The Ministry of Utmost Happiness- Arundhati Roy

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness- Arundhati Roy

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, Writing this blog as a thinking activity which is given by Dr. Dilip Barad sir for the novel 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' by Arundhati Roy. In that we have to discuss certain points like :

1) The Reader’s Digest Book of English Grammar and Comprehension for Very Young Children By S. Tilottama - Give answers to the questions asked regarding any three stories. Questions are given at the end of each story.

2) Three points mentioned in the photo of board-work. (List of characters, Summary - plot - narrative structure, Fact & Fiction)

3) Write about any one theme or character of the novel with the help of Chat OpenAI GPT. Ask to Chat GPT and put screenshot as well as copy-paste the answer generated by this response generator.

Who is Arundhati Roy?

Arundhati Roy, full name Suzanna Arundhati Roy, born November 24, 1961, Shillong , Meghalaya, India., Indian author, actress, and political activist who was best known for the award-winning novel The God of Small Things (1997) and for her involvement in environmental and human right causes.

Roy’s subsequent literary output largely consisted of politically oriented nonfiction, much of it aimed at addressing the problems faced by her homeland in the age of global capitalism. Among her publications were Power Politics (2001), The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2002), War Talk (2003), Public Power in the Age of Empire (2004), Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (2009), Broken Republic: Three Essays (2011), and Capitalism: A Ghost Story (2014). In 2017 Roy published The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, her first novel in 20 years. The work blends personal stories with topical issues as it uses a large cast of characters, including a transgender woman and a resistance fighter in Kashmir, to explore contemporary India.

This novel is dedicated to the 'Unconsoled'. There is also a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro Named as 'The Unconsoled'. The novel takes place over a period of three days. It is about Ryder, a famous pianist who arrives in a central European city to perform a concert. He is entangled in a web of appointments and promises which he cannot seem to remember, struggling to fulfill his commitments before Thursday night's performance and frustrated with his inability to take control.

The characters of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness :

Khwabgah - Jantar Mantar - Jannat Guest House / Graveyard - Kashmir. 

Kulsoom Bi, Saeeda, Bismillah, Ziauddin - the blind Imam, Gudiya & Bulbul, Bombay Silk, Jahanara Begum, Mulaqat Ali, Anjum/Aftab, Ahlam Baiji, Mary, Razia, Nimmo Gorakhpuri, Mr. Aggarwal, Tubby Old Gandhian, Manipur Nationalists, Bhopalis, Protest to make Hindi as National Language,  Jannat Guest House / Graveyard - Saddam Hussein, Mr. Gupta, Captain Amrik Singh, ACP Pinky Sodhi, Balbir Sodhi, Jalil Qadri, Musa Yeswi, Gulrez, King Aurangzeb, Abhaychand, Hazrat Sarmad, Zainab, Changez Khan, Borte Khatun, Sakim, Sangeeta Madam, Sherawat, Dr, Azad, Gujrat ka Lalla, Trapped Rabbit, Biplab Das Gupta, Charerupa, Rabia and Ania, Hariharan Nagarjun, S, Tillotama, Maryam Ipe, Arifa, Jebeen , Baby - Jebeen(The second Udaya), Khadijha, Aijaz, Revathy. 

Anjum is born intersex and lives as a Muslim hijra, who lives in the Khwabgah for many years before leaving and eventually founding the Jannat Guest House. On her visit to a Gujarati shrine, Anjum gets caught in a massacre of Hindu pilgrims and subsequent government reprisals against Muslims. She is anxious about the future of her own community, especially the new generation. She was born as Aftab, the long-awaited son of Jahanara Begum and Mulaqat Ali.

Mulaqat Ali is the husband of Jahanara Begum and the father of Aftab. He is a hakim, a doctor of herbal medicine, and a lover of poetry. Ali is the direct descendant of Mongol Emperor Changez Khan – through the emperor's second-born son, Chagatai.

Zainab is a three-year-old girl whom Anjum picks up on the steps of the Jama Masjid. Zainab is brought up at Khwabgah and later goes on to become a fashion designer who marries Saddam.

