The Ministry of Utmost Happiness; Penguin Books, 2017

The

Ministry of Utmost Happiness takes

us on a journey of many years-the story spooling outwards from the cramped

neighbourhoods of Old Delhi into the burgeoning new metropolis and beyond, to

the Valley of Kashmir and the forests of Central India, where war is peace and

peace is war, and where, from time to time, 'normalcy' is declared.

Anjum, who used to be Aftab, unrolls a threadbare

carpet in a city graveyard that she calls home. A baby appears quite suddenly

on a pavement, a little after midnight, in a crib of litter. The enigmatic S.

Tilottama is as much of a presence as she is an absence in the lives of the

three men who loved her.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is at once an aching love story and a decisive

remonstration. It is told in a whisper, in a shout, through tears and sometimes

with a laugh. Its heroes are people who have been broken by the world they live

in and then rescued, mended by love-and by hope. For this reason, they are as

steely as they are fragile, and they never surrender. This ravishing,

magnificent book reinvents what a novel can do and can be. And it demonstrates

on every page the miracle of Arundhati Roy's storytelling gifts.

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