Arundhati Roy - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

FICTION

The God of Small Things

NON-FICTION

The Algebra of Infinite Justice

An Ordinary Persons Guide to Empire

The Shape of the Beast

Listening to Grasshoppers

Broken Republic

Capitalism: A Ghost Story

Things That Can and Cannot Be Said: Essays and Conversations

(with John Cusack)

The Doctor and the Saint: Caste, Race, and the Annihilation of Caste
(The Debate between B.R. Ambedkar and M.K. Gandhi)

I wove the love and friendship that I received from those whose names I mention below into a carpet on which I thought, slept, dreamed, fled, and flew around during the many years it took me to write this book. My thanks to:

John Berger, who helped me start and waited for me to finish.

Mayank Austen Soofi and Aijaz Hussain. They know why. I dont need to tell.

Parvaiz Bukhari. Same as above.

Shohini Ghosh, beloved madcap, who queered my pitch.

Jawed Naqvi for music, wicked poetry and a house full of lilies.

Ustad Hameed, who showed me that you can skydive, snorkel and hang-glide between any two notes of music.

Dayanita Singh, with whom I once went wandering, and an idea was ignited.

Munni and Shigori in Meena Bazaar for long hours spent shooting the breeze.

The Jhinjhanvis: Sabiha and Naseer-ul-Hassan, Shaheena and Muneer-ul-Hassan, for a home in Shahjahanabad.

Tarun Bhartiya, Prashant Bhushan, Mohammed Junaid, Arif Ayaz Parray, Khurram Parvez, Parvez Imroze, P.G. Rasool, Arjun Raina, Jitendra Yadav, Ashwin Desai, G.N. Saibaba, Rona Wilson, Nandini Oza, Shripad Dharmadhikary, Himanshu Thakker, Nikhil De, Anand, Dionne Bunsa, Chittaroopa Palit, Saba Naqvi and Reverend Sunil Sardar, whose insights are somewhere in the foundations of The Ministry.

Savitri and Ravikumar for our travels together and for so much else.

J.J. (Heck.) But shes in here somewhere.

Rebecca John, Chander Uday Singh, Jawahar Raja, Rishabh Sancheti, Harsh Bora, Mr Deshpande and Akshaya Sudame, who have kept me out of prison. (So far.)

Susanna Lea and Lisette Verhagen, World Ambassadors of Utmost Happiness. Heather Godwin and Philippa Sitters, who woman the base camp.

David Eldridge, jacket-designer extraordinaire. Two books, twenty years apart.

Iris Weinstein for perfect pages.

Ellie Smith, Sarah Coward, Arpita Basu, George Wen, Benjamin Hamilton, Maria Massey and Jennifer Kurdyla. Close readers, serious-shit copy-editors and brilliant protagonists in the transatlantic comma wars.

Pankaj Mishra, First Reader, still.

Robin Desser and Simon Prosser. Dream editors.

My wonderful publishers, Sonny Mehta, Meru Gokhale (for publishing plus comfort food), Hans Jrgen Balmes, Antoine Gallimard, Luigi Brioschi, Jorge Herralde, Dorotea Bromberg and all the others whom I have not personally met.

Suman Parihar, Mohammed Sumon, Krishna Bhoat and Ashok Kumar, who kept me afloat when it wasnt easy.

Suzie Q, mobile shrink, dear friend and best cabbie in London.

Krishnan Tewari, Sharmila Mitra and Deepa Verma for my daily dose of sweat, sanity and laughter.

John Cusack, supersweetheart, co-drafter of the Fleedom Charter.

Eve Ensler and Bindia Thapar. Beloveds.

My mother like no other, Mary Roy, most unique human.

My brother, LKC, keeper of my sanity, and sister-in-law, Mary, both of whom, like me, survived.

Golak. Go. Oldest friend.

Mithva and Pia. Littles. Still mine.

David Godwin. Flying Agent. Top Man. Without whom.

Anthony Arnove, comrade, agent, publisher, rock.

Pradip Krishen, love of many years, honorary tree.

Sanjay Kak. Cave. Since for ever.

And

Begum Filthy Jaan and Maati K. Lal. Creatures.

Special acknowledgements:

The passage which the weevil professor reads aloud to his weevil class is adapted from Straw Dogs by John Gray.

The lyrics Dark to light and light to dark are from Gone by Ioanna Gika.

The poem Duniya ki mehfilon se ukta gaya hoon ya Rab is by Allama Iqbal.

The couplet on Arifa Yeswis gravestone is by Ahmed Faraz.

Permissions:

The epigraph . All rights reserved.

The epigraph .

The epigraph : Muharram in Srinagar, 1992, from The Country Without a Post Office by Agha Shahid Ali. Copyright 1997 by Agha Shahid Ali. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

The epigraph : taken from Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet, translated by Bernard Frechtman. Copyright Jean Genet, 1943, 1951, 1964, 1973. Translation copyright Bernard Frechtman, 1943, 1951, 1964, 1973. Reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.

The song is No Good Man, words and music by Irene Higginbotham, Dan Fisher and Sammy Gallop, copyright 1944, Universal Music Corp. Universal/MCA Music Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited; copyright 1945 (renewed), Sammy Gallop Music Company (ASCAP). All rights on behalf of Sammy Gallop Music Company administered by WB Music Corp.

The song is Gone, words and music by Joanna Gikas, copyright UPG Music Publishing, 2012. Universal/MCA Music Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited.

The epigraph : the publisher is grateful for permission to reproduce an extract from The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, published by Penguin Classics, reprinted by permission of The Baldwin Estate.

The song taken from Winter Lady, words and music by Leonard Cohen, copyright Sony/ATV Songs LLC, 1966. Chrysalis Songs Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

The poem : Osip Mandelstam, Selected Poems, translated by James Greene (Penguin Books; copyright James Greene, 1989, 1991); by permission of Angel Books.

The epigraph : from Hope Against Hope by Nadezhda Mandelstam, translated by Max Hayward, published by Harvill Press. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. Copyright Atheneum Publishers, 1970.

Arundhati Roy

---

THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia

India | New Zealand | South Africa

Hamish Hamilton is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published 2017

Copyright Arundhati Roy, 2017

The constitute an extension of this copyright page

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover photographs by Mayank Austen Soofi

Cover design by Two Associates

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.