Saddam Hussein (Dayachand) is one of the guests at the Jannat Guest House. He was originally named Dayachand but named himself after Saddam Hussain after seeing a video of his execution. Saddam works odd jobs – in a mortuary, as a helper in a shop, a bus conductor, selling newspapers at the New Delhi railway station, as a bricklayer on a construction site and as a security guard. Saddam wants to avenge his father's death by killing Sehrawat, the Station House Officer of the Dulina police station.

Dr. Azad Bharatiya is one of the many protestors near Jantar Mantar. He continues his 10-year fast and runs a newsletter called "News & Views".

S. Tilottama is a student at the Architecture School who is estranged from her Syrian Christian mother, Mariyam Ipe. Tilo becomes friends with three men – Musa Yewsi, Nagaraj Hariharan and Biplab Dasgupta, whom she meets while working on sets and lighting design for the play directed by David Quartermaine.

Nagaraj Hariharan is cast as Norman in the play. He later becomes a top-notch journalist who works in Kashmir. Tilo marries Naga as suggested by Musa for strategic reasons and later abandons him.

Biplab Dasgupta was to play the role of Garson Hobart in Norman, Is That You?. He later works for the Intelligence Bureau as Deputy Station Head for. Biplab secretly loves Tilo and rents her room after she walks out on Naga.

Musa Yeswi (Commander Gulrez) is a reticent Kashmiri man who is classmates with Tilo in Architecture School and later her boyfriend. Musa later returns to his homeland to become a militant and fight for Azadi. Musa marries Arifa and fathers Miss Jebeen the First.

Begum Arifa Yeswi is the wife of Musa Yeswi. Musa meets Arifa in a stationery shop where a grenade explosion takes place.

Major Amrik Singh is a military officer in charge of counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir. He murders Jalib Qadri, a well-known lawyer and human rights activist and subsequently seeks asylum in the US claiming to be the victim of the tortures he has inflicted on others.

Comrade Revathy is a Maoist from East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh who is raped and tortured by policeman. She's the mother of Udaya (Miss Jebeen the Second). Revathy leaves Udaya in Jantar Mantar.

Jahanara Begum – Mother of Aftab (Anjum). Dotes on him and takes him to the dargah of Hazrat Sarmad Shaheed. Even after Aftab moves to Khwabgah, she continues to send a hot meal every day.

Ahlam Baji – The midwife who delivers Aftab and who, during her last days, grows disoriented. She's buried in Jahanara Begum's family graveyard.

Ustad Hameed Khan – Musician who taught Aftab Hindustani classical music. Aftab eventually stops going to the music classes due to snickering and teasing from other children.

Imam Ziauddin – The blind imam who accompanies Anjum in the graveyard and once led the prayers at Fatehpuri Masjid

Kulsoom Bi –Ustad, guru of Khwabgah

Saeeda–The new face of Khwabgah after Anjum and is soon to take over as the ustad

Zakir Mian – Proprietor and Managing Director of A-1 Flower. He travels with Anjum.

Begum Zeenat Kauser – Anjum's aunt and Mulaqat Ali's older sister.

Begum Renata Mumtaj – Belly dancer from Romania who grew up in Bucharest dreaming of India and its classical dancing forms. She's buried in Jannat after her death.

Roshan Lal – Headwaiter of Rosebud Rest-O-Bar

Mr. D. D. Gupta – An old client of Anjum who is a building contractor. He moves to Baghdad to capitalize on the escalating demand for concrete blast walls.

Loveleen Singh – Wife of Amrik Singh. She's a victim of domestic violence.

ACP Pinky Sodhi – Assistant Commandant and brutal interrogator who worked with Amrik Singh.

Balbir Singh Sodhi – ACP Pinky Sodhi's brother. A senior police officer who had been shot down by militants in Sopore.

Summary - plot - narrative structure

Aftab was born in an orthodox Muslim family to an herb doctor as a hermaphrodite in Old Delhi. His parents decide to influence him to behave like a man and begin saving money for his surgery to become a ‘normal’ man. However, Aftab becomes obsessed with the lifestyle for Hijras, a community of transgenders who dressed loudly and made money by either prostitution or asking for alms at big gatherings.

