From an interview in Tehelka, “the people’s paper” of India (Nov ’05):

Arundhati Roy: As for money, I have tried to take it lightly. Really, I have tried to give it away, but even that is a very difficult thing to do. Money is like nuclear waste. What you do with it, where you dump it, what problems it creates, what it changes, these are incredibly complicated things. And eventually, it can all blow up in your face. I’d have been happier with Less. Yeh Dil Maange Less. Less money, less fame, less pressure, more badmashi. I hate the f***ing responsibility that is sometimes forced on me. I spent my early years making decisions that would allow me to evade responsibility; and now…

Tehelka: You gave your Booker money to the NBA. Your Sydney prize money to aborigine groups. Another award money you gave to 50 organisations who are doing exemplary work … You gave away your money … Very few people do that …

Arundhati Roy: Well, I haven’t given it all away. I still have more than I need. If I gave it all away I might turn into the kind of person that I really dread — ‘the one who has sacrificed everything’ and will no doubt, somewhere along the way, extract a dreadful price from everybody around them. I’ve learned that giving money away can help, but it can also be utterly destructive, however good your intentions may have been. It is impossible to always know what the right thing to do is. It can create conflict in strange and surprising places. I am not always comfortable with what I do with my money. I do everything. I give it away extravagantly. I blow it up, extravagantly. I have no fix on it — it comforts me, it bothers me, I’m constantly glad that I can afford to pay my bills. I’m paranoid about its incredible capacity for destruction. But the one thing I’m glad about is that it is not inherited. I think inherited money is a curse.

Giving money away is dangerous and complicated and in some ways against my political beliefs — I do not subscribe to the politics of good intentions — but what do I do? Sit on it and accumulate more? I’m uncomfortable with lots of things that I do, but can’t see a better way — I just muddle along. It’s a peculiar problem, this problem of excess, and it’s embarrassing to even talk about it in a land of so much pain and poverty. But there it is…