The poor state of the justice system
Throughout the novel, the law enforcement and justice system in India are depicted as inefficient and corrupt. For example, after the 1996 blast, the people are surprised when the police actually arrest the alleged terrorists--still doubting that they are indeed responsible for the attacks and not scapegoats. Another snapshot indicating laziness is the “fat, bespectacled, avuncular, wheezing policeman in slippers (Why were all the policemen in slippers? As if they had just rolled out of bed?)” who escorts Malik in the courthouse.
The courthouse itself is described as dirty and neglected, which Sharif and Afsheen find shameful. When Sharif mentions that he has “had a lot of experience with the justice system” and it’s “all about un-law and un-care,” his wife responds, “It’s terrible what these courts look like.”
One of the biggest problems and the reason for the delays in the prosecution process is corruption, which Deepa experiences firsthand when she visits Lajpat Nagar police station, “a brutish bureaucratic place characterized by the powdery paint on the walls and heavy steel desks. Upon arriving, they were surrounded by several policemen who asked what they wanted, clearly sizing up their ability to proffer bribes.”
Grief
The chapters after the 1996 bomb blast describe how different people who were affected by it deal with their grief. For example, Vikas falls into a depression from which he never recovers--angry at himself, and angry at his family for not understanding him that he has chosen the film industry over accounting. In his grief, he spends most of his time outside the house, gathering material for a planned documentary about Delhi. Even when his daughter Anisha is born, he does not find closure. In fact, he resents her because she was only born because his two sons have died.
Deepa, on the other hand, is trying to distract herself by working even harder at home. She also wants to meet the terrorists because she is thinking about taking her own life, so she feels she needs “all the loose ends tied up before she went, joining her boys wherever they were.” However, “It didn’t stop—the confusion, the disintegration. Deepa, characterized by her bright, chirpy alertness, was now inert.” Eventually, she starts an affair with one of her husband’s cousins, which leads to the downfall of their marriage.
Delhi
Much of the story takes place in Delhi, and the protagonists seem to have a love-hate relationship with the Indian capital. For example, while Deepa is preparing a bulk order, she says, “Hopefully we’ll have electricity so it won’t turn green from mold,” which illustrates the derelict state of the power grid and other public facilities in general.
Moreover, the city is described as an “odd world, so much more spacious and rude than Bangalore; Delhi, a place where no one was firmly rooted and there was a sense that if a better city presented itself just fifty kilometers away, the opportunistic inhabitants would immediately quit the city, caring not a jot for the earth that had nurtured them.” Mansoor, after coming back to India from the US, seems to have missed even the pollution of the city, as he “inhaled the stink of racing petrol deeply. Growing up in Delhi, one gets addicted to pollution.”
