ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

This is the first memoir by the acclaimed Indian writer and political activist Arundhati Roy, best-known for her Booker-prize-winning novel The God of Small Things. It is the account of a remarkable and difficult childhood which was dominated by Arundhati’s formidable mother, Mary Roy.

This was a time in South India when women had very proscribed roles, and Mary Roy challenged them profoundly:
‘In that conservative, stifling little South Indian town, where, in those days, women were only allowed the option of cloying virtue – or its affectation – my mother conducted herself with the edginess of a gangster.’

Mary Roy’s achievements are extraordinary - she founded a co-educational school which challenged sexist gender roles, and she brought a legal challenge which gave South Indian women equal inheritance rights with men. But at home, as Arundhati reveals, she’s cruel and bullying; she hits her children and belittles them constantly. At 18, Arundhati left home and didn’t see or speak to her mother for seven years. But when Mary Roy died in 2022, Arundhati was distraught, and even a ‘little ashamed’ at the intensity of her loss. In an attempt to make sense of their relationship, she began to write Mother Mary Comes to Me.

In this first episode, Arundhati Roy tells the story of how, at the age of 30, her mother leaves her husband. She and her two young children – Arundhati and her brother - live in a dank holiday cottage which used to belong to her mother’s father. Mary Roy’s health deteriorates and she spends most of her time in bed, leaving the children to run wild and make friends with strangers. But then Arundhati’s uncle arrives to evict them – as a woman, he claims, Mary Roy has no right of inheritance.

Read by Shaheen Khan

Produced and abridged by Elizabeth Burke

Studio Production and Sound Design by Jon Calver

Executive Producer: Sara Davies

Photo courtesy of Arundhati Roy

A Loftus Media production for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4

Show less