Mary Roy is happy on her 84th birthday. Witnessing a thousand full moons is no big deal for her. She is happy to have her daughter Arundhati Roy by her side.
The Booker Prize winner has never missed her mother’s birthday for the last few years. She flew in from Delhi to her mother’s house on the Pallikkoodam campus in Kottayam this week.
Back from a world tour in connection with her latest book, ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’, Arundhati Roy was received with the typical mother’s complaint: “You have lost weight”.
Arundhati Roy dedicated her first novel, ‘The God of Small Things’, to her mother, the founder of an acclaimed alternative school in Kottayam and the benefactor of all Christian women in India.
Mary Roy’s legal battles ensured that Christian women had as much rights over ancestral property as their brothers. The Supreme Court ruling in the Mary Roy case was a landmark judgment in gender parity.
She started Corpus Christi (which was later renamed as Pallikkoodam) in 1967 to challenge the conventional schooling methods. She is no longer involved in the day-to-day running of the school but remains a leading lamp for the teachers and students.
When she is not bogged down by asthma, the former principal would be nudging the teachers to go through an interesting article she has just found. She is still a voracious reader.
She recently gave June Jose, one of the teachers, a ‘Time’ article on the effects of gadgets on children.
Arundhati Roy has thanked her mother in the introduction to her latest book as well. The writer says that her mother is still famed for her short temper.
Mary Roy has not planned any special programs for her 84th birthday, a landmark event in India.
Students of Pallikkoodam visited her at her house and gifted her flowers.
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