Social novelists faced the dilemma of accepting modernism without affecting traditional values. They, therefore, created characters like Indulekha as a woman of breathtaking beauty, high intellectual abilities, artistic talent, and with an education in English and Sanskrit and Madhavan, who used to dress in Western clothes, but, at the same time, kept a long tuft of hair, according to the Nayar custom. These characters showed readers how Indian and foreign lifestyles could be brought together in an ideal combination