Arundhati Roy’s Journey Through Storms, Silence, and Return

Introduction by Ammu:  

Somewhere between the lines of truth and fiction, there is a place where voices whisper what history forgets, and silence carries the weight of survival. That’s where I come from.

My name is Ammu. I lived a small life in a big world that didn’t leave much room for women like me—angry, bright, and unforgiven. I was a mother. I was unloved. I made mistakes. I tried to love carefully, and sometimes, I failed.

“D’you know what happens when you hurt people?” I once asked.
“When you hurt people, they begin to love you less.
That’s what careless words do.
They make people love you a little less.”

But what no one told me—what no one told Arundhati, either—is that sometimes, telling the truth sounds like hurting someone. Especially when that someone is the world.

She told the truth. Over and over again. And the world called her dangerous.

That’s why she needed friends—not just allies, but soul-companions. Brave ones. Fierce ones. Women and men who saw her fully and never asked her to shrink.

So come closer. Listen.

This is the story of five moments in Arundhati Roy’s life. Five quiet storms. Five best friends who stood beside her:
Toni, when she was searching for home.
Zadie, when she was broke but burning.
Angela, when the spotlight hurt more than it healed.
Ai, when the cost of dissent knocked in the middle of the night.
Naomi, when fiction called her back like a long-lost child.

And I—I’ll be watching from the margins, where I’ve always lived.
But for once, in these pages, the margins will speak.

(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.) 

Belonging in a Fractured World

Imaginary Best Friend: Toni Morrison
Theme: Identity, family, ancestry, and the longing to be whole

Scene 1: The Graveyard Beneath the Rain Trees – Kerala, Dusk

The graveyard is quiet, wrapped in the scent of wet soil and crushed jasmine. The rain trees arch above like old women leaning in to listen. Arundhati stands near a weathered stone bearing her father’s surname. She runs a hand across the faint letters. Toni, dressed in a simple indigo sari for the occasion, stands beside her.

“Isn’t it strange,” Arundhati murmurs, “how something so permanent—like stone—can still feel forgotten?”

Toni doesn’t answer at first. She touches a leaf fallen on the headstone and flicks it away gently.
“It’s not the forgetting that haunts us,” she finally says. “It’s the splitting. That tearing between names, tongues, skins.”

They walk in silence, the drizzle falling again, soft and rhythmic. Arundhati’s sandals sink into the mud. She laughs bitterly.

“I was the Christian girl with a Hindu father. English-speaking, but not white. Not Malayalam enough, not Delhi enough. Too loud in Kerala, too brown in school.”

Toni nods. “You were born at the crossroads, child. But don’t mistake it for exile. The crossroads is where stories start.”

Scene 2: A Kitchen of Two Mothers – Delhi, Late Night

The kitchen is warm, full of cinnamon, mustard seeds, and stories. Arundhati stirs a pot of fish curry, while Toni mixes molasses for an improvised American-style cake. Both women laugh when the batter spills and a cat darts across the counter.

“My mother,” Arundhati says, wiping flour from her nose, “she fought the Supreme Court so Syrian Christian women could inherit property. But when I got suspended from architecture school, she didn’t say a word. Just looked at me like I’d been possessed.”

Toni hands her a wooden spoon. “Mothers do that. They carry a country’s shame on their shoulders, and sometimes… they see their daughters as the rebellion that will burn everything down.”

“She wanted me to be accepted. But I couldn’t wear their clothes, speak their lies.”

“And so you wrote your own.”

They sit on the floor to eat, the curry fiery, the cake lopsided. The kitchen becomes a chapel where two women pray with food and memory, reclaiming space the world denied them.

Scene 3: The Attic of Secrets – Old Delhi, Monsoon Afternoon

Rain hammers the roof as they sit in the attic of Arundhati’s childhood home. Around them, old boxes spill over with notebooks, drawings, letters. Arundhati pulls out a diary from when she was nine. She reads aloud, voice cracking:

“Today I got told I was an untouchable. I didn’t understand what I touched.”

Toni closes her eyes.

