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Arundhati Roy was born in Shillong, Meghalaya, India on 24th November, 1961. She is an Author.
Her parents were Rajib Roy, a Bengali Hindu tea plantation manager from Calcutta and Mary Roy,
a Malayali Syrian Christian women's rights activist from Kerala. When she was 2, her parents
divorced and she returned with her mother and brother to Kerala. For a time, the family lived with
grandfather in Ooty, Tamil Nadu. When Arundhati Roy was 5, the family moved back to Kerala,
where her mother started a school. Arundhati Roy attended school at Corpus Christi, Kottayam,
followed by the Lawrence School, Lovedale, in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. She then studied architecture
at the School of Planning and Architecture, in Delhi.

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1. When was Arundhati Roy born?
2. Who is Arundhati Roy?
3. What are the names of Arundhati Roy’s parents? What did her parents do?
4. What is the name of the school where Arundhati Roy went for studying?
5. What did she study in Delhi?

Arundhati Roy, a famous Indian Author studied Architecture in Delhi. After getting her college
degree, she obtained a position with the National Institute of Urban Affairs. In 1984 she met
filmmaker Pradip Krishen, who offered her a role as a goatherd in his award-winning movie Massey
Sahib. The two later married. They worked together on a television series and on two films, Annie
and Electric Moon. Bored with the film world, Arudnhati Roy worked various jobs, including running
aerobics classes. Arundhati Roy and Pradip Krishen finally got a divorce.
Early in her career, Roy worked for television and movies. She wrote the screenplays for In Which
Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989), a movie based on her experiences as a student of architecture,
in which she also appeared as a performer, and Electric Moon (1992),both directed by her then
husband Pradip Krishen. Roy won the National Film Award for Best Screenplay in 1988 for In
Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.

Write the answer of the following questions in your notebooks

1. What did Arundhati Roy study in Delhi?
2. Where did she work after finishing her college?
3. In which Movie did Arundhati Roy play a goatherd?
4. Whom did Arundhati Roy marry?
5. For which movie did Arundhati Roy wrote a Screenplay?
6. Did Arundhati Roy won an award? If yes, What was the name of the award and when
did she win it?
Arundhati Roy, a famous Indian Author wriote her first novel, The God of Small Things, in 1992,
completing it in 1996. The book is semi-autobiographical and a major part captures her childhood
experiences in Kerala. It tells the story of one family in the town of Ayemenem, Kerala. The book
explores how the small things affect people's behavior and their lives. It won the Booker Prize in
1997.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is the second novel by Indian writer Arundhati Roy, published
in 2017, The novel deals with some of the darkest and most violent episodes of modern Indian
history, from land reform that disowned poor farmers to the 2002 Godhra train
burning and Kashmir insurgency.

Write the answer of the following questions in your notebooks

1. What was the name of Arundhati Roy’s first novel? When did she complete it?
2. What was the first novel about?
3. In Arundhati Roy’s first novel, she focusses on Small Things. What do you think
these Small Things could be? How do Small Things matter in our everyday lives?
4. What was the name of Arundhati Roy’s Second novel?
5. What was the second novel about?

Arundhati Roy, a famous Indian Author has spent most of her time on political activism and
nonfiction (like collections of essays about social causes).
Sardar Sarovar Project
Roy has campaigned along with activist Medha Patkar against the Narmada dam project, saying
that the dam will displace half a million people, with little or no compensation, and will not provide
the projected irrigation, drinking water, and other benefits. One of the biggest new dams under
construction is the Sardar Sarovar Project on the Narmada River in the State of Gujarat, with a
proposed final height of 447 feet. Among its most vocal opponents was the novelist Arundhati Roy.
She and other critics of the project object to the displacement of more than 200,000 people by
rising waters, to the damage to the Narmada Valley's fragile ecosystem and to the failure of some
big dams to deliver what they promise. (India's Bargi Dam, for example, irrigates only 5 percent of
the area promised.) She pointed out that while the rural poor are the ones who pay the price for a
dam, it is the urban rich who benefit: 80 percent of rural households in India have no electricity;
200 million people have no access to safe drinking water.
Roy also appears in Franny Armstrong's Drowned Out, a 2002 documentary about the project.
India's nuclear weaponisation
In response to India's testing of nuclear weapons in Pokhran, Rajasthan, Roy wrote The End of
Imagination (1998), a criticism of the Indian government's nuclear policies. It was published in her
collection The Cost of Living (1999), in which she also crusaded against India's massive
hydroelectric dam projects in the central and western states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh,
and Gujarat.

Write the answer of the following questions in your notebooks

1. What were Arundhati Roy’s opinion regarding Sardar Sarovar Project? And Why?
2. In which book did Arundhati Roy criticised India’s Nuclear Policies?
3. Do you agree with Arundhati Roy’s opinion regarding Sardar Sarovar Project? Give
reasons why do you agree/disagree with her?