Arundhati Roy was born in Shillong, where her father, a Bengali, was a tea planter. She was brought up at Aymanam, 10 minutes' drive from Kottayam in Kerala, after her parents separated.

A victim of broken home, Arundhati spent her crucial childhood years in Ayemanam and studied in an informal school named Corpus Christie run by her mother.

It was precisely here, she developed her literary and intellectual abilities, unconstrained by the set rules of formal education. Later, she acquired the professional training of an architect from the famed Delhi School of Architecture.