“I remember writing,” Arundhati says. “Like I was trying to glue the world back together. I’d draw maps—make-believe nations where people weren’t cruel, where silence didn’t kill.”

Toni opens a tin box and finds a broken toy elephant.

“Even broken things carry memory,” she says. “This attic? It’s not full of ghosts. It’s full of versions of you still learning how to speak.”

“And what if I still don’t know who I am?”

Toni places the elephant in her palm.
“Then maybe you’re still being written.”

Scene 4: Under the Banyan Tree – School Grounds, Twilight

They sit beneath the banyan tree at Arundhati’s old school, the same one where she was called names, excluded from games, and silenced for asking questions.

“I used to sit right here,” Arundhati says, “pretending I didn’t care. But I did. Every time they said I wasn’t ‘Indian enough.’ Every time they mocked my accent, or the fact I read Woolf while they chased boys.”

Toni takes out a pack of chalk and scribbles a spiral on the tree’s exposed root.
“Let me tell you something, Arundhati. Whiteness, caste, patriarchy—none of them care what’s enough. They feed on your shame.”

Arundhati sighs. “Sometimes I feel like I was forged in rejection.”

Toni smiles. “Then rejection is your forge. And this banyan, this place—it’s not the site of your wounds. It’s the archive of your resilience.”

They sit in silence, the sky purpling, as fireflies emerge one by one.

Scene 5: The Mirror and the Letter – Dawn, The Day She Leaves

In the quiet of dawn, before Toni’s departure, she hands Arundhati a package: a mirror wrapped in red cloth, and a handwritten letter.

Arundhati unfolds the letter. It reads:

“Dear one,
You are not broken. You are plural.
You are not too much. You are more than they can measure.
Don’t let them shrink you into their categories—woman, brown, caste, Christian, rebel.
You are river and flame, book and wound.

Keep writing. Keep gathering the fragments.
And remember: the love you seek outside is the love you owe your own name.

—Toni”

Arundhati holds the mirror. For the first time, she sees not a split girl—but a mosaic.
In her reflection: mother’s courage, father’s rebellion, rain trees, molasses cake, chalk spirals, attic ghosts, and fireflies.

She turns to the empty chair beside her.

“Thank you, Toni. For showing me that belonging isn’t where you’re from. It’s where your voice is finally free.”

The Architecture of Survival

Imaginary Best Friend: Zadie Smith
Theme: Financial instability, creative risk, and surviving on vision when money runs out

Scene 1: A Delhi Rooftop, 3 A.M.

The night smells of dust and distant mangoes. On the rooftop of a crumbling Delhi building, Arundhati lies on a rolled-up mat, counting stars. Next to her, Zadie Smith balances a cigarette between her fingers like a poet posing for an unseen audience.

“You think the moon over Kilburn looks like this?” Arundhati asks.

Zadie laughs. “Nah. Too clean. No rust, no honking. No electricity lines cutting through the sky.”

They’re both broke—eating once a day, sharing a single fan, translating their lives into half-finished scripts and scribbled notes.

“I got rejected again,” Arundhati whispers. “Architecture firms say I’m too distracted. Screenplay producers say I’m too opinionated.”

Zadie exhales slowly. “Maybe you’re not too much, Aru. Maybe the world’s too little.”

They fall silent as dogs howl in the alley. Below, a leaking pipe gurgles like an old throat clearing itself.

“I’m tired of being invisible,” Arundhati finally says.

Zadie hands her the cigarette. “You’re not invisible. You’re just early.”

Scene 2: Napkin Sketches in a Teashop

A torn teashop menu serves as their sketchpad. Arundhati’s hands move fast—scribbling building facades that spiral into birds, windows shaped like poems. Zadie watches, sipping over-steeped chai.

“You ever build anything?” Zadie asks.

“Dreams. Protests. Maybe a world where poor girls win.”

Zadie smirks. “Ambitious architecture.”

A group of men laugh nearby. One nudges another and says something about “unemployed women pretending to be artists.”

Arundhati glares. “Should I slap him with a napkin or a novel?”

