Vikas Khurana

Vikas is the husband of Deepa and the father of Nakul, Tushar, and, later, Anusha. Although there is no protagonist in the novel, he and his wife are the female and male leads of the first part of the novel.

Vikas grew up in a solid, middle-class, Hindu family, and started out his career as an accountant. Soon after meeting his wife at the firm where they both worked, he quit in order to become a documentary filmmaker. Vikas was never satisfied with his career, which never made him much money, and he blamed his lack of success on his inability to move out of Delhi because of his children. When his boys are killed, he blames himself for their deaths.

After the boys are killed, Vikas falls into a depression that lasts the better part of a decade. He occasionally snaps out of it, especially when...