During a family dinner in 1986, my brother, then a budding advocate, recounted a landmark Indian Supreme Court verdict. The court had just ruled in favour of Mary Roy, affirming that Syrian Christian women in Kerala possessed equal rights to their parental property. This was a seismic shift. Until then, our community in the former Travancore region was governed by the 1916 Travancore Christian Succession Act, which denied women inheritance rights, offering only a dowry at marriage in lieu of a share.

My mother listened intently, then offered her impression. “Mary Roy fought like Rani Lakshmibai,” she said, evoking the warrior queen who tied her child to her back and fled the British. “She was a tigress battling evil,” our mother insisted. Mary’s victory was quiet but profound; though the clergy and laymen of various churches largely opposed the decree. A new truth had been established, and they could not publicly utter a word against it.

This book is a work of literary impressionism, painted with the colours of emotion, memory, and sensation. It merges into a panoramic kaleidoscope of human relationships, much like the narrative of Mary Roy’s and Arundathi Roy’s lives. Arundathi charts her path from the tea estates of Assam, big-city life in Delhi via Ooty, Madras, Calcutta, Pachmarhi, Goa, Kashmir and above all her ancestral village – Ayemenem- the places I too experienced and loved during my growing up years in a Syrian Christian home in Amayannoor village in Kottayam – very similar to Ayemenem in all aspects – and three decades of military life. My Ayemenem connections come from my maternal grandmother and mother-in-law – both strong ladies – who hailed from Ayemenem.

The characters in this book are unvarnished, their natural grain exposed and absorbent. Unprotected, they are vulnerable to scratches, stains, and wear – a living, breathing soup of imagination and memory, possessing squirrel-like survival skills. Mary’s relationship with her brother Isaac was typical of the era: help and harm in equal measure. Mary’s children grew up in the cleft between a syrupy dream and a capricious nightmare, amidst shouting and silence.

My own memories intersect with this history in unexpected ways. My first movie experience was at Kottayam’s Star Theatre. Decades later, in 2002, while commanding our Regiment, I chanced upon the district’s Disaster Management Plan, duly signed by the Chief Secretary of Kerala state. To my astonishment, it designated the long-demolished Star Theatre as the site for an army field hospital – a ghost from the past, official – yet impossible.

Other important figures from our childhood find their place in this tapestry. We brothers once presumed ChellappanBhavani was a single person; they were, in fact, a husband-and-wife duo whose Bharatanatyam performances were essential to every local temple festival in Kottayam. In 1982, our cousin’s home was constructed by the renowned architect Laurie Baker—an inspiration for many—and though skeptics doubted it would survive the monsoon, it stands today as a testament to his visionary style.

Even my struggles echoed those in the narrative. Learning Hindi at the National Defence Academy (NDA) was a nightmare, much like the author’s challenges at the Delhi School of Planning and Architecture. I derived a sadistic pleasure from annoying the Hindi pundits, coining new words and inventing grammar rules just to sow doubt in their minds—a small vengeance that brought me joy.

During the Delhi riots, in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, our Regiment was at Delhi and we were responsible for the security of Teen Murthi Bhawan where her mortal remains lay in state. I witnessed the mayhem and for the first time someone had the courage to point out the real perpetrators- the Congress Party goons and the right-wing Hindu nationalists.

Arundathi’s relationships, specially with men follows her lament in the God of Small Things- Who can love whom and by how much was written in the love laws a long time ago. For her, the family unit is the rope on which the whole world swings and the families are drawn close by the threads of acute sufferings.

Her relationship with her mother Mary whom she describes as unpredictable, irreplaceable spark of mad genius – a dreamer, warrior teacher – is of fear, love, respect, empathy and pity. Arundathi as per Mary was an unwanted child whom she tried to abort during pregnancy. Their relationship was always thorny and conflict ridden to end with Mary’s declaration ‘There is no one in the world whom I have loved more than you.’

Reading the book, I was struck by the number of ‘would’s—a hesitant, non-committal tense that seems to shy away from affirmation. Removing them would have condensed the book by ten pages, and I wondered if, in her meticulous detail, the author occasionally missed the woods for the trees.

In the end, I was left with the echo of a Beatles song from 1970, Let It Be, written by Paul McCartney after a dream in which his mother, Mary, offered wisdom and comfort in a time of trouble.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

The book and the song are a universal balm, but in this context, it felt uniquely specific. It was a refrain not just of resignation, but of hard-won peace, arriving after a long and righteous fight for what is undeniably equal.