Family, Community, and Survival in Contemporary Indian Fiction: A Study of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line and The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey

Abstract

This paper explores the themes of family bonds, community relationships, and everyday survival in Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (2020) by Deepa Anappara and The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2022) by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar. Set respectively in an urban slum in Delhi and a Santhal tribal village in Jharkhand, the two novels portray socially vulnerable communities facing crisis—child disappearances in one text and unexplained illness in the other. While both narratives expose institutional neglect, including the failure of police systems, media structures, and medical authorities, they simultaneously foreground the resilience of ordinary people sustained by family ties and collective living. In Anappara’s novel, the fear generated by the disappearance of children destabilizes the urban settlement, yet parental care, friendship, and neighborhood solidarity provide psychological strength to the characters. In Shekhar’s novel, the mysterious illness of Rupi Baskey reveals both the limitations of modern medical intervention and the importance of familial responsibility and community engagement. The Santhal village emerges as an interconnected space where collective concern, shared rituals, and women’s informal care networks sustain the social fabric. Rather than focusing on grand political ideologies or abstract theoretical constructs, this paper emphasizes the everyday dimensions of resilience—caregiving, shared grief, friendship, and moral responsibility. Both novels demonstrate that survival in marginalized contexts depends less on institutional structures and more on relational bonds. Through intimate portrayals of domestic life and communal interaction, Anappara and Shekhar suggest that family and community are not merely background settings but active forces that shape endurance, identity, and hope. Ultimately, the paper argues that contemporary Indian fiction continues to reaffirm the enduring value of human connection. In depicting crisis alongside compassion, these novels present survival not as heroic triumph but as collective persistence rooted in love, obligation, and shared humanity.