After his initiation as a hijra with a new name Anjum, and castration later, Anjum continues to live at Khwabgah. One day, she finds a little girl abandoned outside the mosque, and adopts her. To pray for the sickly girl, she decides to go visit the shrine of Ajmer Sharif.

However, she is attacked in the Gujrat riots of 2002. Traumatized, she becomes insecure and distrustful of people. Soon, she leaves khwabgah and begins living in a graveyard. A number of people turn up to visit her as she began to illegally encroach the graveyard. Along with Saddam Hussein a tenant at her ‘guest house’ and Imam Ziauddin, a blind Muslim priest, she started a business to provide funeral services to people who were rejected from other graveyards.

Saddam later reveals that he is a low-caste man who saw his father being lynched by a mob over suspicion for killing a cow. She finds a baby during a protest march near Jantar Mantar, which is taken by a woman called S. Tillotama. Biplab Dasgupta, who has rented his flat to Tilo, one of his college friends, is confused about Tilo’s disappearance and the mention of a baby, whom the police is looking for.Apparently, he fell in love with Tilo in his college years as both of them, Naga and Musa worked on a play.

Naga went on to became a journalist with Leftist leanings, while Biplab worked in Foreign services.While both of them were posted in Kashmir, during the 1996 insurgency, Biplab receives a call that Tilo has been arrested along with a dreaded terrorist called Musa. He sends Naga to look into the matter. Soon, he receives the news of the two getting married.

Fourteen years later, he hears from her as she is looking for a place to live. As he begins to go through her stuff to see for a clue about her disappearance. He finds photos of people tortured during the insurgency and a collection of files on the officer who had interrogated her and had killed Musa. The officer had killed himself by this time after he was granted asylum in the US. Naga was obsessed with Tilo, but when she moved out, he decided to move on.

After a number of affairs, he decided that he was still in love with her. Tilo moved out and began to live on her own. Its revealed that Musa was actually alive and had been meeting Tilo in secret. Tilo is being searched by police for kidnapping a baby and is offered a refuge by Saddam and Anjum.

It is revealed that Musa’s daughter and wife had died in an army gunfire which led him to become a terrorist. Tilo had visited Musa and learned of the military rule in Kashmir. She witnessed the murder of an innocent man called Gulrez, who was thought to be Musa. Tilo married Naga as advised by Musa to avoid suspicion. She later discovers of having conceived Musa’s child, but had it aborted as she wasn’t sure of her motherly instincts. They all seem to settle in the graveyard.

Saddam proposes to Zainab and gets married. Funerals are held for his father, Tilo’s mother and the orphan baby’s mother who turns out to be a communist rape victim, who left the child born from her rape by police officials, to fight and die for her movement.

Musa collects Tilo’s stuff from Biplab, and the two men discuss on the future of Kashmir, with Biplab growing anxious. Musa meets Tilo for the last time as he dies in confrontation later. All the inhabitants of the graveyard guest house find happiness after being evicted from the world.

Narrative Technique :

“How to tell a shattered story?”

“By slowly becoming everybody. No. By slowly becoming everything.”

Basically,  This novel has so many incidences into it and it talks about the many things which are living or being like it has a dialogue :

"Living creatures without Happiness."

All things are shattered and she also mentioned how this novel is written by shattered manner. 

Fact & Fiction :

2002 Godhra riots- Gujarat

Trauma to Anjum; their visit to Gujarat

lynching of Dalits (lower class) in Una Gujarat

Dayachand’s father’s killing in Haryana for taking a dead animal’s skin

Gulf war between Iraq and America

Hanging of Saddam Hussein by America

Inspiration for Dayachand to adopt the name, Saddam Hussein

Anna Hazare movement 2011-12

Tubby Gandhian at Jantar Mantar in TV and news

All the Jantar Mantar protests

A group from Jantar Mantar guest house visit Jantar Mantar

The madness of adopting names

Dr. Azad Bharti

Naxalite Maoist movement

Letter from Revathy

Sanjay Gandhi and Emergency

Narendra Modi and his case of suit

Gujarat ka Lalla

Write about any one theme or character of the novel with the help of Chat OpenAI GPT. Ask to Chat GPT and put screenshot as well as copy-paste the answer generated by this response generator.

