It is 1986 and Arundhati is 26. Mrs. Roy has successfully petitioned the courts to strike down the Travancore Christian Succession Act, giving Christian women in Kerala equal inheritance rights to their parents’ property. Years later this legislation will result in G. Isaac being kicked out of his home (which had been their father’s) and the dissolution of his pickle and preserve company, but for now everything remains the same in the family.

A journalist comes to interview Mrs. Roy and G. Isaac in the home that Mrs. Roy had built for herself. Arundhati is struck by the beauty of its design but also by the fact that there is no space for her there. The journalist finds both Mrs. Roy and G. Isaac difficult to speak to, and his film is never produced.

Arundhati continues to work with Pradip. Massey Sahib does well, and she writes the commentary for a documentary about efforts to restore India’s wild rhino population. They conceive of a historical film detailing India’s independence movement, beginning in the 1920s and ending in 1947, with the violence of partition and the creation of Pakistan. At first, Pradip doesn’t want to give her a writing credit, but she refuses to work uncredited, and he relents.

His estranged wife, Arundhati’s former boss, dies tragically, leaving her children without a mother. Arundhati feels terribly for them and, as she and Pradip’s relationship has grown serious, assures them that she loves them and will do her best to help them through their grief.

She spends more time with Pradip’s mother, who is hyper-fixated on the lightness of her skin, garden parties, and maintaining her home. Arundhati gets along with her but feels that they come from different worlds. When she advises Arundhati to get a job so she can support Pradip, Arundhati realizes that Indian mothers have a pathological fixation on their sons, and that this woman is no different.

When Mrs. Roy meets Pradip’s mother, she tells Arundhati that she will never truly be part of this household and that she should find a job so that she can have her own money. Arundhati recalls her mother killing her childhood dog and reflects that Mrs. Roy distrusts love of all kinds.

Pradip struggles to get funding for their grand, historical film, but Arundhati has an idea for a smaller-budget piece about life in an architecture school. Arundhati enjoys writing it and feels proud of her work, but even she is surprised when the film becomes a smash hit. It receives widespread acclaim, attention in the international press, and awards.

A journalist interviews her, asking questions about her life, but also her mother and her “marriage” to JC. The resulting piece presents her as a woman who, in spite of her conservative, Syrian Christian upbringing, lives life according to her own rules and has lived with multiple men who are not her husband. Her mother is upset by it and tells Arundhati that she has had to endure criticism from multiple relatives.

Mrs. Roy wants to stage a production of Jesus Christ, Superstar at her school. Kerala’s Syrian Christian community is strict and conservative, and the musical’s satirical treatment of religion speaks to many young people on a visceral level. Mrs. Roy’s production receives considerable pushback, but she is ultimately successful in her attempts to stage it, and the show is a hit.

This battle unfolds against the backdrop of broader religious tensions in India: Muslims are routinely oppressed and treated as second-class citizens; Hindus, Christians, and Muslims all vie for political control and attempt to suppress one another’s religious practices. Arundhati observes that Mrs. Roy is a force to be reckoned with, no matter how difficult she was as a mother.

Arundhati and Pradip are at work on a new film, Electric Moon. It is set in a wildlife park in India, and shows both British colonials and white tourists in an unflattering light. Government censors insist that they remove several of its scenes, but Pradip decides to shoot them anyway. Unlike the spate of recent films about India (The Jewel in the Crown and A Passage to India are two that stand out) their film has an Indian cast and crew. It does not do well, and Arundhati writes an essay that analyzes what went wrong. It is titled “In a Proper Light,” and it becomes Arundhati’s first published piece of writing. She is 32.

Arundhati is overcome with the desire to work on her own. She tells Pradip, who is upset, but after they make one more film together to generate one last little bit of income, their tenure as co-workers comes to an end. His father dies, and his mother sinks into a deep depression. His girls are now teenagers, and Arundhati wonders if they’ve done as well as they could as parents.

