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Showing posts from May, 2003

The Goddess of Big Things

Hundreds of people, young and old, the well-dressed and the fashion-resistant, gathered at the Riverside Church on May 13, 2003, lining up outside the revolving gates to enter that New York institution. And no, it wasn't a rush of new religious awakening that had brought them there - it was a small, petite dark-haired woman, in short cropped hair and a dimpled smile, dressed in a simple white sari. Arundhati Roy, former actor, architect, screenwriter, aerobics instructor, author of the Booker prize-winning bestseller God of Small Things and now a passionate anti-globalization essayist, was the subject of their undivided attention. Howard Zinn, best-selling author of A People's History of the United States, would dialogue with her after her lecture. Three thousand people crammed into the Church, from the pews to the balconies. Two large screens projected the video image of the speaker to the packed balconies. Reverend James A Forbes Jr., senior minister of a Church that has host