[Reader-list] WHO IS AFRAID OF ARUNDHATI ROY?

[Pheeta Ram]

Some people on this list are afraid of 'Arundhati Roy - the joke' ( BTW, a
joke is not a joke) because they are afraid of laughing for obvious
reasons:

a) they are afraid because some other people simply love her and are not
afraid to confess that
b) they are afraid because she used to visit some upper-class gym in skimpy
clothing
c) they are afraid because she married twice and is finally officially
single
d) they are afraid because she supports maoists and for them maoist is a
term of abuse
e) they are afraid because she supports the Aazadi of Kashmiri people from
the repressive Indian state
 f) they are afraid because she writes bewitchingly beautiful prose for
subversive, anti-national purposes
g) they are afraid because they think she is publicity hungry
h) they are afraid because she is some day certainly going to win the Nobel
Prize
i) they are afraid because she is simply beautiful in those curly hair and
that mellow childlike voice; and those mesmerizingly wondrous eyes which are
not afraid to sing for you the serenades of freedom
j) they are afraid because they cannot NOTREAD what she writes in a 32 page
long essay after walking with the comrades in the jungles of Dantewada
k) they are afraid because the Indian state is now terribly scared of
putting her in jail for that shall certainly fetch her the Nobel Prize and
win Kashmir the Aazadi
l) they are afraid because she shared dais with SASG and made him realize
that Kashmiris are not alone in their struggle and also that Kashmiris also
need to know that there is a wider world surrounding them that is also
struggling and that they need to acknowledge it and support it; and that the
Kashmiris have the histories of India and Pakistan ( both collective and
separate) before them to take strict lessons from, to fashion a nation-state
that does justice to the sacrifices of the people who have fought, are
fighting and shall continue fighting for Kashmir; and that all struggles
against the tyrant are essentially connected
m)they are afraid because she hops from one issue to another ( Narmada
>>Maoists>>Kashmir>>which next?)
n) they are afraid because she goes against their normative definitions of
beauty and gender
o) they are afraid because 'even a rickshawala' is praising her saying that
she is a 'pseudo intellectual' (?) (Isn't it a pity that a rickshawala of
such a potential is not on the sarai list?).
p) they are afraid because the Indian media -the stooges of Indian state -
don't know what to do with her (even supremely articulate ones from the
media (like Karan Thapar) make an ass of themselves while interviewing her)
q) they are afraid because she spits on their faces and is not wee bit
apologetic about it because she knows that they deserve it and that its her
duty to do that
r) they are afraid because she is fast becoming a role model for the
beautiful, well-connected upper-class convent educated women who are
devouring her from cover to cover secretively like mills-and-boons even in
their bathrooms ( so that their businessmen fathers and social butterfly
mothers don't catch them reading her) and dreaming about being her in their
fantasy worlds (one of them confessed to me) ( in this manner the phenomenon
called Arundhati becomes a past-master in reverse engineering)
s) they are afraid because she has made them realize that capitalism is like
a deadly virus that shall one day surely eat itself away
t) they are afraid because she thinks with a beautiful heart (hence a
'pseudo-intellectual')
u) they are afraid because she converts "aesthetics of deferral" ( one
scourge that afflicts most of the 'intellectuals' of todays world) into a
beautiful "aestheto-ethics of arrival", no mean feat i should say
v) they are afraid because they unconsciously compete with her and finding
her a sure winner are afraid to take the challenge
w) they are afraid because she challenges the very rationale of their being
and becoming
x) they are afraid because she happens to be a woman (like them)
y) they are afraid because the Indian state has done a beautiful job in
bringing them up on a steady diet of 'nationalist' propaganda through first
beginning with NCERT textbooks in brainwashing saloons called 'Schools' (
the reason behind the popularity of Bollywood and Cricket)
z) they are afraid because despite their manifest hate for her they have
serious doubts that some where down there they love her too.
...

BTW, who is afraid of what comes after Z? Jump the gun please.