The God of Small Things received England's 1997 Booker Prize making Arundhathi Roy the first Indian citizen to ever win the honour. This book has become a rapid Indian Best seller. It's the author's first novel and has been acclaimed as a masterpiece ever since it became famous.
This is the tragic story about a Syrian Christian family from Ayemenem in Kerala. It is the story of Ammu, a divorced mother for whom life has become bitter and her inseparable twins Estha and Rahel. Though Estha and Rahel are the central characters of the story Ammu also play a very important role in The God of Small Things.
Ammu's tragedy began when she was very young. It followed her like a shadow right up to the last moment in her life. When she finished her schooling she had to move to Ayemenem. For Ammu college education was a luxury as her father had found it an unnecessary expense, she being a girl child. She idled away time at Ayemenem. Her eighteenth birthday came and went unnoticed by her parents. She grew totally desperate and somehow wanted to run away from Ayemenem to some place or other. She conceived of her own little plans and eventually one worked out. She received the green signal to Calcutta to join her aunt. Theodre Preiser has made the following observation in his novel Sister Carrie:.
When a girl leaves home at eighteen she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assume the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse (qtd in K.V.Surendran).
In Ammu's case her leaving home at least for the time being was to fall into saving hands. Ammu soon met her future husband. He was a pleasant looking small man working in Assaam an assistant manager of a tea estate. He proposed to Ammu five days after their first meeting. She never pretended to be in love with him. Instead she thought that "anything, anyone at all would be better than returning to Ayemenem" (P.