Arundathi Roy

[Oldposts]

I too could not feel that Arundhati Roy wrote her novel keeping the Western readers in mind. All I could feel was that she had kept the Syrian X'ian community of Kottayam-- of which incidentaly I'm also a member as she is (or was?)--while writing the book. And who can understand the background and the plot of the work better than these people?

In fact, my fear was that whether the Western or even non-Keralite readers would be able to appreciate the work well enough without some understanding of the Syrian X'ian community of Kerala.