Question :

What are the historical facts Arundhati Roy has used in the novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness?

Answer :

In "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness," Arundhati Roy uses a variety of historical facts to provide context and depth to the story.

-One of the historical facts used in the novel is the widespread discrimination and marginalization of transgender individuals, hijras, and eunuchs in Indian society. This is depicted through the experiences of the character Anjum and the community of Jannat Guest House.

-The novel also references the ongoing conflict and violence in the region of Kashmir. The character Tilo is involved in the political activism related to the human rights violations in the region, and the novel highlights the suffering of the Kashmiri people and the challenges of finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

-Additionally, the novel touches on the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the world's worst industrial disasters, where a pesticide plant belonging to Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) released large quantities of toxic gases, causing thousands of deaths and injuries.

-The novel also references the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency, a communist rebellion that began in the late 1960s in India, and has continued in various forms until the present day, primarily in rural areas of Central and Eastern India.

These historical facts are used to provide a background and to highlight the socio- political context of the novel.

The Reader’s Digest Book of English Grammar and Comprehension for Very Young Children By S. Tilottama - Give answers to the questions asked regarding any three stories. Questions are given at the end of each story.

THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

Manohar Mattoo was a Kashmiri Pandit who stayed on in the Valley even after all the other Hindus had gone. He was secretly tired of and deeply hurt by the barbs from his Muslim friends who said that all Hindus in Kashmir were actually, in one way or another, agents of the Indian Occupation Forces. Manohar had participated in all the anti-India protests, and had shouted Azadi! louder than everybody else. But nothing seemed to help. At one point he had even contemplated taking up arms and joining the Hizb, but eventually he decided against it. One day an old school friend of his, Aziz Mohammed, an intelligence officer, visited him at home to tell him that he was worried for him. He said that he had seen his (Mattoo’s) surveillance file. It suggested that he be put under watch because he displayed ‘anti-national tendencies’. When he heard the news Mattoo beamed and felt his chest swell with pride. ‘You have given me the Nobel Prize!’ he told his friend. He took Aziz Mohammed out to Café Arabica and bought him coffee and pastries worth Rs 500. A year later he (Mattoo) was shot by an unknown gunman for being a kafir.

Q 1: Why was Mattoo shot?

(a) Because he was a Hindu

(b) Because he wanted Azadi

(c) Because he won the Nobel Prize

(d) None of the above

(e) All of the above.

Answer : (a) Because he was a Hindu

Q 2: Who could the unknown gunman have been?

(a) An Islamist militant who thought all kafirs should be killed

(b) An agent of the Occupation who wanted people to think that all Islamist militants thought that all kafirs should be killed

(c) Neither of the above

(d) Someone who wanted everyone to go crazy trying to figure it out.

Answer : (a) An Islamist militant who thought all kafirs should be killed

KHADIJA SAYS …

In Kashmir when we wake up and say ‘Good Morning’ what we really mean is ‘Good Mourning’.

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

Begum Dil Afroze was a well-known opportunist who believed, quite literally, in changing with the times. When the Movement seemed to be on the up and up, she would set the time on her wristwatch half an hour ahead to Pakistan Standard Time. When the Occupation regained its grip she would reset it to Indian Standard Time. In the Valley the saying went, ‘Begum Dil Afroze’s watch isn’t really a watch, it’s a newspaper.’

Q 1: What is the moral of this story?

Answer : May be the act of doing her wristwatch half an hour ahead to Pakistan Standard Time, And reset it to Indian Standard Time can be considered that how Kashmir is surviving under the fear of both the countries and it's pressure.     

NOTHING

I would like to write one of those sophisticated stories in which even though nothing much happens there’s lots to write about. That can’t be done in Kashmir. It’s not sophisticated, what happens here. There’s too much blood for good literature.

Q 1: Why is it not sophisticated?

Answer : Kashmir is the land where people live under the fear and with the militants so the there are many incidents happen everyday which become the reason of bloodshade. As it is the land of Mourning. So it cannot consider as sophisticated one.

Q 2: What is the acceptable amount of blood for good literature?

Answer : According to me, there is nothing like any amount of blood to create good literature. 

Thank You!