¶ … LOVE GREATER THAN CASTE?
Love may make the world go round but this is not the most important element to establish a relationship in some cultures of the world. While many would feel that if you love someone, nothing else should stop you from being together, this is not how Ammu and Velutha were treated in Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small things." When they fell in love, there was a big obstacle in their path to being one and that obstacle was caste difference. They knew so well that it would be impossible to be together legally that they hid their love from the world and would meet in the dark to express their love for each other. Their story shows that caste is greater than love in some parts of the world.
Their emotionally charged love story takes place in the backdrop of caste problems that plagued Kerala, an Indian state, in 1960s. As love blossoms between a young woman of higher caste and an untouchable, they fail to see the barriers to their union and do the very unthinkable. They engage in sexual adventures without letting anyone know and in the end bring death upon themselves in most tragic circumstances. The love always sounds very real even though anyone in India would probably confess that caste is a serious issue and defines the social fabric of the country.
From our close reading of the novel, we claim that in some cultures, caste is far more important and powerful than love. In the case of Ammu and Velutha, it certainly was but only in their eyes. It was not even conceivable in the eyes of others. Paravans were one of those untouchables that Ammu's family had known for a long time but never considered them an equal in any sense of the word. For them Paravans were to be treated like all other untouchables in the land:
"In Mammachi's time, Paravans, like other untouchables were not allowed to walk on public roads, not allowed to cover their upper bodies, not allowed to carry umbrellas. They had to put their hands over their mouths when they spoke, to divert their polluted breath away from those whom they addressed." (p....
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