ARUNDHATI ROY has often said she's not a nice person. Nice meaning not a saint, no holier-than-thou. Although she's probably far-wilder-than-she-looks. She's no martyr, either. When, in March, following a trial for contempt of court, she was offered a choice -- a night in jail plus a fine of 2000 rupees, or do time in Tihar prison for three months -- she chose freedom, the comforts and pleasures of her own home over austerity, lentils, rice and a rope hammock.
"A lot of people wanted me to take the three months," she says, sitting in the more pleasant confines of a London club, "but I thought that was a terribly tired, boring thing to do. If I'd gone to prison, people would say, 'Oh what a martyr.' I'm not. I'm not one to invite voluntary suffering. Why should I?
"I was angry enough with just one day. And, also, when you go to prison you meet many women who've been there for years and years and it seems so insulting to say something along the lines of, 'Oh I'm volunteering to stay here.'"
The case, after all, had already been a year-long ordeal, one that began with a comic and ludicrously mis-spelt petition by a bunch of lawyers, who, following a peaceful protest outside the court against the damming of the Narmada Valley, in the north-western part of India (at which Roy was only present for a short while), accused her of trying to kill them, shouting abusive slogans and generally behaving like a "goonda", the Indian word for thug.
"A lot of people wanted me to take the three months," she says, sitting in the more pleasant confines of a London club, "but I thought that was a terribly tired, boring thing to do. If I'd gone to prison, people would say, 'Oh what a martyr.' I'm not. I'm not one to invite voluntary suffering. Why should I?
"I was angry enough with just one day. And, also, when you go to prison you meet many women who've been there for years and years and it seems so insulting to say something along the lines of, 'Oh I'm volunteering to stay here.'"
The case, after all, had already been a year-long ordeal, one that began with a comic and ludicrously mis-spelt petition by a bunch of lawyers, who, following a peaceful protest outside the court against the damming of the Narmada Valley, in the north-western part of India (at which Roy was only present for a short while), accused her of trying to kill them, shouting abusive slogans and generally behaving like a "goonda", the Indian word for thug.