India, May 30 -- Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, but when a writer connects a character's inner life with broader social forces that mirror it, a single house can reveal an entire country.

We see this dynamic in Akhil Sharma's An Obedient Father (2000), for example. Set against the backdrop of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, it shows how a Delhi bureaucrat's domestic abuse echoes the corruption of the state. Both the household and the office operate under the same principles of hierarchy, exploitation, and the public performance of respectability.

Similarly, in Karan Mahajan's bleak and accomplished new novel, The Complex, family dysfunction reflects the state of the nation. There's a small suggestion of this in the title ...