To what extent are autobiographical elements present in the novel The God of Small Things?

It is an interesting
question to consider how much a work ofreflects the life and concerns of its author. When we
examine this excellent novel in this light, we are able to detect some similarities.herself
studied architecture like her heroine, Rahel, though now no longer pursues it. Interestingly,
given the massive success of this, her first novel, she has never written another work of
fiction. Instead, she has involved herself in protesting against a variety of dam projects that
threaten to uproot and disempower indigenous people. She has been effective in using her
celebrity status to champion such causes. We can see her focus on the way that man alters nature
for the worst in her description of the river in Chapter Five:

One it had had the power to evoke fear. To change lives. But now its teeth were drawn,
its spirit spent. It was just a slow, sludging green ribbon lawn that ferried fetid garbage to
the sea. Bright plastic bags blew across its viscous, weedy surface like subtropical
flying-flowers.

Note how political opportunism and greed
is said to be responsible for the "death" of this river. Mankind's unthinking attempts
to control nature and bend it to man's will are shown to be destructive in every sense, which is
a true theme of Roy's work in protesting against large-scale damming
schemes.