persons closed to her life made her life miserable. Her father did not follow the role of the father. He refused college education and did not arrange her marriage. Her husband was unfit to become a husband. Her mother considered her children as a liability. Her brother became a male chauvinistic pig. She sought consolation from an untouchable, Velutha. The consequences of her transgression were again beyond her anticipation.
Like Margaret Kochamma, Ammu was suffocated in the Ayemenem house. She was waiting for a chance to escape from the house. She had hatched many wretched little plans in mind. Lastly, one plan worked for her to escape from the house. Her father, Pappachi agreed to stay with a distant aunt in Calcutta to spend her summer. Family background and her light delusions led her to take sudden decisions about her marriage. Ammu had attended some else's wedding reception in Calcutta. There she met her future husband. He proposed to Ammu about marriage after five days of their meeting.
Ammu did not pretend her love first but she contemplated the proposal. "She thought that anything, anyone at all, would be better than returning to Ayemenem." (The God of Small Things, 39) She wrote about her decision to the parents and she did not get any reply. Ammu's elaborate Calculta wedding was a typical example of the transgression. Her parents did not participate in the wedding. She did not have the endorsement and the blessings of the parents. Ammu's husband did not have any college education. He was twenty-five years old and working in a tea estate. Ammu had only seen his well-built body, pleasant and earnest look. She did not know anything about him. After marriage, they moved to Assam. Ammu did not understand many things in him. "Her husband turned out to be not just a heavy drinker but a full-blown alcoholic with all of an alcoholic's deviousness and tragic charm." (The God of Small Things, 40)
Ammu was eight months pregnant when there was a war between China and India. In November 1962, after a bumpy bus ride to Shillong, Ammu delivered Rahel and Estha in a hospital. The role played by their father at the time of their delivery described in the novel. "Their father, stretched out on a hard bench in the hospital corridor, was drunk." (The God of Small Things, 41) Under this circumstance, as father and husband, he transgressed many things in his life. Loneliness and alcoholism again aggravated his transgressions. Estha and Rahel were two years old; he did not go to work in the tea estate. Therefore, his English manager, Mr. Hollick, called him in his bungalow to discuss the issue of his absence from his duty. Mr. Hollick told him that he had any other option to accept his resignation. Then he continued, there may be an option. "Over coffee, Mr. Hollick proposed that Baba go away for a while. For a holiday. To a clinic perhaps for treatment. For as long as it took him to get better. And for the period of time that he was away, Mr. Hollick suggested that Ammu be sent to his bungalow to be 'look after'." (The God of Small Things, 42) Arundhati Roy described in the novel, there were already several light-skinned children on the estate as the result of Mr. Hollick's transgressions as the Manager of the estate.
Ammu's husband presented the proposal of Mr. Hollick with a partial agreement with the plan. Ammu's silence provoked him and he grabbed her hair and punched her. Drunken violence, post drunken badgering, and repelled with alcoholic smell were unbearable for Ammu. As a husband, he had to protect his wife from the Manager's lustful attack. Here instead of protecting his wife, he failed to do the duty of the husband. He also became a transgressor. "When his bouts of violence began to include the children, and the war with Pakistan began, Ammu left her husband and returned, unwelcomed, to her parents in Ayemenem. To everything that she had fled from only a few years ago. Except that now she had two years of children. And no more dreams." (The God of Small Things, 42)
From the fire into the frying pan again, Ammu had faced new challenges in her parent's family. They thought that it was another transgression from her part. Whatever happened in life, a wife should not leave her husband according to patriarchal tradition. Ammu was not a traditional woman like her mother or any other woman in India who worshipped their husbands like gods and obeyed them blindly bearing with all cruelties. Her father, an anglophile could not believe the story because he blindly thought that any English man would not covet another man's wife.
The elements of transgressions in Ammu did not permit her to continue with mere motherhood and divorceehood. There was an unsafe edge, an unmixable mix, and the rage of a suicide bomber in Ammu. She proceeded to reclaim her body and life back by a fatal decision to "love by night the man her children loved by day" (The God of Small Things, 44) Amina Amin wrote, Ammu had every reason to feel this way. If the Ayemenem House treated Velutha the way they did because he was an untouchable, they treated Ammu as ‘an unwanted dependent’. Since she had returned to Ayemenem with her twins after her broken marriage, she was treated almost as a parasite.” (Explorations: Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, 22) Velutha was a father figure for children. His real love for the children bridged the relation between Velutha and Ammu. Thirteen nights of physical relation between an untouchable man with a touchable woman was the severest transgression in the story. Velutha's father, Vellya Paapen reported this relation to Ayemenem family out of his loyalty. There were many consequences after that. Ammu was locked up in the house. Three children tried to migrate into the History House crossing the river on boat with Sophie Mol. On their way, Sophie Mol drowned in the river and died. Velutha was picked up by the Kottayam police due to Baby Kochamma’s complaint and he died in police custody. Ammu was evacuated from the Ayemenem house and later died in the Bharat Lodge Alleppey. Estha was sent back to his father, Calcutta. Rahel was shifted into boarding school. Margaret Kochamma was returned to England. Chacko was migrated to Canada. The entire story was directly or indirectly connected with transgressions and migrations.
The end of the story was at the beginning of the novel. Like twins, Rahel and Estha, Arundhati narrated this tragic story in backward and forward. R S Sharma and Shashi Bala Talwar wrote, “Estha has been sent back to Ayemenem by his father who has migrated to Australia. Rahel, the divorced girl has come back, leaving her job in America on hearing that Estha is in Ayemenem again. Thus, the actual event is the presence of Rahel in Ayemenem. The remaining part of the plot is covered through Rahel’s memory and the information conveyed by the narrator.” (Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things: Critique and Commentary, 20) Paradise Pickles and Preserves stands with its skeleton there. Eighty year Baby Kochamma and her servant Kochu Maria live in the Ayemenem house with closed windows and doors in dim light. Estha, the great philosopher who believes in two things: Anything can happen to anyone so it's best to be prepared. Even though, things change in a day in their life. He became silent. Amitabh Roy wrote, “Estha’s silence can be explained as a defence mechanism of his agonized soul. There were at least two occasions in his life when speech led to bitter experiences. Had he not started singing in the hall, sexual abuse at the refreshment counter of Abhilash Talkies would have never happened? Then persuaded by Baby Kochamma, he said ‘yes’ to the question of the inspector which meant identifying Velutha as the person guilty for kidnapping and murder…Silence slid in like a bolt.” (The God of Small Things: A Novel of Social Commitment, 95) Arundhati Roy said in the novel as the look back thought of Rahel. "Perhaps, Ammu, Estha, and she were the worst transgressors. But it wasn't just them. It was the others too. They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. An how much...It was a time when the unthinkable became thinkable and the impossible really happened. (The God of Small Things, 31)
Works Cited
Dr K J Sibi, Assistant Professor, Department of English. Shivprasad Sadanand Jaiswal College, Arjuni-Morgaon, District Gondia, Maharashtra, Email Id: sibi419@gmail.com