Inherited or acquired madness?

Was Sampath and Kulfi's "madness" inherited from a long line of crazy people on Kulfi's side of the family or did it come from somewhere else like family stresses and other external causes?

I'm guessing that it was a recessive gene from the mom's side. When the mom's family it talked about, they always talk about how they finally think that the mad kids will stop coming, but then another one comes.

@ Allyson

I was researching online, and I wasn't able to find an honest answer from a reliable source as to whether is was possible to "inheretit madness". So, is it physically and medically possible to pass a "mad" gene throughout an entire family?

If it were a disease it could be possible. Like you said, "madness" can't just be passed along.

maybe it was inherited environmentally? growing up with his mother and her inane habits could cause Sampath to consider that normal. sampath was not close to his father, due to criticism. therefore his mother would be his role model, and crazy was the role he modeled.

I totally agree, or the fact that he did NOT want to be like his father (which happened to be more sane than his mother)

Maybe it's not a "madness" gene, persay, but maybe a gene that makes a person susceptible to madness, or insanity. Not insanity in the crazy, yelling-at-anyone-they-see-way, but more of an internal, quiet insanity. Both Sampath and Kulfi seem pretty focused on their own minds, and don't care about what's going on in the world around them. Kulfi is pretty focused on her food, and Sampath is focused on his tree. I think the connection between them and their madness is how they deal with their madness. Kulfi creates her own world of food, and Sampath creates a world above everyone in the tree. They both have no real place in the outside world, so they create their own. There could be a gene they both share that makes them unable to concentrate on the real world and instead become apathetic and introverted.

i think that because of Mr. Chawla, both Kulfi and Sampath were driven mad. No doubt that Sampth and his mother are alike in many ways but i think that Mr. Chawla and the "hustle bustle" of society in which they were living in affected them enough to make them go crazy.

The way Sampath was described, I don't think he has a "mad gene" or mental disease, but this theory seems plausible when applied to Kulfi.
I believe that because Sampath was raised by Kulfi, he was able to see things slightly differently from others and was more aware of the world. I don't think he was a guru, as he was labeled many times throughout the book, but simply that he knew what he desired and was willing to defy others to achieve that.

I found a quote in the beginning of chapter 17 that I believe explains Sampath's "madness". "Only those who managed to enclose themselves in their own worlds and disregard the battles going on managed to sleep at night." The next line even talks about how Kulfi had done that and paid no attention to the monkeys' rampage. Sampath is obviously surrounded by a lot of stress, and the way he deals with it is by shutting out the rest of the world, appearing to everyone that he is either a lunatic or an other-worldly Baba. @cait13, Maybe there is a gene that makes them susceptible to this madness... But could it be that they are not mad, they are just trying to deal with the world's madness?