August 28, 2025

Arundhati Roy never planned to write about her life, especially not a memoir. But losing her remarkable and tough mother, Mary Roy, changed everything. Her new book, 'Mother Mary Comes to Me,' offers a close look at Mary’s life — a woman who built a school from scratch, fiercely fought for Christian women’s right to inherit property, and lived in Kottayam like a superhero with a thug's edge until age 89.

Arundhati wanted to keep the story open, messy, with no neat endings. She shares what shaped her too — hunger, cruelty, stigma, and violence passed down through generations. She talks of her mother’s asthma and sudden bursts of anger. At 18, Arundhati left her home to find her own path but kept loving her mother. Since then, she has worked hard, explored many kinds of love, won the Booker Prize, been jailed for her beliefs, continues legal fights, and donates much of her earnings to help others.

In a world full of pain and social fights, this book reminds us all that we are broken, wild, and filled with love, fury, and incredible kindness. As Arundhati says, "Because people are not ideologies, they are wild. Some cannot be put under neat divisions, categories, or ‘faux-therapy’ labels, and yet need to be part of literature and history."

Talking about writing of her mother in a world quick to judge, Arundhati shares, "When she passed, she was 89, I’m in my 60s... How do you hold them together? But that is what people are. They are like little pieces of disparate things held together by their muscles and blood."

She reveals how accepting parents truly means seeing all their wild contradictions. "I think the truth is that I was her mother... I felt that ultimately, we were just two adults who were sort of dealing with each other. I stopped being a child or having any expectations of her as a mother long ago. I left. Because I would have been crushed if I hadn’t… But I never wanted to defeat her. I never wanted to win. I wanted her to go out, like a queen. And she did."

Arundhati confronts tough topics like generational violence, saying, "It’s not only that my mother experienced the violence of her father, but she also inherited that violence... If there has been violence, and you have been the victim of it, you have to find the strength to not think of yourself as a victim."

Returning to her own journey from a small town to the big city, she calls her struggles a search for true freedom. "People say, 'you were so brave.' I say, 'no, I wasn’t brave. I did not have a choice. My choice was to be crushed and killed.' It’s desperation, not bravery."

She describes an unusual love for danger and mistrust that comes from unsafe childhoods, "I’m always drawn towards the unsafe... It’s harder for me to understand this happy family s**t. So sometimes, even when there is a relationship which seems very secure, it makes me almost feel like I can’t breathe."

Arundhati’s love stretches beyond people to the world around her — squirrels, dogs, trees — showing love is a choice. Facing politics, fame, and social media, she stays clear of the noise to think alone: "People... are growing up suckling on mobile phones... we are heading toward a mass mental health crisis."

She also formed a Trust to share her wealth wisely, helping those already doing the work without turning aid into charity. "It’s not some guilt trip. It is not my baap ka paisa. It’s what I have earned with my work."

On the mix of Hindu nationalism and corporate power in India, she warns it’s creating a caste-controlled economic apartheid disguised as nationalism. Despite bans, jail, and accusations of being anti-national, Arundhati says, "India is the place I loved, the place to which I belonged... At least here, you’re fighting for something that you love."

This stunning, candid memoir is a must-read for anyone curious about fierce love, wild people, and the messy politics of modern India.

Book: Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy, Hamish Hamilton, ₹899.

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Tags: Arundhati roy, Mary roy, Memoir, Generational violence, Booker prize, India politics,