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Abstract
Contemporary Indian English-language fiction marks both a continuous focus on the Indian family as central to society, and also a break from the traditional socialisations of family life. Shifting away from the former calls for reform of marital conventions to accommodate individual needs and many recent novels show families to be dysfunctional sites of domestic violence, incest, extramarital affairs and divorce. Moreover, under the impact of better levels of education, urbanisation and expatriation, the novels of young professional experience tend to portray one's peers as a surrogate family. The idea of family, however, persists.
Notes
1 Meenakshi Mukherjee, Realism and Reality: The Novel and Society in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp.7–9.
2 Sudhir Kakar, The Inner World: A Psychoanalytic Study of Childhood and Society in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 1981).
3 Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger (London: Atlantic Books, 2008).
4 Vikram Chandra, Love and Longing in Bombay (London: Faber and Faber, 1998); Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (London: Flamingo, 1997); Raj Kamal Jha, The Blue Bedspread (London: Picador, 1999); and Akhil Sharma, An Obedient Father (London: Faber and Faber, 2001).
5 Namita Gokhale, The Book of Shadows (New Delhi: Penguin, 2001); and Anita Desai, Fire on the Mountain (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981).
6 Manju Kapur, Difficult Daughters (New Delhi: Penguin, 1998); Nilita Vachani, HomeSpun (New Delhi: Penguin, 2005); R.K. Narayan, The Vendor of Sweets (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983); and Rang de Basanti (dir. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, UTV, 2006).
7 Chandani Lokugé (ed.), Saguna: The First Autobiographical Novel Written in English by an Indian Woman (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998); India Calling, The Memories of Cornelia Sorabji, India's First Woman Barrister (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001); Ratanbai: A High-Caste Hindu Child-Wife (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004).
8 Manju Kapur, Home (New Delhi: Random House, 2006); and Amulya Malladi, Serving Crazy with Curry (London: Piatkus, 2004).
9 Nayantara Sahgal, Rich like Us (London: Heinemann, 1985).
10 David Baker, ‘St. Stephen's College, Delhi, 1881–1997: An “Alexandria on the Banks of the Jamuna”?’, in Mushirul Hassan (ed.), Knowledge, Power and Politics: Educational Institutions in India (New Delhi: Lotus/Roli, 1998), p.73.
11 Prem Chand, Deliverance and Other Stories (trans. David Rubin) (New Delhi: Penguin, 1988).
12 Narayani Gupta and Sheila Uttam Singh, ‘The Interior and the Exterior: Indraprastha College for Women’, in Mushirul Hassan (ed.), Knowledge, Power and Politics: Educational Institutions in India (New Delhi: Lotus/Roli, 1998), p.152.
13 Gurcharan Das, A Fine Family (New Delhi: Penguin, 1990), pp.61–2.
14 Ibid., pp.83, 87–8.
15 Ibid., pp.147–8.
16 Ibid., pp.168–70.
17 Ibid., pp.217–8.
18 Ibid., p.219.
19 Ibid., p.345.
20 Vikram Chandra, Red Earth and Pouring Rain (London: Faber and Faber, 1995); Sacred Games (London: Faber and Faber, 2006); and Vikas Swarup, Slumdog Millionaire (London: Doubleday, 2005; Black Swan, 2006); Six Suspects (London: Doubleday, 2008; Black Swan, 2009).
21 R.B. Bhagat, ‘Urbanisation in India: A Demographic Reappraisal’ [http://www.iussp.org/Brazil2001/s80/S83_03_Bhagat.pdf, accessed 6 Dec. 2011]; and Chetan Chauhan, ‘Urbanisation in India Faster than Rest of World’, Hindustan Times (27 June 2007) [http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/India/Urbanisation-in-India-faster-than-restof-the-world/Article1-233279.aspx, accessed 6 Dec. 2011].
22 Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance (London: Faber and Faber, 1995).
23 Chetan Bhagat, One Night @ the Call Centre (New Delhi: Rupa, 2005).
24 Karan Bajaj, Keep Off the Grass (Noida: Harper Collins, 2008).
25 Ibid., p.179.
26 Ibid., p.255.
27 Upamanyu Chatterjee, English, August (Kolkata: Rupa, 1988).
28 Ibid., p.257.
29 Anupa Mehta, The Waiting Room (New Delhi: Penguin, 2007).
30 Ibid., pp.82–4.
31 Ibid., pp.55–61.
32 Ibid., pp.84–6, 43, 78, 14–5, 18, respectively.
33 Kamala Das, Summer in Calcutta (New Delhi: Rajinder Paul, 1965); The Old Playhouse and other Poems (Chennai: Orient Longman, 1973).
34 Das, A Fine Family, pp.148, 292.
35 Siddharth Dhanvant Shangvi, The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay (New Delhi: Viking/Penguin, 2009).
36 Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake (London: Harper, 2004).
37 Arun Joshi, The Foreigner (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1968).
38 Chandra, Red Earth and Pouring Rain.
39 Shashi Tharoor, Riot (New Delhi: Viking/Penguin, 2001).
40 Bharati Mukherjee, Desirable Daughters (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2002).
41 Bharati Mukherjee, ‘American Dreamer’, in Mother Jones (1997) [MotherJones.com/commentary/columns/1997/01/mukherjee.html, accessed 29 April 2004].
42 Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss (London: Penguin, 2006).
43 Rupa Bajwa, The Sari Shop (New Delhi: Penguin, 2004).
44 Shashi Deshpande, The Binding Vine (New York: The Feminist Press CUNY, 2001).
45 Thrity Umrigar, The Space between Us (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2006).
46 Rabindranath Tagore, Collected Stories (Chennai: Macmillan, 1974).
47 Pranav Jani, Decentering Rushdie: Cosmopolitanism and the Indian Novel in English (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2010), p.104.
48 Githa Hariharan, The Thousand Faces of Night (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992); and Shashi Deshpande, The Dark Holds No Terrors (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980); That Long Silence (London: Virago, 1988).