Family Planning

Mr Ahuja, a Government Minister in New Delhi, is beset by problems: thirteen children and another on the way, not to mention the daily struggles over whether to resign for the sixty-third time; his wife, Sangita, adrift on a sea of knitting and nappies, is mourning the loss of her favourite TV soap star; son Rishi drives everyone mad with his serial apologies; and, finally there's Arjun, the oldest and perhaps the wisest of the sprawling, noisy crew.For once, though, Arjun is lost for words: how can he tell his school friend Aarti that he loves her? Serenading her with cover versions of Bryan Adams' greatest hits perhaps isn't the answer. In a household pushed to the brink, Arjun's father also has secrets to spill, and must do so in the troubled landscape of modern-day Delhi that he himself has built. Following father and son as they blunder their way over and under the flyovers of the megalopolis, Karan Mahajan brilliantly juggles the cultural and political worlds of India's capital city to create a moving - and fast-moving - portrait of modern family life.