Book Review: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ is a complex read. I picked it up several times to finally finish it this time around. Reviewing is almost impossible but I’ll still try to put forward my thoughts.

The first thing that comes to mind after reading ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ is that it’s a rant, a rather long one at that. It is a bitter, rant flavored pill wrapped in beautiful language and expressions. However, rants are not always vain. They are as true as the day is bright. But, one often neglects to see both sides of the coin when in anger. The truth that is then spoken is partial, biased, and one-sided. This is how I feel about this book. It shows a bold, true picture of how minorities suffer in India at the hands of her Government and people in general. But this picture needs the color of another perspective to complete it. Right now, it is an angry, biased, flaming picture with Kashmir and Muslims at its center.

This is the first book I am reading by Arundhati Roy and now I know why readers swear by her. Her writing makes you aware of the emotions buried deep inside you. It has the magic to shake you and raise you from a deep slumber. And when it is that effective, it becomes the responsibility of the writer to bring all facts to the paper. He/She cannot present just one side of the story and expect people to make opinions based on that.

I do not claim to be an expert on the matters of the state, in fact, I do not even follow all the news properly. But even I know that it is not just for the piece of land that Indian soldiers are laying down their lives. It is not a game, a hunt for the majority of those brave men who live in constant threat of death. I do not know what people of Kashmir want and I respect their hopes and desires. But if those wishes are the result of whispers from across the border and demand sacrifice of my fellow countrymen, irrespective of the religion, I may never stand with them.

Coming to the book, it is the story of Anjum, a transgender, and Tilo, a uniquely different and thus misunderstood person. Anjum starts her life in the narrow lanes of Old Delhi but finds her purpose and freedom among people like her. One gets to follow her as she makes a place for herself in the ‘Aashiyan’, adopts a child, loses the place she calls home, makes a new home at the graveyard, finds new friends, and becomes part of a social movement at Jantar Mantar. Here is when we meet Tilo, who flees with a child adopted from a dumpster. As her life unravels, we are taken to the blood-drenched valleys of Kashmir where ‘War is Peace’ and ‘Peace is War’. Her lover is a militant who has his own story to tell and his own reasons to give up architecture in favor of arms and Azadi movement.

Reading this book feels like watching the superfast news program in the mornings where they take you through all the current happenings in the world in 10mins. They are all just headlines, with no subtext. In the book too, Roy has targeted a lot many social and political issues but fails to go in depth of anyone. This makes it hard to relate to the characters or the story. It becomes difficult to sympathize with the issues too.

But yes, this is a crash course in India’s current affairs and thus highly relatable. I liked reading this book even when I was singed by the cruelty and biasedness of this. And it is very brave of Arundhati Roy to take names, more directly than indirectly, in these intolerant times and to call out attention to some of the most burning issues in the country.

Book: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Author: Arundhati Roy
Publisher: Penguin India 
Publication: June 2017
No. of pages: 464
My rating: 3.5/5