Karan Mahajan’s ‘The Complex’ portrays a family saga against the backdrop of contemporary Indian history

With ‘The Complex’, the author returns imaginatively to the Delhi of his childhood. The novel opens with protagonist Mohit Chopra awaiting the release of his father after 25 years in prison for murdering his own brother. From there unfolds the turbulent history of the Chopra family, set against the backdrop of changing political ideologies, Indira Gandhi assassination, the anti-Sikh pogrom, Mandal Commission protests, migration, family rivalries and the rise of Hindu nationalism.

At the centre of the narrative is a cramped residential compound in the fictional Modern Colony in north Delhi, where patriarch S P Chopra, a former Reserve Bank governor and one of the architects of the Indian Constitution, once held sway over his sprawling family. Mahajan described the household’s “room-to-room hierarchy” as reflective of both Punjabi family dynamics and larger struggles over power, inheritance and survival.

“There’s limited space, limited resources. You have to grab what you can,” Mahajan observed during the discussion, linking the physical claustrophobia of the Chopra household with the anxieties of India’s fading socialist era.

One of the most striking aspects of the novel is the character of Lakshman Chopra, whose predatory behaviour and moral decay become intertwined with political opportunism. Mahajan explained that as he developed the character, Lakshman emerged as a lens into a lesser explored dimension of post-Partition India: the frustrations of failed businessmen, wounded masculinity and resentment toward relatives who prospered abroad.

Mahajan noted that Lakshman becomes “a political actor within the sphere of the family”, learning to cultivate loyalty and silence among relatives in order to shield himself from accountability.

Another key figure in the novel is Geeta Chopra, an educated woman who returns from the United States after marriage and finds herself confronting violence, isolation and emotional confusion within the family. Mahajan said writing Geeta required careful historical sensitivity, particularly in portraying how women in the 1980s processed trauma in a society with limited language and support systems for discussing abuse.

To shape the character authentically, the author said he consulted therapists and women familiar with the social realities of that era. He also researched infertility and social expectations surrounding marriage, including through books such as ‘Adopted Miracles’.

Rather than treating Geeta as either a victim or an idealised figure, Mahajan presents her as a layered and conflicted character whose silences, choices and vulnerabilities shape the emotional core of the novel.

Throughout the discussion, Mahajan repeatedly returned to the idea that ‘The Complex’ is both an intimate family drama and a political novel. The story moves through the Mandal Commission era, religious polarisation and ideological shifts within Indian society, showing how national history reshapes private relationships.

Migration and displacement also form a recurring thread in the novel. Mahajan, who moved to the United States from India at the age of 17, reflected on the emotional contradictions of immigration and the lingering fantasy many migrants carry about returning home.

“Immigration is not a linear experience,” he said, explaining how characters moving between India and the United States carry fractured ideas of belonging, exile and identity.

The event at CRRID drew an enthusiastic audience, with readers engaging in an extended interaction with the author following the discussion.

The author is an intern at The Indian Express