바카라All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.바카라 This line from Leo Tolstoy바카라s Anna Karenina has been so often quoted that it has taken on a life of its own. Tolstoy바카라s tragedy was set in Russian high society of the 19th century. Cut to contemporary Delhi, the setting of Arunima Tenzin Tara바카라s debut novel, The Ex Daughters of Tolstoy House. Arunima바카라s tale zooms in on Meera바카라s family. Married to successful surgeon Ambarish Sehgal for over 40 years, Meera has three daughters: Sujata, Kavita and Naina. Their home, Tolstoy House, is nestled in the insular heart of Lutyens바카라 Delhi. The novel opens with Meera바카라s death. The task of cleaning up Meera바카라s bloodied body and bloodied room goes to Naina. Ambarish orders his heartbroken daughter to get the job done. Sujata, his eldest, is on the run. Kavita, the middle child, is no longer among the living. That makes them both 바카라ex daughters바카라 of the macabre Tolstoy House.
The Ex Daughters of Tolstoy House checks all the boxes of the gothic horror genre. It features a grand mansion바카라home of dark family secrets and of a vicious man. An air of looming dread; unease lurking behind the family바카라s well-oiled daily routine. Blood (lots of it). Violence. Supernatural elements. The past forever present, shaping the lives of the characters, bearing them back 바카라ceaselessly into the past바카라. Gothic fiction, which has been haunting readers since the mid-19th century, uses these tropes to lay bare the anatomy of evil, to explore the darkest corners of the human psyche, to shine the light on aspects of human existence society would rather sweep under a collective carpet.
At Tolstoy House, the veneer is polished. The father is considered a good provider. The family home boasts of an exclusive address in the capital. Ambarish gives his daughters all the material comforts they could possibly want. He pays for their education. He takes them and their mother for holidays. There are birding trips, too, since he is an avid birdwatcher. Plenty of 바카라normal바카라 family stuff goes on at Tolstoy House. Meera whips up delicious feasts with a little help from Lakshmi Amma, who has worked for them since the kids were toddlers. Sunday lunch is a beloved family tradition. But secrets hover over that meal too. As children, the girls love their house and the 바카라family lunches on Sundays, mango-stained t-shirts, the yellow of fish curry, of lemon rubbed corn on the cob on rainy afternoons, summer holidays and single stems of sunflowers the size of your face.바카라 But the house is as large as it is suffocating. There are rules to be followed. For instance, 바카라big gulps of air are not encouraged바카라 here. There is a list of things, drawn up by Ambarish, which they are 바카라not allowed to mention바카라 outside the olive-green gates of Tolstoy House. Very few visitors come to the house. And the parents keep watch on the girls바카라 every move.
The novel squarely places the institution of family under the scanner and asks: what Ambarish does is grotesque, but isn바카라t Meera guilty as well? How far can one go to earn the patriarch바카라s love and approval? How much agency do the women in this family바카라and by extension all families바카라really have in their roles as wives, mothers and daughters? Repulsed at first by her husband바카라s secret, Meera decides to play along. She feels the need to be the perfect wife, the woman who will do anything to keep her husband happy. She also enlists her daughters in the mission to help their father. In their complicity lies safety, she reasons. Naina, who is closest to Meera, often parrots this rationale: what mother did, she did it to keep us safe. Sujata differs and manages to break free as an adult. But the sins of her father have made her too guarded. She is wary of relationships, wary of love.
The daughters바카라 conflicting views on their mother바카라s lifechanging decision is sensitively etched. Sujata blames her mother for robbing of them of their childhood and finds everything바카라the food Meera cooked, the recipes she shared, the holidays they spent in breezy coastal towns and laidback hill stations바카라all tainted.
The story unravels through two alternating perspectives: Naina바카라s first-person voice and Meera바카라s third-person reminiscences. Both voices give us an insider바카라s view of the family dynamics. Naina바카라s accounts of her childhood, her relationships with her siblings; her bond with her mother and her conflicted relationship with her father; all build a cohesive picture of the world they occupy. Meera바카라s flashbacks into the early years of her marriage are also a timeline of Ambarish바카라s deeds. There is a point at which she clearly sees the darkness enveloping her husband바카라s core. And then she thinks, 바카라in all that was strange about this marriage, at least her girls were wonderful. She could find comfort in their sweet innocence.바카라
Meera바카라s backstory is sketchy. Naina remembers that her maternal grandmother died when she was five. She also shares that her mother바카라s brother moved away and that they stopped meeting her mother바카라s relatives after a point. Was it because Ambarish ordered them to? Was it isolation by design or did Meera바카라s family suspect what Ambarish was capable of?
When Meera discovers Mei Wan, the girl Ambarish had fallen in love with when he was a student in China, she writes to her. The correspondence between the two women goes on for years. Eventually, Mei Wan reveals some horrifying truths about Ambarish바카라s early years and her reasons for breaking up with him.
Mei Wan is one of the pivots on which the story rests. But she comes across as more of a convenient plot device than a fully rounded character. The resemblance between Mei Wan바카라s father and Ambarish seems like too much of a coincidence. What are the odds of Mei Wan meeting a man with the exact same appetite for the macabre as her father? Pretty slim! So, this is a tall ask on the readers바카라 capacity for willing suspension of disbelief.
Food is a recurring motif in the book. Plenty of homecooked meals are prepared and eaten. A dish isn바카라t just a dish: it is steeped in love and memory; revulsion and regret. One daughter may cherish a recipe; the other, banish it from her kitchen and her consciousness. Food locates the characters in a specific physical and emotional space. And it invokes a variety of sensations in readers. Some juxtapositions are startling, and hard to forget바카라such as Naina breathing in the smoke from her mother바카라s funeral pyre, while clinging to the memory of a Lohri celebration at their home, where potatoes wrapped in foil were roasting on the fire and the 바카라smoke smelt delicious바카라.
The motifs in The Ex Daughters of Tolstoy House add heft to the narrative, sharpening the social critique it offers.
A word about the title. A book soaked in blood, leading us down the warped alleys of the human mind; a narrative that guns at the status quo, and is geared to smash convenient truths, could have done with a fiercer title. Something with a more menacing ring, perhaps?
Vineetha Mokkil is assistant editor, Outlook. She is the author of the book A Happy Place and Other Stories
This article is part of Outlook바카라s 1 June 2025 issue, 'Gated Neighbourhood', which examines the state of diplomacy, media, and democracy in the wake of the ceasefire. It appeared in print as 'Bloodied Pages.'
