The God Of Small Things is the story of Estha and Rahel, a set of fraternal twins. They live with their mother Ammu in Aymanam, a small town in Kerala, India.

The book is a third-person narrative of events, not in a sequential order. It contains fragmented pieces of time, involving flashbacks and other events materialising in parallel. It speaks mainly from the unique, innocent perspective of children, who are very sensitive to the people and the environment around them.

Estha’s molestation by a beverage vendor is the first traumatic event that throws the lives of the twins into a downward spiral. Their attempt at running away from home, accompanied by their cousin Sophie Mol, takes a disastrous turn as Sophie ends up dead in a drowning accident.

The book takes a big leap into the future, with Estha and Rahel reuniting at the age of 31. The turbulent events of their past have changed them drastically-Estha has turned perpetually mute, and Rahel is haunted by the emptiness in her life. Their reunion has a healing effect on their lives to some extent.

The relationship between Ammu - the twins’ mother, and Velutha, a man belonging to the lowest caste (and therefore considered untouchable), is another story that runs in parallel to that of the twins.

The book embeds a major part of the author’s childhood experiences in Aymanam. It illuminates the deep-rooted caste system in India, and the cultural and political tensions that arise as a result of such social discrimination. The book was 4 years in the making, from 1992 to 1996, and was published in 1997. It catapulted the author to fame and brought her much commercial success. The God Of Small Things won her the Booker Prize the same year. It drew positive as well as negative responses globally.