“Neither,” Zadie says, pulling out a lipstick. “You want revenge? Publish first.”

They erupt into laughter that drowns out every insult.

Outside, the city thrums with noise and heat, but in that moment, the two women make the table their own tiny republic—of boldness, ink, and caffeine.

Scene 3: Booksellers and Broken Sandals

It’s Sunday. They prowl the Daryaganj market for secondhand books and cheap shoes. Arundhati’s sandals have given up mid-step.

“You look like a Greek goddess of struggle,” Zadie jokes, offering one of her own shoes.

They limp along, one barefoot, one mismatched, flipping through tattered Dostoevsky, Baldwin, and Bama. Arundhati clutches a book of Neruda poems with no price tag.

“Too expensive,” she sighs.

Zadie grabs the stall owner’s attention. “How much for the broke poet?”

He shrugs. “Twenty rupees.”

Zadie digs in her pocket. “I have twelve and a peppermint.”

“Sold,” the man grins.

They walk back barefoot, reciting Neruda on sidewalks cracked like their bank accounts.

“Do you think people like us are allowed to be great?” Arundhati asks.

Zadie stops. “Aru, we’re not just allowed. We’re required.”

Scene 4: Crying in the Rain, Then Dancing Anyway

A storm rolls in, sudden and electric. They run toward their apartment, dodging puddles. But when they reach the gate, Arundhati collapses against it, shaking.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she sobs. “No one wants my words. I’m exhausted. I want to sleep for a year.”

Zadie kneels beside her. “Then sleep. But don’t quit.”

“I’m always on the edge of something. But never over it. Never safe.”

Zadie looks up at the rain. “That’s the artist’s place. The edge.”

She stands, pulls Arundhati up, and without warning, begins to dance. Right there. In the thunder and mud.

“What the hell are you doing?” Arundhati yells, soaked.

“Celebrating!” Zadie shouts. “You’re not dead, not forgotten, not done!”

They twirl, stomp, slip. A neighbor peeks out and mutters, “Madwomen.”

Arundhati laughs through her tears. “Mad? No. Revolutionary.”

Scene 5: The Story That Wasn’t Meant to Be Sent

Weeks pass. Hunger grows quieter but deeper. Arundhati writes a short story about twins, love, loss, caste, and broken paradise. She tells Zadie, “It’s rubbish. No plot. Too lyrical. No one will get it.”

Zadie doesn’t respond. She waits for Arundhati to go out for groceries, then sneaks into the notebook, types it up, and mails it to a literary agent in London.

When Arundhati finds out, she’s furious. “That was private.”

“No,” Zadie says gently, “that was luminous.”

Three weeks later, a letter arrives. Then a call. Then another.

A publisher wants to see more.

Arundhati clutches the phone, speechless.

Zadie winks. “You were right. It wasn’t meant to be sent. It was meant to be heard.”

Final Reflection – A Rooftop Revisited

They return to the same rooftop, years later. Arundhati has just turned down a massive film deal.

“I’d rather build something truthful than profitable,” she says.

Zadie nods. “You always did design impossible blueprints.”

“But you—” Arundhati says, smiling, “you believed the structure would stand.”

“I didn’t need to,” Zadie replies. “I just needed to remind you that the architect was real.”

They watch the moon rise above Delhi, rusted wires still cutting across the sky. But now, Arundhati sees them not as scars—but scaffolding.

She breathes in the city. “I’m ready to build again.”

The Burden of the Spotlight

Imaginary Best Friend: Angela Davis
Theme: Fame, backlash, public criticism, and the emotional weight of speaking truth to power

Scene 1: The Hotel Room After the Booker – London, 1997

Room 428 is filled with champagne bottles, scattered congratulations, and the numbness of disbelief. Arundhati Roy sits in a red silk dress on the windowsill, clutching a half-written speech in one hand and a newspaper clipping in the other.

Angela Davis is there, barefoot on the couch, her signature afro damp from rain, flipping channels idly.

“They say I’m a disgrace,” Arundhati mutters. “That I’ve betrayed India. Sold caste and shame to the West.”

