The chant of "Azadi!"—Urdu for "Freedom!"—is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what
Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets
of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism.
Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom—a chasm or a bridge?—the
streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The coronavirus brought with it another,
more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole
populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could.
In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom
in a world of growing authoritarianism.
The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and
alternative imaginations in these disturbing times.
The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation
it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another
world.
Annotations from the book
1
...a novel gives a writer the freedom to be as
2
…to contain the universe which was building in me, spinning up from the landscapes I had wandered through, and composing itself into a story-universe. I knew it would be unapologetically complicated, unapologetically political, and unapologetically intimate.
3
India is not really a country. It is a continent. More complex and diverse, with more languages—780 at last count, excluding dialects—more nationalities and sub-nationalities, more indigenous tribes and religions than all of Europe.
4
…a microcosm of India…
5
How can one even try to understand this craziness, except by turning to poetry?
6
…the forbidden conversation…
7
..a story…that cannot be flattened into news.