Brief Questions in The God of Small Things

• What prize was Arundhati awarded for writing The God of Small Things?

Ans: She won the Booker Prize in London on 14 October 1997. 

• Who are the central figures in the novel?

Ans: Estha and Rahel, fraternal twins living with their mother Ammu.

• What was Pappachi’s discovery as an entomologist?

Ans: A moth with unusually dense dorsal tufts; he thought it new.

• How did Pappachi appear in his photograph?

Ans: Dapper, carefully groomed, chin hidden, proud but controlled.

• What kind of man did Pappachi seem from the photograph?

Ans: Polite outwardly, yet marked by cruelty and buried violence.

• Why was Pappachi jealous of Mammachi?

Ans: Her public success as a pickle maker eclipsed him.

• How did Pappachi treat his wife?

Ans: He beat Mammachi nightly with a flower vase.

• What was Chacko’s view of Pappachi’s attitude?

Ans: He called Pappachi an Anglophile who aped the English.

• When did Mammachi start making pickles commercially?

Ans: After Pappachi retired and returned to Ayemenem.

• What were Mammachi’s feelings after Pappachi’s death?

Ans: She mourned out of habit and duty, not love.

• Why did Mammachi dislike Margaret Kochamma?

Ans: For her working-class background and for leaving Chacko.

• What was Baby Kochamma’s real name?

Ans: Navomi Ipe, daughter of Reverend E. John Ipe.

• How did Navomi Ipe become “Baby Kochamma”?

Ans: Called “Baby” in youth; became “Kochamma” as an aunt.

• In what sense did Baby Kochamma live backwards?

Ans: Youth renounced worldly life; old age embraced it.

• What did Baby Kochamma do to attract Father Mulligan?

Ans: Publicly bathed a peasant child to appear charitable.

• How did Baby Kochamma spend her last years?

Ans: Makeup, fine saris, TV serials, English films, football.

• Who is Chacko?

Ans: Mammachi and Pappachi’s son; Oxford-educated factory owner.

• Why did Margaret Kochamma separate from Chacko?

Ans: She chose Joe, a biologist, over him.

• How did Chacko treat pretty factory workers?

Ans: Lectured, flirted, drank with them, calling them comrades.

• What were Chacko’s favourite foods?

Ans: Chicken roast, chips, sweet corn, soup, parathas, ice cream.

• What was the last blow for Chacko?

Ans: Sophie Mol’s death devastated him utterly.

• What is Chacko’s attitude to life?

Ans: Humans are unmoored prisoners, adrift on troubled seas.

• Who is Ammu?

Ans: Pappachi and Mammachi’s daughter; mother of Estha and Rahel.

• When were the twins born?

Ans: In 1962, during the Sino-Indian war.

• Why did Ammu divorce her husband?

Ans: He demanded she sleep with his boss to keep work.

• Why did Ammu get angry with Margaret Kochamma?

Ans: A rude cultural remark made Ammu storm off.

• Why did Ammu love Velutha by night?

Ans: Lonely divorcee, she found forbidden love with Velutha.

• Where did Ammu die?

Ans: In a grimy room at Bharat Lodge, Alleppey.

• In what sense is Velutha a social rebel?

Ans: He defied caste barriers and chose personal dignity.

• Is Velutha a tragic hero?

Ans: Yes; brutally killed by police, a martyr.

• Who is Sophie Mol?

Ans: Chacko and Margaret’s daughter; Estha and Rahel’s cousin.

• What did Sophie Mol wear?

Ans: Yellow bellbottoms and a Made-in-England go-go bag.

• Why did Sophie Mol love Joe more than Chacko?

Ans: Joe raised her; Chacko left earlier; Joe died later.

• What relation did Sophie Mol form with the twins?

Ans: She quickly became their close friend.

• Where did the three children go on excursion?

Ans: Boating on the nearby Meenachal River.

• How did the boat capsize?

Ans: It struck a floating log in the darkness.

• What was the irony of Sophie Mol’s life?

Ans: She loved family members the elders disliked.

• Who is Estha?

Ans: Ammu’s son and Rahel’s twin brother.

• What is Estha’s long name, and who gave it?

Ans: “Esthapappychachen Peter Mon,” whispered by Rahel.

• When did the twins come to Ayemenem house?

Ans: After Ammu divorced, when they were two.

• Who oversaw the twins’ education?

Ans: Baby Kochamma, often unkind and strict.

• What work did Estha prefer over college?

Ans: Housework—sweeping, laundry, cooking, shopping.

• What happened to Rahel after Ammu’s death?

Ans: She drifted through schools, largely neglected.

• Whom did Rahel marry?

Ans: Larry McCaslin, an architecture researcher in Delhi.

• Why did Rahel’s marriage end?

Ans: Larry sensed her detachment, eyes searching for Estha.

• What is the novel’s setting?

Ans: Ayemenem (Aymanam) in Kerala, Roy’s childhood place.

• Why did Ammu choose Velutha as lover?

Ans: Both were untouchable in society’s eyes.

• Who molested Estha?

Ans: The Orangedrink Lemondrink man at the cinema.

• Whom did Chacko marry at Oxford?

Ans: Margaret Kochamma, then a café waitress.

• Which film did the family watch in Cochin?

Ans: The Sound of Music.

• Which university did Chacko attend?

Ans: Undergraduate at Delhi; Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.

• Why did Baby Kochamma convert to Roman Catholicism?

Ans: To win Father Mulligan’s affection.

• Who is Pappachi?

Ans: Ammu and Chacko’s father; a noted entomologist.

1. Who was Baby Kochamma?

Ans: Pappachi’s sister, the children’s grandaunt.

• What was Velutha’s political ideology?

Ans: He was an active Marxist Communist party worker.

• How did Pappachi treat his wife?

Ans: Abusively; he beat her with a brass vase.

• What is entomology?

Ans: The scientific study of insects.

• How did Sophie Mol die?

Ans: She drowned after the boat struck a floating log.

• What made Pappachi unhappy in marriage?

Ans: His age gap; feeling old while Mammachi seemed young.

• Why did Baby Kochamma fail in love?

Ans: Conversion and becoming a nun still couldn’t win the priest.

• Whom did Ammu see in her dream?

Ans: A man she called “the god of small things,” Velutha.

• Who or what is the “God of Small Things”?

Ans: Velutha, the tender god of forbidden, small things.