Family and Culture as Endemic Deterants Tilting the Gender Equilibrium - The Case of Ajay Mohan Jain's Novel

Identity politics and a politics of culture have largely preempted South Asian literary studies since the days of post-colonial theory. While proactive attitudes to development have substantiated the conventional modes of thinking responsible for shaping the contemporary Indian society, the history of the subcontinent has been contoured by visions of nativism in turn formed by the cultural ethos of the land. As the new nation matured, the earliest national leaders along with Mahatma Gandhi worked hard at creating an environment of cosmopolitan liberalism. Today, with intrepid globalization, the South Asian community and more closely, the Indian psyche has acquired an interface of healthy multiculturalism, which in its turn has evolved out of an assertive attitude of political correctness. All this has grown over a period of time and the Indian society has assumed identities compatible with its consciousness; as that of nationalism, multiculturalism, cosmopolitan liberalism and religious secularism. Spatial boundaries within the nation often determined the typical nature of the identity. My attempt will be to study Ajay Mohan Jain’s, “Nothing can be as crazy…’ in the light of the above hypothesis.