Angela looks up. “The more righteous the story, the harsher the punishment. That’s how patriarchy and nationalism protect themselves.”

Arundhati exhales sharply. “I thought the prize would bring clarity. Instead, I feel split in half—writer and traitor.”

Angela walks over, takes the paper from her hand, and tears it in two.

“They don’t get to define your love for your country. Truth-tellers are never celebrated by those who profit from silence.”

Scene 2: The Press Conference Tornado – Delhi, One Week Later

A room of flashing cameras. A barrage of questions.

“Are you anti-national?”
“Do you believe India is oppressive?”
“Did you exaggerate caste discrimination for Western appeal?”

Arundhati stares at them. Her throat is tight. Every answer feels like walking into a trap.

Then, from the back of the room, Angela’s calm voice cuts through.

“Next question,” she says, walking forward, “should be: What truth are you afraid to hear?”

Gasps. Silence. Then shifting in seats.

Angela takes the mic.

“We do not ask men why they write about war. We do not accuse white authors of betrayal when they reveal their nation’s crimes. Why then do we police brown women who hold up a mirror?”

The press conference ends not with applause, but with a stunned, uncomfortable quiet.

Arundhati whispers, “I couldn’t have done that.”

Angela replies, “You already did. I just echoed it louder.”

Scene 3: Rooftop Talk Beneath a Smoky Moon – Delhi, Midnight

They sit on the rooftop again. Delhi below is restless. Arundhati is curled into herself, the noise of the world thudding in her chest.

“I’m not an activist,” she says. “I’m a writer. But they’ve turned me into a symbol—either a goddess or a traitor.”

Angela pulls a thermos from her bag. Coffee. Strong. Shared in silence.

“I know what it’s like,” Angela says. “To be turned into a banner or burned as a witch. There were days in prison I thought I’d never be free again.”

“Were you scared?”

Angela smiles. “Of course. But I was also aware that fear is the price of clarity. If you’re never afraid, you’re probably not saying anything worth hearing.”

Arundhati looks out at the blur of city lights. “Do you ever miss anonymity?”

“I miss privacy. But not invisibility. We write to be seen, not to be swallowed.”

Scene 4: The Village Reading – Kerala, A Schoolyard at Dusk

Children sit cross-legged, listening to Arundhati read from The God of Small Things. One girl recites a line from memory:

“It’s true. Things can change in a day.”

After the reading, the girl approaches. “I didn’t know people like us could be in books,” she says.

Arundhati kneels. “People like us are why books exist.”

Angela stands in the background, hands clasped. Later, as they walk to the jeep, she says, “That girl—that’s your legacy. Not the prize. Not the critics.”

“But what if I never write again?”

Angela pauses. “Then let your life be the novel. Let your courage be the poetry.”

Scene 5: An Apology and a Challenge – Delhi Café, Months Later

They sit in a shadowy café near Connaught Place. A former literary critic approaches their table—one who had once called Roy “overhyped and self-indulgent.”

“I owe you an apology,” he says. “You made me uncomfortable. That’s what good writing should do. I see that now.”

Arundhati simply nods.

After he leaves, Angela leans in.

“Well then. What next?”

Arundhati stirs her tea. “I don’t want to write just for applause. I want to write for the people who have no voice.”

Angela grins. “Then write like your truth is a hammer. And let the applause come from the ones who’ve been waiting to breathe.”

Final Reflection – A Walk Through the Bookstore

In a quiet bookstore in New York, they walk side by side. Arundhati notices her novel in the “bestseller” section and pauses.

“Do you think it still means anything?” she asks.

Angela touches the cover and replies, “You didn’t write it to mean something. You wrote it to change something.”

Arundhati turns to her, her eyes steady now.

“I’m ready for the next battle.”

Angela links arms with her.

“And I’ll be beside you in every line of it.”

The Cost of Dissent

Imaginary Best Friend: Ai Weiwei
Theme: Government surveillance, legal battles, social pressure, and the price of speaking out

Scene 1: The Midnight Knock – Delhi, 2010

A loud bang on the gate.

