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E M S of Small Things is not the E M S of real

The E M S in Arundhati Roy's Booker-winning God of Small Things is not Communist veteran Namboodiripad, but Ezhumavil Subramaniam Namboodiripad, a fictional character sired solely by the author's imagination.

This clarification was issued by Dr Malathi Damodaran, daughter of the veteran Marxist leader.

Roy, according to Dr Damodaran, has transgressed her freedom of expression by grossly misrepresenting facts. Although she had stated the E M S Namboodiripad of her book is fictional, Dr Damodaran says there are sufficient factual references to her father, including his being the chief minister of the first-ever democratically elected Communist government in the world, subsequently dismissed by the Nehru regime (as stated in pages 67 and 68 of the award-winning novel).

The ancestral home of EMS in Small Things had been turned into a hotel. However, Dr Damodaran points out that nothing of that sort has been done to her father's house in south Kerala, that her uncle and family live there at present.

She said she was issuing the clarification because her family was being harassed with repeated queries from various quarters including newspapers about the hotel referred to in the book.

UNI

EARLIER LINKS:
• Nayanar pours scorn on God of Small Things
• Now, it is EMS's turn to slam Arundhati Roy!

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