Drought and Desperation

In a parched Bengali village, Nitai Das, a starving farmer, is driven to a horrifying act: he murders his family and takes his own life, unable to bear the endless cycle of hunger and humiliation. This prologue sets the tone for the novel's exploration of suffering, powerlessness, and the invisible lives of the rural poor. Nitai's story is not isolated; it is a symptom of a larger, systemic failure—one that will ripple through the lives of the Ghosh family in Calcutta, whose own prosperity is built on the backs of such invisible laborers. The emotional devastation of Nitai's act lingers, a silent scream beneath the surface of the city's more privileged lives, foreshadowing the violence and upheaval to come.

Ghosh Family Fractures

The Ghosh family, once prosperous paper mill owners, live together in a sprawling Calcutta house, their lives governed by tradition, hierarchy, and unspoken resentments. The patriarch, Prafullanath, and his wife, Charubala, preside over a household of sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and servants. Beneath the surface, rivalries, jealousy, and anxieties about inheritance and status fester. The family's fortunes are waning, and the cracks in their unity widen as each member struggles for security and recognition. The women, especially, navigate a minefield of expectations and slights, their ambitions and disappointments often expressed through petty acts and whispered grievances. The family's structure, meant to provide stability, instead becomes a crucible for conflict.

Seeds of Revolution

Supratik, the eldest grandson, is increasingly alienated by the family's complacency and privilege. Haunted by the suffering he glimpses outside their walls, he is drawn to radical politics and the promise of Maoist revolution. His activism is both a search for meaning and a rejection of the family's insularity. The city itself is in turmoil: food riots, strikes, and student protests shake Calcutta. Supratik's journey from idealistic student to underground revolutionary is marked by secrecy, sacrifice, and a growing sense of estrangement from his family. His decision to leave home, leaving behind only a cryptic note, is both an act of liberation and a wound that will never fully heal for those he leaves behind.

Festival Masks and Fissures

The annual Durga Puja festival brings a brief illusion of unity and joy to the Ghosh household. New clothes, rituals, and neighborhood festivities mask deeper tensions. Baishakhi, Supratik's cousin, is caught in a forbidden romance, while Chhaya, the unmarried aunt, seethes with envy and bitterness. The festival's rituals—meant to reinforce family and community—become a stage for rebellion, humiliation, and the eruption of long-suppressed grievances. When Baishakhi's secret is exposed, the family's response is swift and punitive, revealing the limits of their empathy and the power of shame. The festival ends not in renewal, but in a tightening of control and surveillance.

Departures and Disappearances

Supratik's sudden disappearance devastates his mother, Sandhya, who retreats into grief and ritual. The family's attempts to find him—through police, political contacts, and desperate inquiries—yield only rumors and fear. His absence becomes a silent accusation, a void that exposes the family's inability to understand or reach him. Meanwhile, the family's fortunes continue to decline: business troubles, labor unrest, and the erosion of old certainties leave them vulnerable. The younger generation, especially, feels the weight of expectations and the impossibility of escape. The house, once a symbol of stability, becomes a prison of memory and regret.

Village Immersion

Supratik, now living among landless peasants in Medinipur, is forced to confront the gap between revolutionary theory and the brutal realities of rural life. Alongside comrades Samir and Dhiren, he organizes villagers for armed struggle, witnessing firsthand the grinding poverty, exploitation, and despair that fuel both apathy and rage. The work is slow, dangerous, and often demoralizing; the villagers' suffering is deep, but so is their resignation. The revolutionaries' idealism is tested by hunger, exhaustion, and the ever-present threat of betrayal. Yet moments of solidarity and small victories kindle hope, even as violence becomes both a tool and a curse.

Harvests and Hunger

The seasons dictate the rhythm of village life: planting, weeding, harvesting, and the constant struggle against hunger. Supratik learns the skills and hardships of agricultural labor, his hands and body marked by the same wounds as those he seeks to help. The villagers' lives are shaped by debt, drought, and the arbitrary power of landlords and moneylenders. The revolutionaries' efforts to organize resistance—redistributing grain, forming armed squads—bring both empowerment and new dangers. The cost of change is high, and the line between justice and vengeance blurs. The memory of Nitai Das's tragedy haunts every act, a reminder of what is at stake.

