Response to A God Of Small Things One of the main themes in A God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is discrimination in the caste system. Roy tells the story of the hardships 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 secretly crosses the river "to love by night the man 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 woman and Velutha is an untouchable Paravan. Mammachi tells his children how the Paravans were treated when he was young: "Mammachi told Estha and Rahel that he could remember a time in his childhood when the Paravans were expected to crawl backwards with a broom, sweeping away the their footprints so that Brahmins (highest caste in the Hindu caste system) or Syrian Christians would not defile themselves by accidentally stepping on the footprint of a Paravan." (Roy 71)Mammachi is fully aware of the magnitude of what he has done. The union of Mammachi and Velutha, Touchable and Untouchable is unthinkable. Mammachi challenges what Arundhati Roy calls the "laws of love" established by society. The “Laws of Love” determine who can be loved, where and when they can be loved, and how much they can be loved. When the secret, forbidden love between Mammachi and Velutha was discovered, chaos ensued. Baby Kochamma, the twins' great aunt, went to the police station and filed a report stating that Mammachi had been raped by Velutha, by a U... middle of paper... a Touchable 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 fixing 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 who performed humble deeds. After receiving the false complaint from Baby Kochamma, the police went in search of Velutha. When they found him he wasn't even given the chance to speak. The police beat Velutha almost to death, an innocent man almost killed without asking questions. As expected, Velutha died that night and no justice was served. This is the depressing but unfortunate truth of the world and I can be grateful that I was born in Canada where I have all the opportunities I could ask for.