Family

Family is one of the major themes strung throughout "Family Life." The entire story is about Ajay's place in his family, how immediate family members relate to each other in good times and in bad, and dynamics between spouses, siblings, and parent-child are shown. It reads as a memoir at times, and everything that happens to Ajay always comes back to his family. Even Ajay's peer relations, good and bad, happen as a result of or reaction to his family life. It is through the varying dynamics of the different relationships within the immediate family that the reader can participate in the author's theme of 'family'.

For Ajay's parents, Shuba and Rajinder, family looks quite different yet quite the same. Neither one ever insists on abandoning the marriage or the family, even though there is less than a handful of positive interactions between the two throughout...