Characters
The Narrator
The narrator grows up in Calcutta, India, with his parents and his grandmother, Tha’mma. Because of the ever-present risk of living in squalor, his elders impress upon him the importance of discipline and performing well in school. When Tha’mma dies, his parents wait two weeks to notify him by letter so as not to distract him from his final examinations. Like Tridib, the narrator ends up an academic and even transfers to London for his Ph.D. studies.
Although the narrator is in love with his cousin Ila, there is a huge class disparity between their families. While she travels the world at a young age, the narrator stays rooted in Calcutta—daydreaming, listening to Tridib’s stories, and poring over atlases and encyclopedias. He retains a great deal of this information and often impresses people with the precision of his memory. Partly because of Tridib’s influence, the narrator possesses an acute awareness of history and the threads that bind people together. Because he is a romantic at heart, he appreciates the concrete details and minutiae other people normally fail to pay attention to.
Tridib
More than two decades older than the narrator, Tridib is the second son of Tha’mma’s sister, Mayadebi. Unlike the rest of his family, he prefers to stay in Calcutta rather than relocate from place to place. Despite his affluent background, he is a class chameleon of sorts, taking pleasure in the company of the street vendors and loiterers at Gole Park but also comfortable in higher-brow arenas.
Tridib’s vast knowledge of different cultures and civilizations is one of the main things that endears him to the narrator. During the narrator’s childhood, Tridib played a fundamental part in awakening his imagination and curiosity, as the two shared many secret jokes and greetings.
Tridib’s death is one of the central mysteries of the narrator’s life. Although he receives large pieces of the puzzle from Robi, the reason for his death remains unresolved until the end of the novel. It is May who insists that Tridib’s noble choice to sacrifice himself defies understanding.
Ila
Ila is Tridib’s niece, the daughter of Mayadebi’s eldest child. Because she is the same age as the narrator, the two become each other’s playmates and confidantes. As the narrator realizes at an early age, however, his and Ila’s relationship is asymmetrical—he needs her more than she needs him. When Ila realizes that he is in love with her, she fails to reciprocate his feelings.
Although Ila and the narrator look alike, they are opposites in many ways. For one, Ila does not share his curiosity and sense of wonder. A self-described “free spirit and free woman,” Ila chooses to stay in London rather than go back to India, as the subcontinent’s conservative culture clashes with her much more liberated, Bohemian ideals. The tragedy of Ila’s character, however, is that she is bound to her love for her husband, refusing to leave him even as he cheats on her with multiple women.
Tha’mma
The closest thing the novel has to a villain, Tha’mma’s abrasive, no-nonsense character can be attributed to the hardships she experienced. In childhood, she witnessed the literal fracturing of her family—through a giant wall put up to divide their shared ancestral home. She is then widowed at thirty-two and forced to find employment for the first time to put the narrator’s father through school. Despite her rough edges, the narrator loves Tha’mma deeply.
Tha’mma’s high regard for strength and independence devolves into unabashed hate in old age, as she grows obsessed with India’s war with Palestine. Her thirst for blood stems...
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in part from Tridib’s death at the hands of a mob in Dhaka. On her deathbed, Tha’mma scolds the narrator for his love for Ila, whom she views as a greedy, spoiled “slut” who leads him astray. Sadly, this venom-filled conversation is the last the two have.
May
May is Mrs. Price’s eldest child. She lives alone in Islington and makes her living playing the oboe. In her free time, she supports humanitarian causes. For example, she enlists the narrator’s help in collecting money on the streets for famine relief in Africa. While Ila views May as wide-eyed and naive, the narrator finds her innocence charming. Her tender-heartedness is also one of the things Tridib falls in love with.
While May is Tridib’s love interest in the novel, their relationship is a tragic one. The pair begin a written correspondence when she is nineteen and he is twenty-seven. They meet for the first time when May travels all the way to India. However, their time together is short-lived—Tridib sacrifices himself in Dhaka to save her from the mob. The novel ends with the implication that something romantic may be developing between May and the narrator.
Nick
Nick is May’s younger brother. Unlike his sister, he has blonde hair that Ila describes as always falling in his eyes. He is three years older than Ila and the narrator. Although he professes that he would like to travel the world like his grandfather, Lionel Tresawsen, he ends up working as a chartered accountant in Kuwait—and is eventually fired due to embezzlement charges. When he and Ila marry, he engages in illicit affairs with multiple women as a way of “traveling.”
When Ila first mentions Nick to the narrator, he feels jealous and constantly compares himself to the idea of Nick he conjures in his head. The last time Nick appears in the novel, however, the narrator is finally able to see him for what he is: A small, petty man dependent on his wife’s fortune. For the first time, he realizes he can measure up to him.
