Ministry of Utmost Happiness is the second novel by Booker’s Prize winner author, Arundhati Roy. Arundhati Roy who found fame with her earlier novel, The God of Small Things, in 1997 has been active in dissent politics, particularly against communal propaganda.
Ministry of Utmost Happiness centers around the question of one’s happiness when one isn’t happy with the standards of happiness in ‘Duniya’, the world as Anjum calls it, which houses the normal people. The central characters are, in some way, distraught of the world they live in and seek shelter at Jannat guest house, which has been aptly named since it is located in a graveyard. The rooms contain a tomb or two, mainly the dead acquaintances of Anjum.
The main characters are all deeply upset with the system and one can see Roy’s opinion on the state politics that uses community and religion as an agenda. Anjum is not accepted due to her transgender status. Practice of homosexual relations was punishable under Section 377, however, ‘hijras’ due to their coveted status continued to exist. Anjum is deeply conflicted not just due to the fact that she can’t make a livelihood like normal people, or have a relation where she could experience bodily pleasures after a doctor scammed into getting her penis removed and giving her a fake vagina, but due to the fact that she can never be in a body she feels she was made for. She also is deeply traumatized after witnessing the carnage of Gujrat riots of 2002.
Tilo appears as caricature of Roy’s imagination of herself. A woman who rebels at first simply to see if anyone would react, and then because she is sure she won’t be missed. In doing so, one gets a glimpse of Roy’s thought process as a single girl living in Delhi who finds her cause and lives for it. However, that, if that is what her intention is indeed, portraying herself in a third person narrative, doesn’t really work here. It romanticizes the plot in a Bollywood fashion, which seems a bit out of her style. She tries to make Tilo mysterious and enigmatic in a way that asks for one’s attention, but it doesn’t really work for Tilo since she remains a mystery to the readers as well. It is entirely possible that it was done on intention.
Musa, Biplab, and Naga are almost same characters, with different nuances. They have a particular aim, have some sort of disagreement with their fathers in varying degrees, they all have a set of morals that they often question and they all are in love with Tilo. Perhaps, this love angle is the most unrealistic part of the whole book. There is just not enough conviction in this sub-plot.
The book also contains certain sections of unintentional comedy, and use of local languages which can be a stretch for a foreign reader if not for the helpful meaning provided in the text.
