'She feels she is an Indian Renaissance woman'

Four characters in search of an author. What is Arundhati Roy really like?

Everyone you call has an opinion. And they are all uniformly laudatory.

Then again, we are talking Arundhati Roy here. And God of Small Things. And the Booker Prize, won by the debutant novelist for her portrait of caste and crisis against the backdrop of modern Kerala.

We present a cross-section of comments, culled from people who know India's hottest new author, up close and personal.

Shobha De, novelist

It is terrific -- and a very deserving person is getting the award. Even the timing couldn't have been better, with this being the 50th year of Indian Independence. I haven't read the novel as yet, though I know Arundhati for an exceptional talent.

The award is not about Indian authors, nor is it given to a country -- so we should not associate the award with a country. It is to be seen as recognition of an exceptional woman's individual talent.

This award will inspire a lot of young writers, but to become an Arundhati Roy......I think that will take a long time.

Leela Naidu, actress

You know, it is so funny, but I have only read the first and the last chapters of the book. My friends gave it to me to read, and wanted me to finish it within two days. So I did the fastest thing possible.

I found the first chapter very delightful and tactile. But there were some inconsistencies in it, and a lot of use of mixed metaphors. I am not being a John Updike here, but that was my impression.

Arundhati has an tendency to be very original, for example the capital 'C' and usage of words that do not fit into the grammatical pattern -- maybe I am being too old fashioned here, again, but every time I saw something like that I would go, well here goes Arundhati Roy once again. It got on my nerves. But the other parts of the novel were simply exquisite. She is very good at observation things and describing them.

She is a very self assured woman, outwardly and inwardly. She feels she is an original, she feels she is an Indian Rennaissance woman, she can do a lot of things and be good at them. She has a desire to be original.

The God of Small Things is a work of obsession, Arundhati is very obsessive about her work to the point that she cuts off everything around her when the work takes her over completely. And it shows in the book that she has written.

Gerson Da Cunha, adman/actor

We are all very proud of her achievement -- although none of us had expected her to win. In fact, knowing her, I am sure she must have been surprised when she was nominated, and completely astonished when she won the award.

But I think that the award is not such a big achievement for the book -- which is an accomplishment in itself. What if she had not won the award? Then it would have immediately detracted a notch from her achievement.

I acted in Electric Moon, which had a very fine script done by her. She was also art director for the film, and I was impressed by the bungalow set, in that she had created an an area which was complete in itself. It was just perfect.

You know, she is an extraordinarily honest person, open and frank with everyone who comes in contact with her. There is absolutely no pretense whatsoever. She refuses to wear any make-up. She was in Bombay for the launch of her book, and I bumped into her by accident, and she was just the same as she always was.

I think it is a marvellous book, which constantly surprises and stimulates you. The language of the book is in itself interesting, and the plot enthralled me.

Whenever I went to Delhi, I would call her and they (her husband Pradip Kishan and Arundhati) would invite me over for drinks and dinner. I would go to their house, and there'd be no sign of her, and after a while she would come racing out with an apology, saying, "I cannot tear away myself from writing it, it's such a pleasure..."

The writing of that book seemed, to me, to have taken her over completely.

Indira Jaisingh, lawyer

I am very thrilled about her winning the award. The book is ruthlessly honest, and comes across as an original.

In many ways the book is like her, though I would say Arundhati Roy is an authentic person. There is no duality in her, as a person. We worked very closely when she had taken that the stand against Shekhar Kapur's film Bandit Queen -- that it is impermissible to show the rape of a living woman. Later, of course, even Phoolan Devi took a similar stand against the scene.

Her book took four, five years to write, and every sentence in it is backed by, based on, her experience. She is like that -- a person who creates from experience rather than absorbed knowledge. She did not tell anyone about the book when she was actually writing it -- obviously, even the creation was a very intimate personal experience for her.