Arundhati Roy, Mother Mary Comes to Me

The title of Arundhati Roy’s new memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me might seem curious at first glance. In the memoir, we find out that the narrator’s mother Mary was continually abusive towards Arundhati. Arundhati suffered physical, verbal, and emotional assaults by her mother, and others from childhood onward. Yet, upon finishing the book I realize how fitting the title is, not only because it pays homage to Arundhati’s longstanding love of the Beatles, but because the book gave me a feeling of spiritual epiphany. 

 

She doesn't label herself as "spiritual" or "religious," yet Arundhati Roy’s life is an example of spiritual practice and serving humanity through selfless work, walking a path of righteousness, using one’s influence to help others, and showing sensitivity and compassion for all beings. 

 

Arundhati turned the other cheek like Blessed Mother Mary’s child when it came to her earthly mother, and also paid for the sins of others like Jesus did: as a child Arundhati and her brother endured punishments for deeds done by others.

 

Moreover, Arundhati's memoir exhibits loving people unconditionally, even if they suffer from alcoholism, as her father did, or tendencies towards cruelty, like her mother exhibited. 

 

Arundhati tells how she had to stand up against the abuser(s) by learning to set personal boundaries (and run)—but at the same time, she was ultimately able to maintain love and respect for her mother. Arundhati also acknowledges the assets her childhood wounds gave her, such as independence, savviness, and alertness. In this way, Arundhati embraces the “enemy” as a great teacher, and views even the seemingly undeserving as “mother,” like the Dalia Lama says to do. 

 

And similar to the Buddha, Arundhati gave up inherited wealth and walked into the wilderness with the dispossessed forest dwellers. Also, the memoir contains a divine vision of the author’s mother Mary continuously walking over the ocean. 

 

As a reader who experienced childhood traumas that continue to linger bat shriek knows that Arundhati Roy’s personal journey and ability to show kindness towards parents who didn’t properly return love is a huge spiritual act of transcendence. 

 

That’s not to dismiss Arundhati's humanness or overlook the heartbreaking cruelty she experienced at the hands of her mother. While Arundhati has obviously done a lot of inner work in order to become such a survivor and exceptional writer and thinker, she likely still copes with pain as a result of the abuse she endured as a child. She does admit as much in the chapter, ‘Collateral,’ where her brother gets woken up in the middle of the night by their mother and beaten with a ruler until it breaks because his report card wasn’t good enough in their mother’s eyes; then afterwards their mother congratulates Arundhati for her report card.

 

In the morning, she hugged me and said, “You have a brilliant report.” I was filled with shame. I hated myself. Since then, for me, all personal achievement comes with a sense of foreboding. On the occasions when I am toasted or applauded, I always feel that someone else, someone quiet, is being beaten in the other room. If you pause to think about it, it’s true, someone is. - Arundhati Roy, 38

 

We can see from this passage how the narrator holds the weight of not being able to fully embrace her achievements, talents, and successes because of the childhood neglect and shame she suffered. I also see what she means on a symbolic level, especially in the case of material comforts, such as when third-world factory workers are pretty much enslaved so that people in more affluent countries can keep our closets full of nice clothes, and when Indigenous lands are pillaged for oil and minerals so that some of us can have cheap fuel and the newest smartphones.

 

Arundhati Roy also freely admits that the beautiful yet erratic and cruel mother in The God of Small Things was partially based on her own mother. And like the protagonist Rahel in that first novel, Arundhati Roy was pretty much raised by the river and a squirrel; her only source of self-esteem seems to have come from her own inner strength and beauty and the land. Arundhati's real-life experience is also reflected in her second novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness through the character of Tilo and. her sometimes estranged, belligerent mother.

 

It’s inspiring and cathartic to read about how the narrator of Mother Mary Comes to Me survived being raised by a single mother in a home that didn’t want her, where she was constantly berated, and despite the odds became an architect, artist, actor, and one of the world’s most interesting and exciting writers today. 

 

Fans of Arundhati Roy’s vivid and lyrical storytelling and courageous truth-telling and social justice work will be pleased by the generous openness, vulnerability, humor, and wisdom in Mother Mary Comes to Me.

 

May Arundhati be protected and circled in love and appreciation, along with all the dogs, wildlife, rivers, humans, and earth she protects.