Response to a God of Small ThingsOne of the main themes of A God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is discrimination in the caste system. Roy tells the story of the difficulties faced by the Untouchables, the lowest caste in the caste system. Technically, the Untouchables aren't even part of the caste system because putting them in the same system as the other four castes would be offensive to the rest of them. Another theme of this novel is forbidden love. These two themes, discrimination in the caste system and forbidden love, come together when Mammachi sneaks across the river "to love by night the man whom her children love by day", to meet Velutha. Mammachi is the mother of the two main characters, Estha and Rahel. She is a touchable Christian and Velutha is an untouchable paravane. Mammachi tells her children how the Paravans were treated when she was young: "Mammachi told Estha and Rahel that she remembered a time in her childhood when the Paravans had to crawl backwards with a broom, sweeping their footprints so that Brahmins (highest caste in the Hindu caste system) or Syrian Christians would not defile themselves by accidentally stepping in the footprint of a Paravan” (Roy 71) Mammachi is fully aware of the. the magnitude of what she did. The union of Mammachi and Velutha, Touchable and Untouchable is unthinkable. Mammachi challenges what Arundhati Roy calls the “laws of love” set by society. The “laws of love” determine who can be loved, where and when and to what extent. When Mammachi and Velutha's forbidden secret love was discovered, chaos ensued. Baby Kochamma, the twins' great aunt went to the police station and filed a report that Mammachi was raped by Velutha, by a U...... middle of paper ...... a palpable woman. No one even questioned the report because it made sense to them. When they thought of Velutha, the Ayemenem community did not think of a bright young man who was always there to help them, making and repairing whatever they asked of him. No, all they could think about was that he had been an Untouchable. He must have raped that Touchable woman. Velutha was simply a humble person performing humble deeds. After receiving Baby Kochamma's false report, the police went in search of Velutha. When they found him, he didn't even have the chance to speak. The police beat Velutha to death, an innocent man was almost killed but no questions were asked. Sure enough, that night Velutha died and no justice was served. This is the depressing but unfortunate truth of the world and I can be grateful to have been born in Canada where I have every opportunity I could wish for..