Betrayals and Unravelings

As the revolutionary movement escalates, so do the risks. Betrayals—real and perceived—become inevitable. Supratik and his comrades are forced to make impossible choices: who to trust, who to sacrifice, how much violence is justified. The police and landlords retaliate with brutal repression, and the villagers pay the price. Back in Calcutta, the Ghosh family faces its own betrayals: theft, false accusations, and the slow erosion of loyalty. The servant Madan, long considered "one of the family," becomes a scapegoat for a crime he did not commit, his fate a mirror of the larger injustices at play. The bonds that once held the family and the movement together are fraying.

Generations in Collision

The generational divide within the Ghosh family becomes unbridgeable. The elders cling to tradition, hierarchy, and the myth of the family's greatness, while the younger members—each in their own way—seek escape, meaning, or rebellion. The family's decline is both material and moral: failed marriages, addiction, and the inability to adapt to a changing world. The past, with its stories of lost wealth and faded glory, becomes both a comfort and a curse. The family's attempts to preserve its legacy only hasten its dissolution, as each member is forced to confront the limits of their power and the consequences of their choices.

Violence and Vengeance

The revolutionary struggle in the villages reaches a bloody crescendo. Landlords and their agents are targeted for assassination; grain is seized and redistributed. The violence, once justified as a means to justice, becomes self-perpetuating, consuming both oppressors and the oppressed. The police respond with mass arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings. Supratik is eventually captured, betrayed by the very system he sought to overthrow. His interrogation is brutal, his ideals tested to the breaking point. The cycle of violence, begun in hope, ends in despair and destruction, leaving behind only scars and questions.

Exile Within Walls

Purba, the widow of the youngest Ghosh son, is exiled to the margins of the household, her status reduced to that of a dependent servant. Her children, Sona and Kalyani, grow up in the shadow of loss and stigma, their talents and hopes constrained by poverty and prejudice. Yet Sona's extraordinary gift for mathematics offers a glimmer of escape—a chance to transcend the boundaries of class and fate. The family's treatment of Purba and her children reveals the cruelty of social hierarchies, even within the supposed sanctuary of home. Exile, both literal and emotional, becomes the fate of all who do not fit.

The Mathematics of Escape

Sona's prodigious talent in mathematics is recognized by a teacher, leading to an opportunity to study abroad. His journey from the cramped, neglected quarters of the Ghosh house to international acclaim is both a personal triumph and a commentary on the randomness of fate. The family, once dismissive, now claims pride in his achievements, but the cost of escape is high: separation, loneliness, and the knowledge that success is not equally available to all. Sona's story is a counterpoint to the failures and compromises of the older generation, a testament to the possibility of transcendence through intellect and perseverance.

The Weight of Inheritance

The Ghosh family's decline accelerates as the consequences of past decisions—financial mismanagement, pride, and the refusal to adapt—come due. The patriarch, once a builder, is now a broken man, haunted by loss and regret. The family's wealth, once a source of security, is squandered in futile attempts to preserve status. The younger generation is left to pick up the pieces, their own ambitions and relationships warped by the burdens they inherit. The house itself, once a symbol of unity, becomes a mausoleum of failed dreams and unresolved grievances.

Collapse and Consequence

The revolutionary violence that began in distant villages comes full circle, engulfing the Ghosh family. Supratik's arrest and torture by the police is both a personal tragedy and a symbol of the state's ruthless response to dissent. The family, already weakened by internal strife, is powerless to protect him. The cost of ideals—personal, familial, and political—is revealed in all its brutality. The cycle of action and reaction, hope and disillusionment, reaches its inevitable conclusion: loss, trauma, and the shattering of illusions.

The Return and Reckoning

After years of absence, Supratik returns home, changed beyond recognition. His presence is both a comfort and a challenge to his family, who must confront the reality of his choices and the wounds left by his departure. Old conflicts are reignited, new alliances formed, and the possibility of forgiveness is tested. The family's story, like the nation's, is one of unfinished business: the past cannot be undone, but neither can it be escaped. The reckoning is both personal and collective, a moment of truth that offers no easy answers.

The Price of Ideals

The final chapters trace the ultimate cost of revolutionary commitment. Supratik, under torture, is forced to betray his comrades, his ideals, and himself. The line between victim and perpetrator blurs, as the machinery of repression grinds on. The family, too, is forced to confront the limits of loyalty and the inevitability of loss. The revolution, once a beacon of hope, is revealed as both necessary and tragic—a force that destroys as much as it creates. The survivors are left to make sense of the ruins, their lives forever marked by the choices they made and the world they could not change.