Arundhati stumbles from bed. Angela Davis’s old copy of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle falls from the nightstand. Footsteps echo down the hall—hers and another pair. Ai Weiwei walks beside her calmly, wearing a robe, sipping cold tea.

“You expecting guests?” he asks dryly.

Outside: four officers in plainclothes. Polite enough to be menacing. “We’d like to ask a few questions regarding your recent speech on Kashmir.”

Arundhati glances at Ai, heart pounding.

He leans against the doorframe. “In China, they don’t ask. They take.”

The officers step back as Ai records them silently with his phone. After a tense silence, they leave. Arundhati shuts the door and leans against it, breath ragged.

“They want me afraid,” she whispers.

Ai places a hand on her shoulder. “Fear is their signature. But your voice is already carved into the stone of resistance.”

Scene 2: Invisible Ink in Prison Cells – Somewhere Near Bastar

They visit a tribal region in central India—heavily policed, rarely reported. Arundhati interviews a family displaced by mining. Ai sketches quietly beside her, using lemon juice instead of ink.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

He grins. “Making invisible art. It only appears when exposed to fire.”

Later, she sees it: a drawing of hands reaching out from prison bars made of corporate logos.

They’re stopped at a checkpoint. Armed guards. Tense stares.

Ai whispers, “Smile like you’re just a tourist. A rich one. I do this all the time.”

“Do you ever get used to it?”

“No. But I get better at dancing through it.”

She smiles tightly. “I hate this dance.”

He pats her bag. “Then use your pen like a sword.”

Scene 3: The Train Conversation – Somewhere Between Kolkata and Delhi

The train rumbles through the night. Arundhati is curled beside the window, sleepless, watching telephone poles slice the moonlight.

Ai sits opposite her, drinking beer from a thermos.

“They say I’m anti-national,” she murmurs. “That I incite unrest.”

Ai raises an eyebrow. “Truth always incites. Silence keeps the economy running.”

She laughs softly. “I wanted to write novels, not manifestos.”

“But you did both. You’re an architect of revolt.”

He pulls out a small sculpture from his bag—a stone figure with a broken wing.

“Sometimes we’re asked to fly with damage,” he says. “And that brokenness becomes design.”

She looks at the sculpture. It’s crude. Beautiful.

“Is this me?”

“It’s us.”

Scene 4: The Courtroom Sketch – Delhi High Court, 2011

Fluorescent lights buzz. Reporters whisper. The courtroom is packed.

Arundhati sits on the defendant’s bench—charged with sedition for her speech on Kashmir and Maoist resistance.

Ai is seated behind her, sketchpad in hand.

While the prosecutor recites arguments about “national integrity,” Ai draws a figure wrapped in barbed wire reading a poem.

“You’re sketching me?” she whispers.

He nods. “Someday, this will hang in an underground gallery.”

She looks back at the judge.

“I’m not sorry,” she says when her turn comes. “My duty is not to power, but to people. And I will not apologize for naming violence where others call it law.”

The courtroom erupts. Applause. Outrage. Flashbulbs.

Back in the hallway, Ai says, “That was your museum moment.”

Scene 5: A Garden Under Surveillance – Secret Location, One Year Later

They sit in a rooftop garden full of bougainvillea and silence. Drones buzz faintly above—surveillance never sleeps.

Arundhati sips water from a clay cup.

“I’m exhausted,” she confesses. “Every word is watched. Every move interpreted as betrayal.”

Ai reclines on a bench, eyes on the stars.

“I once installed a camera in my own bathroom,” he says. “To mock the state. If they wanted to watch, I’d turn it into performance.”

She chuckles. “You made the cage into theater.”

“No. I made it art. And art never kneels.”

She looks up at the sky. “Maybe I’ll stop publishing. Just go quiet.”

Ai sits up. “And what will you say to the next girl who’s arrested for quoting you?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she pulls out her notebook and begins to write again.

Final Reflection – A Wall of Shadows Turned Light

They visit a makeshift gallery in an abandoned Delhi warehouse. On the walls: Ai’s sketches of her speeches, her arrests, her silence, her rage.

