"I am not a crusader, just a
troublesome writer"

TWO years ago her Booker Prize winning book The God of Small Things was described as a "Tigerwoodsian debut’ and hailed as the best thing to happen to the Indian literary scene since Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.

Arundhati Roy, still an elusive and reluctant celebrity, has often claimed that it took all of her 37 years of life to write the book. Often describing it as, "letting my guts hang out." She claims that she never worried about market or reader response to the book. For her it was just a way of looking at small things that matter in life.

The focus now seems to be shifting. It is no longer the "small things" but major issues which provide stimulation to her. Whether it is lashing out at India going nuclear or taking up the cause of displaced people of the Narmada Valley, Arundhati Roy has always been an unconventional rebel in a conventional world. And, for her growing tribe of critics, she remains unapologetic for whatever she does — whether it is being anti-nuclear or anti Narmada Dam.

"Curiosity took me to the Narmada Valley," Arundhati recently wrote in the June 1999 issue of Frontline. "Instinct told me that this was the big one. The one in which the battle lines were clearly drawn, the warring armies massed along them ... I was drawn to the valley because I sensed that the fight for the Narmada had entered a newer, sadder phase. I went because writers are drawn to stories the way vultures are drawn to kills. My motive was not compassion. It was sheer greed. I was right. I found a story there. And what a story it is ...."

Indeed it is for Arundhati who has virtually stolen the thunder from under the feet of Medha Patkar in the Narmada Bachao campaign. "I am a troublesome writer," she says with glee.

Excerpts from an exclusive interview with Saikat Neogi.

Why did you get suddenly get concerned about the Narmada Valley?

The sudden concern came because in February 1999, the Supreme Court lifted the four-year-long legal stay on the construction of the dam and this monsoon 12,000 adivasis face submergence with nowhere to go.

It is said that you are always looking for controversial causes. Is that true?

Maybe. Though I wouldn’t use the world "controversial" or for that matter, "causes" in this case. Forty million people have been driven from their homes by the reservoirs of big dams in the last 50 years. And India does not have a national rehabilitation policy. Is that being controversial?

What has specifically drawn your attention to the Narmada issue?

What drew the world’s attention to the Holocaust? What drew the world’s attention to the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? What drew peoples’ attention to the Bhopal Gas tragedy? Or to ChernobyI?

You are organising a rally for the Valley. What is it all about?

A group of people from outside the Narmada Valley are going to express their solidarity with those on Satyagraha in the Valley. These people have said that they will not move from their homes when the waters come. There will be many representatives from the Press. They will have an opportunity to speak to the people who are being affected themselves, instead of relying on relayed news. Hopefully it will achieve a deeper understanding of the issue by a greater number of people.

Experts say that this could be a losing battle you are fighting....

I don’t think so. But even if it is, it is better to lose this one than not to have fought it at all.

Has your support changed the course of the struggle? Has it given it a new lease of life?

No. The struggle continues along the same course. I don’t know what the outcome will be. Every day the water is rising. I don’t know what more I can do to help than what I’ve already done.

Are you trying to upstage Medha Patekar?

Yes, definitely. Also Baba Amte, the Prime Minister and, if possible, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. Not to mention Julia Roberts!

Will you write a book about the Narmada?

No I won’t.

Last year you went anti-nuclear with passion this year it is the Narmada issue. What will it be in the next millennium?

Either I’II go back to the Nuclear Tests and never move from the issue or, on the other hand, I may decide to enjoy my enormous wealth in an uninhibited fashion, live in the Bahamas and write fiery rejoinders to a Peoples Movement that denounces me for being a callous socialite who is unconcerned about the state of the world. I don’t know, I haven’t decided. Probably the latter.

Do you now see yourself as a writer or a crusader?

A troublesome writer, I’d say.

Do such issues leave you any time to pursue your writing?

Enough. The question is only, do I want to?

What next?

Who knows? The Bahamas perhaps.