The End of Innocence

In the aftermath, the family scatters, the house empties, and the old order is gone. Yet amidst the wreckage, new possibilities emerge: Sona's international success, the resilience of those who endure, the persistence of memory and love. The novel ends with a vision of the future—one shaped by the struggles and sacrifices of the past, but not wholly determined by them. The lives of others, once invisible or ignored, are now seen in all their complexity and pain. The end of innocence is also the beginning of understanding, a hard-won empathy that is the novel's final gift.

Aftermath and Legacy

Decades later, the legacy of violence and injustice persists. New generations take up the struggle, the lines between victim and oppressor as blurred as ever. The novel's epilogue, set in contemporary India, shows that the forces unleashed in the past—poverty, exploitation, resistance—remain potent and unresolved. The story of the Ghosh family, and of those whose lives intersected with theirs, is both unique and universal: a testament to the enduring power of history, the fragility of hope, and the necessity of bearing witness to the lives of others.

Characters

Supratik Ghosh

Supratik is the eldest grandson of the Ghosh family, a sensitive, intelligent young man who becomes disillusioned with his family's privilege and the suffering he witnesses around him. His journey from student activist to underground Maoist revolutionary is marked by a deep yearning for justice and meaning, but also by increasing alienation and moral ambiguity. Supratik's commitment to radical change leads him to abandon his family, endure hardship, and ultimately betray his own ideals under torture. His psychological arc is one of transformation, sacrifice, and tragic self-awareness; he embodies the costs and contradictions of political action, and his absence haunts the family long after his departure.

Sandhya Ghosh

Sandhya, Supratik's mother, is the emotional heart of the family. Her love for her son is unwavering, and his disappearance devastates her, leading to withdrawal and ritualized mourning. Sandhya's role as the eldest daughter-in-law is both a burden and a source of dignity; she manages the household with quiet efficiency, even as her own needs are neglected. Her grief is both personal and emblematic of the suffering endured by women in patriarchal families—her sacrifices are invisible, her pain unacknowledged. Yet she remains a source of compassion and resilience, her capacity for forgiveness and understanding a counterpoint to the family's pettiness.

Prafullanath Ghosh

Once a self-made man and successful businessman, Prafullanath is now an ailing patriarch, his authority undermined by age, illness, and the family's financial decline. His pride and stubbornness contribute to the family's downfall, as he clings to outdated values and refuses to adapt. Prafullanath's relationships with his children are marked by disappointment and unspoken regret; he is both a victim and a perpetrator of the family's dysfunction. His psychological complexity lies in his simultaneous longing for control and his recognition of his own impotence—a tragic figure whose legacy is both creation and destruction.

Charubala Ghosh

Charubala wields power through the enforcement of custom, hierarchy, and moral judgment. She is both nurturing and punitive, her affections distributed unequally among her children and grandchildren. Charubala's treatment of her widowed daughter-in-law, Purba, and her grandchildren Sona and Kalyani, reveals the cruelty of social norms and the limits of empathy. Her psychological rigidity is both a defense against chaos and a source of suffering for those around her. As the family unravels, her authority becomes increasingly hollow, her attempts to maintain order only hastening the collapse.

Priyo Ghosh

Priyo is the second son, caught between duty and frustration. Overshadowed by his elder brother Adinath and embittered by perceived injustices in the distribution of family wealth and status, Priyo's life is marked by compromise and complaint. His marriage to the ambitious and sharp-tongued Purnima is a battleground of expectations and disappointments. Priyo's psychological arc is one of gradual disillusionment; he is neither hero nor villain, but a man shaped by circumstance, unable to break free from the patterns of his upbringing.

Purnima Ghosh

Purnima is Priyo's wife, a woman of sharp intelligence and relentless drive. She navigates the family's labyrinthine politics with cunning, often at the expense of others. Her ambitions for herself and her daughter Baishakhi are both a response to and a perpetuation of the family's competitive, hierarchical culture. Purnima's psychological complexity lies in her simultaneous vulnerability and ruthlessness; she is both a victim of the system and an expert at manipulating it. Her actions, especially in the aftermath of the jewelry theft, reveal the corrosive effects of envy and insecurity.

Chhaya Ghosh

Chhaya, the only daughter of Prafullanath and Charubala, is marked by her dark complexion, squint, and the stigma of spinsterhood. Her failed marriage prospects and sense of exclusion fuel a lifelong resentment, expressed through gossip, sabotage, and emotional cruelty. Chhaya's psychological pain is both personal and social; she is a casualty of the family's values, yet also a perpetrator of its dysfunction. Her moments of generosity are rare and often tinged with self-pity, making her both pitiable and dangerous.