Projected on one wall is a quote from Roy:

“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”

Ai turns to her.

“You were never voiceless. You were too loud for those who feared the truth.”

Arundhati touches one of the drawings—a mouth stitched shut but glowing.

“Then I’ll keep speaking.”

He nods. “And I’ll keep drawing the echo.”

The Long Silence of Return

Imaginary Best Friend: Naomi Klein
Theme: Self-doubt, public expectations, and rediscovering the voice of fiction after years of political activism

Scene 1: The Retreat in Himachal – Monsoon Silence

The mountain fog curls around the windows of the small cabin. Moss climbs the outer walls. Inside, the only light comes from a cracked oil lamp and the flickering pages of an unfinished manuscript.

Arundhati sits at a small desk, pen hovering. She hasn’t written fiction in years. The words come like old friends—forgotten names at a party. She sighs and closes the notebook.

Naomi Klein leans in the doorway, a wool shawl wrapped around her.

“Still stuck?” she asks.

“I think I’m afraid that the girl who wrote The God of Small Things is gone.”

Naomi pulls up a chair. “Maybe she grew into someone who writes with scars instead of syntax.”

“I used to write with rhythm. Now all I hear is rhetoric.”

Naomi smiles gently. “Then maybe you’re ready to write what rhythm couldn’t hold.”

Scene 2: The Fire Ritual – Letting Go of Guilt

Night falls. Naomi has built a small fire outside. She hands Arundhati a box filled with old things: protest posters, unpublished essays, rejection letters, angry op-eds.

“Burn it,” she says.

Arundhati hesitates. “But some of this still matters.”

“It does. But you can’t carry all of it forever. Guilt is a heavy backpack for someone meant to fly.”

One by one, they toss pages into the fire.

The flames catch fast—letters, slogans, even an old speech titled “Why I Stopped Writing Fiction.”

Ash floats upward.

Naomi says, “Activism taught you how to shout. Fiction will teach you how to whisper again.”

They sit in silence, the fire crackling like new beginnings.

Scene 3: Storytelling by Firelight – Among the Next Generation

In a clearing nearby, a circle of young activists has gathered. They look to Roy with reverence. She looks back with uncertainty.

Naomi nudges her. “Tell them a story.”

Arundhati hesitates, then begins—not a speech, not a call to action, but a story. About a woman who could hear trees speak, about a village buried under dam water, about a boy who built kites from scraps of old manifestos.

The circle leans in, eyes wide.

When she finishes, there is no applause—just a kind of sacred silence.

Naomi whispers, “See? You never stopped being a novelist. You just changed your stage.”

Scene 4: The Page, at Last – A Room in Delhi

Back home, Arundhati clears her desk. No microphones. No cameras. Just a notebook and a pen. Naomi brings her tea and sets it down beside her.

“I’m terrified,” Arundhati admits.

“Of what?”

“Of writing a bad book. Of being irrelevant. Of betraying the gravity of the world by returning to fiction.”

Naomi leans over and gently touches the pen.

“Fiction isn’t escape. It’s a magnifying glass. And if anyone can show us the small truths beneath the giant slogans—it’s you.”

Arundhati takes a breath. And writes the first sentence.

Scene 5: Sunrise Pact – A Promise to the Page

They stand on the rooftop at dawn. The city stirs below—rickshaws clatter, temple bells ring, chai simmers.

Arundhati stretches, the manuscript tucked beneath her arm.

Naomi sips her coffee.

“What’s it called?” she asks.

Arundhati smiles. “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.”

Naomi laughs softly. “Of course it is.”

They watch the sun rise—new light washing over old wounds.

“I don’t know if it will change the world,” Arundhati says.

Naomi replies, “Maybe not. But it will change someone. And that’s how the world shifts—one story, one pulse at a time.”

They make a pact. No more apologies for taking up space. No more guilt for choosing beauty. No more silence from a voice made of stars and salt.

