Karan Mahajan's new novel explores the dark dynamics of the great Indian family

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Karan Mahajan’s third novel The Complex is aptly titled, as it is set in a warren of apartments that belong to the Chopra family in Model Colony, north Delhi. The word “complex” itself denotes psychology (inferiority complex, god complex and the like), architecture (a building with added features), and of course everyday language (complicated).

Mahajan’s novel similarly works on all these different planes, reminding us of the intricacy of emotions in confined urban settings.This is the story of an unwieldy Delhi khaandan living in a complex, where S.P. Chopra (one of the framers of India’s Constitution and a former RBI governor) looms over his nine children squabbling for existence.

The six sons and their heirs live in the constant shadow of the patriarch as they never achieve his political clout nor his financial success. Many chapters in the last section of the book end with a cliffhanger.

And like a good saas-bahu serial, one can hear the cymbals crash, and the drums boom as the reader rushes through the pages.Behind the fast-paced drama and the tight plot, The Complex masterfully creates a psychological portrait of the Great Indian Family. The proximate living quarters shackle characters together in a way that nuclear living would preclude.

The novel’s structure ensures that you are not sure whose point of view you are privy to as everyone is always in everyone’s business.The Great Indian Family, in Mahajan’s telling, is like a panopticon—it is an institution built for control, where everyone believes they are being watched all the time, and this forces them to self-regulate for reasons of censure rather than integrity. Just as the word “panopticon” derives from the Greek word for