She and Pradip spontaneously decide to marry. Her mother attends the wedding, as well as her brother, who is now married and has a daughter of his own. Arundhati recalls no one taking the wedding particularly seriously, but it doesn’t bother her. She has never had a conventional approach to relationships, and she is happy with her decision to marry Pradip.

A sensational new film sparks controversy in India. Called Bandit Queen, it narrates the real-life gang rape of the notorious female bandit Phoolan Devi by more than 20 men. Written and directed by a man, Arundhati is enraged by its gratuitous sexual violence and lack of humanity.

She goes to see Phoolan Devi, who is still alive (but was not consulted at all during the film’s creation), and is moved to write an essay about the film’s portrayal of rape and the sexual violence that is endemic to India. Due to the essay’s inflammatory treatment of Indian people, society, and government, the film company that Pradip and Arundhati had been working with severs their relationship.

The God of Small Things, the project that will become Arundhati Roy’s first novel, begins as a character sketch of two young children, Estha and Rahel. She writes for four hours each day, alone, and does not discuss her work with anyone.

Pradip becomes short-tempered with his daughters, and Arundhati finds herself in a role that feels too traditional—that of a mother protecting her children from their volatile father. He builds a house in the country and becomes fascinated with ecology. It will become his new career, and Arundhati is happy that he has found something to do in the wake of their film career’s collapse.

When Arundhati finishes writing The God of Small Things, her life changes instantly. The book is picked up for publication immediately, and she is given a massive advance. The book is popular, but also controversial. She is criticized for her depiction of communism, various Indian authorities, romance between individuals of different castes, and a host of other “issues” with the novel’s content.

The government brings a case against her for “obscenity and corrupting public morality” (215). The case will not be settled for more than a decade, and will be dismissed in large part because Arundhati wins the Booker Prize for The God of Small Things. Although it has been deemed indecent, the novel, the government decides, ultimately reflects well on India.

The Indian launch party takes place at Mrs. Roy’s school. Mrs. Roy is upset by the commotion the book has caused, and at the launch she gets into a furious argument with her brother G. Isaac. He is being evicted from their father’s home so that the property’s value can be divided equally among the siblings. Although he is angry at Mrs. Roy, he is proud of the character in The God of Small Things that Arundhati based on him, and tells her as much.

Arundhati then goes on a long, international press tour. It is a whirlwind, and although she visits many new, foreign places, she has little time for sightseeing.

Winning the Booker Prize is a massive achievement, but the process of selecting books from the longlist to be included in the shortlist, and then one winner from the shortlist, makes Arundhati feel like livestock. Not long after she wins the prize, Pradip’s mother dies and leaves all of her property to Pradip, and only a pittance to his sisters. This lack of equality even in the divvying up of an inheritance is commonplace in India, but as Mrs. Roy’s daughter, Arundhati objects to it deeply. Her mother had managed to change that kind of law for Christians in Kerala, but here in Delhi, laws are still different.

Hindu nationalism is on the rise, and Hindu nationalists are now in power in the Indian government. Arundhati finds herself in strong opposition to this new political climate and the violence that goes along with it, and she gradually becomes less happy at home. She finds an apartment, at first just to write in, but eventually she spends more time there than in the apartment she and Pradip have shared for many years.

In May 1998 the Indian government performs a series of nuclear tests. The Pakistani government responds with tests of its own. The two nations had, by this point in time, fought several wars, and Pakistan was angered at India’s continued mistreatment of its Muslim population. There was only one majority-Muslim state in India, Kashmir, and it becomes a flashpoint for both national and international political violence.

Rising nationalism sweeps India. People are proud of their country’s nuclear capabilities and even angrier than ever at the Muslim minority. The media adds to the political storm, and to Arundhati the climate of hatred is reminiscent of Partition. She writes an essay arguing as much, urging Indians not to fracture along religious lines. She becomes an instant pariah.