Final Reflection – The Bookstore Return

Years later, Arundhati walks past a small bookstore window. In the display: her new novel, alongside her essays, translated into a dozen languages.

She enters. A girl is holding the book, flipping through its pages like a sacred text.

Arundhati steps quietly past her and leaves a note tucked inside the copy:

“Write your own truth. Even if it takes twenty years. I’ll be waiting.”
—A.R.

Outside, Naomi is waiting with coffee in hand.

“You ready for the next chapter?” she asks.

Arundhati nods.

“I think I just turned the page.”

Final Reflection by Ammu

They say the world breaks the women who speak too loudly,
and forgets the women who speak too softly.
But Arundhati—she was neither.
She spoke just right.
Like thunder wrapped in poetry.

She walked through fire wearing jasmine in her hair,
telling stories the world wanted silenced—
stories about caste, about empire,
about the kind of love that dares to cross lines drawn in blood.

I know what that costs.

Because I once whispered:

“When you hurt people, they begin to love you less.
That’s what careless words do.
They make people love you a little less.”

But I see now—what I didn’t then.

Sometimes, it’s not careless words that make people love you less.
It’s truthful ones.
It’s the kind of truth that turns silence into rebellion,
and rebellion into beauty.

Arundhati found her way back—not to safety, but to voice.
Not to applause, but to purpose.

And she didn’t walk alone.

She had Toni’s wisdom,
Zadie’s mischief,
Angela’s fire,
Ai’s defiance,
Naomi’s clarity.

I watched from the in-between spaces,
where fiction and memory dance.

And I smiled.
Because for once,
she wasn’t the girl with too much voice,
or the woman with too many wounds.

She was a storyteller again.
And this time,
she wrote not just for survival—
but for joy.

Short Bios:

Arundhati Roy

Indian author, essayist, and activist (b. 1961)
Arundhati Roy rose to global fame with her Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things, a lyrical and haunting story of love, caste, and memory. Beyond fiction, she has become a fearless voice in global politics—writing essays that challenge empire, capitalism, and injustice. Whether in literature or activism, Roy confronts power with truth and beauty with rage.

Ammu (Fictional Character)

The tragic mother in The God of Small Things
Ammu is the mother of Estha and Rahel in Roy’s novel—a fiercely loving, deeply wounded woman who defies societal boundaries and pays dearly for it. Ostracized by family and community, Ammu symbolizes both rebellion and vulnerability. Through her voice, Roy explores the price of truth, the hunger for tenderness, and the quiet destruction wrought by caste and patriarchy.

“That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”

Toni Morrison

Nobel Prize-winning novelist and essayist (1931–2019)
Known for her richly poetic language and unflinching narratives of Black American life, Toni Morrison’s works like Beloved and The Bluest Eye explore memory, trauma, and identity. As an editor and teacher, she championed underrepresented voices and believed deeply in the power of fiction to unearth buried truths.

Zadie Smith

British novelist, essayist, and professor (b. 1975)
Zadie Smith rose to literary fame with White Teeth, a vibrant novel about multicultural London. Blending humor, intellect, and razor-sharp social commentary, she often writes about class, race, and generational change. Her essays reveal her deep curiosity and sparkling voice across subjects.

Angela Davis

American activist, scholar, and author (b. 1944)
A leading figure in the fight against racism and mass incarceration, Angela Davis has spent decades challenging systemic injustice. Imprisoned in the 1970s and later acquitted, she remains a global icon for prison abolition, feminism, and political courage. Her books include Women, Race, and Class and Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.

Ai Weiwei

Chinese artist, architect, and human rights activist (b. 1957)
Known for his provocative installations and fearless dissent against the Chinese government, Ai Weiwei blends art with activism. From designing the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing to being detained for speaking out, his work often confronts surveillance, censorship, and freedom of expression.

Naomi Klein

Canadian journalist, author, and environmental activist (b. 1970)
Naomi Klein’s influential books like No Logo and This Changes Everything have made her a leading voice against corporate globalization and climate injustice. A sharp political thinker, she encourages systemic change through grassroots action and ethical storytelling.