Purba Ghosh

Purba, married to the youngest Ghosh son, is widowed early and relegated to the margins of the household. Her life is one of endurance: she raises her children, Sona and Kalyani, in poverty and isolation, subject to the whims and prejudices of her in-laws. Purba's psychological strength lies in her ability to survive humiliation and loss without becoming embittered. Her love for her children, especially her support of Sona's mathematical talent, is a quiet act of defiance against the family's neglect. She represents the possibility of dignity and hope in the face of systemic injustice.

Sona (Swarnendu) Ghosh

Sona, Purba's son, is a shy, introspective boy whose extraordinary gift for mathematics offers a path out of poverty and marginalization. His journey from neglected child to internationally recognized scholar is both a personal triumph and a commentary on the randomness of opportunity. Sona's psychological world is one of abstraction and solitude; he is more at home with numbers than with people, his genius both a blessing and a barrier. His success is a bittersweet victory, highlighting both the possibility of escape and the costs of leaving others behind.

Madan

Madan, the family's longtime cook and servant, is both "one of the family" and forever an outsider. His devotion is repaid with suspicion and betrayal when he is falsely accused of theft. Madan's psychological arc is one of loyalty, humiliation, and quiet dignity; his fate mirrors that of the rural poor whose labor sustains the Ghoshes' privilege. His story exposes the limits of empathy and the ease with which the powerful sacrifice the powerless to protect their own interests.

Plot Devices

Interwoven Family and Political Narratives

The novel's structure alternates between the domestic dramas of the Ghosh family and the revolutionary journey of Supratik, using their interconnection to illuminate the broader social and political upheavals of late-1960s Bengal. The family's decline mirrors the fracturing of traditional society, while the revolutionary plot exposes the costs and contradictions of radical change. This dual narrative allows for rich foreshadowing and irony: events in one sphere echo and comment on those in the other, deepening the reader's understanding of both.

Letters and Interior Monologue

Supratik's letters and internal reflections provide a window into his evolving consciousness, his doubts, and his justifications. These personal documents contrast with the external, often judgmental perspectives of other characters, highlighting the limits of empathy and the difficulty of truly knowing another's motives. The use of letters as a plot device also allows for foreshadowing, as Supratik's confessions and rationalizations anticipate the betrayals and tragedies to come.

Symbolic Objects and Spaces

The Ghosh family home is both a fortress and a prison, its gradual decay mirroring the family's fortunes. Jewelry, especially in the context of theft and inheritance, becomes a symbol of value, trust, and betrayal. Mathematics, in Sona's story, represents both the possibility of transcendence and the isolation of genius. These objects and spaces are used to foreshadow character arcs and to comment on the larger themes of the novel.

Generational Echoes and Cycles

The novel is structured around cycles: of violence, poverty, ambition, and disappointment. The failures of one generation are visited upon the next, even as each character struggles to break free. Foreshadowing is achieved through repeated motifs—festivals, family rituals, political actions—that begin in hope and end in disillusionment. The narrative structure itself, with its shifts in time and perspective, reinforces the sense of history as both burden and possibility.

Modernist Multiplicity

The novel employs a wide range of narrative voices—first-person, third-person, letters, interior monologue—to create a tapestry of subjectivities. This multiplicity allows for irony, ambiguity, and the exposure of self-deception. The reader is invited to piece together the "truth" from conflicting accounts, mirroring the novel's concern with the limits of empathy and the difficulty of understanding "the lives of others."

Analysis

Neel Mukherjee's The Lives of Others is a sweeping, unflinching examination of the intersections between private and public life, privilege and deprivation, tradition and revolution. Set against the backdrop of late-1960s Bengal—a time of political ferment, economic crisis, and social upheaval—the novel anatomizes the Ghosh family as both a microcosm of a decaying elite and a crucible for the anxieties of modernity. Through its interwoven narratives, the book interrogates the limits of empathy: how can we truly understand the suffering of others, especially when our own comfort depends on their invisibility? The revolutionary plot, with its idealism and violence, exposes both the necessity and the tragedy of radical change; the family drama, with its betrayals and exclusions, reveals the everyday cruelties of hierarchy and tradition. The novel's modern relevance is acute: it asks what it means to bear witness, to act, and to reckon with the consequences of our choices. The ultimate lesson is both sobering and hopeful: history is made not only by grand gestures, but by the accumulation of small acts—of kindness, of cruelty, of resistance, and of survival. The "lives of others" are not abstractions, but the ground on which our own lives are built; to ignore them is to court both personal and collective ruin.

Last updated: September 3, 2025