Suzanna Arundhati Roy was born in Shillong, Meghalaya on November 24, 1961. Her mother, Mary Roy was a Keralite Syrian Christian activist for women’s rights. Her Bengali father was a planter of tea. Her childhood was spent in Aymanam or Ayemenem of Kerala. She attended school at Corpus Christi, Kottayam and later at the Lawrence School, Lovedale of Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. Afterward she studied architecture in New Delhi at the School of Planning and Architecture. This is where she met her first husband, an architect by the name of Gerard DeCunha.

Arundhati Roy first drew attention to herself for criticizing the film Bandit Queen by Shekhar Kapur, which is based on Phoolan Devi’s life. She claimed that Devi was exploited and her life was misrepresented.

Arundhati Roy completed her first novel, The God of Small Things in 1996. The book is sort of an autobiography that tells of her experiences during her childhood. The book not only won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997, but was also listed as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times that same year. The book landed the number four spot on the list of best sellers of independent fiction.

Arundhati Roy announced that a second novel was in the works in 2007.

Mulk Raj Anand was born in Peshawar, India, on December 12, 1905. He died on September 28, 2004 in Pune, India, at the age of ninety-eight. Mulk Raj Anand was a renowned writer from India who wrote in English. He was famous for his writings about the poorer class of society in India. He was one of the first writers from India to receive international recognition.

Mulk Raj Anand attended Khalsa College in Amritsar before he moved to England where he was an undergraduate at the University College London. He later graduated from Cambridge University in 1929 with a PhD. During his time in school, he became friends with the members of Bloomsbury Group. Mulk Raj Anand spent time in Geneva, giving lectures a League of Nations’ School of Intellectual Cooperation.

The rigidity of the caste system instigated the family tragedy that led to the launch of Mulk Raj Anand’s career in literature. His first work was a response to his aunt’s suicide after she was exiled from the family for having a meal with a Muslim. His first novel, Untouchable was published in 1935. It is the story of a day in the life of a toilet cleaner that bumps into a member of high society.

Muhammad Shibli Nomani was born in Bindawal Azamgarh on June 3, 1857 to Shaikh Habibullah and Moqeema Khatoon. Although Shah Waliullah influenced him in his thoughts, Shibli Nomani was not in line of the order of the Delhi ulema-sufis of the Naqshbandi. However, he was concerned with reforming the ulema to be effective guides in the Muslim community. Shibli Nomani was a scholar who published and wrote in profusion and taught many young writers. He was a leader in the advancement movement of the language of Urdu to be a vehicle of modern expression. He was as associate teacher at Aligarh College and the Nadwatul-Ulema of Lucknow.

Even though all of his younger brothers attended Aligarh, Shibli Nomani received an education in classic Islam. Maulana Muhammad Farooq Chirayakoti, an outspoken scholar and rival to Sir Syed, was his teacher. This could perhaps offer an explanation of his indecisive relationship with Sir Syed and Aligarh. The connection to Chirayakoti is considerable, giving Shibli Nomani reason to be both repelled and attracted to Aligarh.

In his works in theology, Shibli Nomani highlights both differences and similarities of Sir Sayed’s rationalism. Shibli Nomani believed that religion and science were two separate realms with nothing in common.