Naming and shaping: Contours of Indian identity in Anita Desai's in custody

Anita Desai's fiction realistically portrays Indian society in flux after independence. In her novel In Custody , Desai uses the artistic device of naming to highlight and interrogate serious issues, including religion, language, gender, and caste, within a microcosmic representation of India. Although extensive research exists—through feminist, existentialist, and psychoanalytic lenses—this study adopts a novel approach: literary onomastics. By analyzing character names alongside new historicism and cultural materialism, this paper argues that Desai's tacit understanding of the naming conventions uncovers hidden hierarchies embedded in Indian society and reveals how centuries of history shape present realities.