The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

  Hello everyone! 

I am Nidhi Jethava and I am a student of MK Bhavnagar University department of English. We have one paper on contemporary literature and in this blog, I am going to discuss a few questions about a contemporary novel by Arundhati Roy 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. 

Here is the link to the teacher’s blog. 

https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2021/12/the-ministry-of-utmost-happiness.html?m=1

So first I would like to give a brief introduction about Arundhati Roy:

“I have never been particularly ambitious. I am not a careerist, I am not trying to get anywhere in a career. It is more important to engage with society, to live it, to have different experiences”, said Roy, addressing the audience at Sharjah International Book Fair.

Arundhati Roy (November 24, 1961) is an Indian novelist, political activist. She is best known for her first novel The God of Small Things which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. She was also awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004. read further about Roy.

About 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

 

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a very fascinating novel by Arundhati Roy. It was published in 2017. It’s a very interesting novel. It discusses issues like political, transgender, social and especially it covers contemporary India. 

Here are the questions to ponder. 

1. Political issues in the novel.

Answer : 

The novel discusses political issues such as Godhra kand, when Anjum went to Ajmer and riots were broken like anything. Another issue is the Kashmir issue. It's very horrible. It's connected with territories and the Indian Military. Another major issue was discussed at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and in an emergency in 1975. Where all stats people are gathered for various issues. In this, all Godhra kand and Kashmir issues are major things.

2. Gender concern in the Novel. 

Answer.

Gender concern is another important thing. While discussing female, male and transgender conflict. The identity issue is the most important controversial issue. At the beginning of the novel, we face the same thing in the case of our protagonist Anjum. Anjum was born as a baby boy but as an adult, he came to know that he is 'Hijra'. And her mother at the beginning was not able to understand this. 

Another important thing is male and female conflict.

Indian culture is a male dominant society in which women are slaves to male monopolies. They are the victims of discrimination against women and men. The plexus of male-dominated society consists of stereotypes that support the superiority of men over women. Women are still the miserable dolls who move in alienation without their own identity. They stay in the male oppression

surrounding, bearing the anxiety that masculine authority endorses. They are harassed and raped viciously, deprived of their rights and opportunities without their own identity. Women constantly attempt to express their suffering, but they are silent. Such discrimination against women not just stifles their voice in society but takes them away from employment, economic freedom, and equitable political participation. They are isolated from the public and national discourse and are never recognized for their effort as well. They struggle with a sense of uncertainty and experience the pain of bigotry and identity crisis. (Denish Suleman)

3. Environmental concerns in the novel / Ecofeminist study

Answer:-  

Arundhati Roy is also known as ecocritic. At the beginning of the novel ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness,’ We come to know about environmental concerns. 

At magic hour, when the sun has gone but the light has not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke. When the bats leave, the crows come home. Not all the din of their homecoming fills the silence left by the sparrows that have gone missing, and the old white-backed vultures, custodians of the dead for more than a hundred million years, that have been wiped out. The vultures died of diclofenac poisoning. Diclofenac, cow-aspirin, given to cattle as a muscle relaxant, to ease pain and increase the production of milk, works – worked – like nerve gas on white-backed vultures. Each chemically relaxed, milk-producing cow or buffalo that died became poisoned vulture-bait. As cattle turned into better dairy machines, as the city ate more ice cream, butterscotch-crunch, nutty-buddy and chocolate-chip, as it drank more mango milkshake, vultures’ necks began to droop as though they were tired and simply couldn’t stay awake. Silver beards of saliva dripped from their beaks, and one by one they tumbled off their branches, dead. Not many noticed the passing of the friendly old birds. There was so much else to look forward to.(The Ministry of Utmost Happiness)

4.  Narrative Patterns in the novel

Answer:- 

The narrative pattern of ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' is very hard and tough to understand. Because it is not easy to understand Roy’s technique of writing. One of the best parts is here that describes sadness in writing. 

Thank you. 

References: 

Roy, Arundhati. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. 2017.

Suleman, Danish. "political and Gender issues in Arundhati Roy’s "TheMinistry of Utmost Happiness"Masalah Politik dan Gender dalam Arundhati Roy "The Ministryof Utmost Happiness"." ReserchGate (2020): 8.