On Tuesday 23 Mar 2010 9:45:17 pm Shoba Narayan wrote: > Why does she evoke so much ire?
A Roy has made more enemies than I could have hoped for. I for one am greatly pleased at the ire she evokes. This has nothing (IMHO) to do with male inferiority TamBram or non TamBram, which is is a "You farted" accusation (I will explain that one some other time) I had no specific feelings about Arundhati Roy when I paid for, bought and read her book. I actually managed to finish it - which is better than I could do for Ramchandra Guha's intensely soporific magnum opus. Perhaps for the second time on Silk I must point out that in comparing Guha and Roy I am reminded of the riddle "What is the difference between a bad marksman and a constipated owl?" The answer is that one shoots but never hits while the other hoots but never shits. Guha talks sense, but writes badly. Roy talks crap but writes well. It is Roy's tongue and her causes that create a feeling of inferiority. Her capacity for rhetoric is an art and it is very difficult to do point by point rebuttals of crap written well. I sometimes write crap well myself, designed to be rebuttal resistant, and should know. Her activism wins her enemies because she reveals some gaping blind spots that she deftly avoids as she uses the power of her rhetoric to push what she sees as the truth, and crushes into the dirt anyone who tries to point out that reality is more than can be visible to one who wears blinkers. A half truth is half lie, or at least half ignorance. Arundhati Roy is a brilliant half-wit. shiv
