Telling a life in six pages

At Pappachi's funeral, Mammachi cries. Her daughter Ammu says she cried not because she loved him, but because she was used to him. People, she says, can get used to almost anything.

Arundhati Roy states painful facts plainly and calmly, and lets the reader judge. She never lectures us about what is right or wrong.

She uses irony sharply: buttons sewn on that were not missing; an elegant man sweating in his suit; a teacher's praise that ended a woman's music instead of encouraging it.

Words for scientists: an ornithologist studies birds; a gerontologist, old age; an ergonomist, the design of equipment for people's comfort and safety; a dermatologist, the skin; a cytologist, cells.

Words about writing: an epitaph is written on a grave; a postscript (P.S.) is added after the signature of a letter; a glossary of difficult words comes at the end of a book; an abstract sums up a research paper at its start.

A box in the book tells how Louis Braille made reading by touch simple for blind people.