A Fine Balance

Ishvar Darji is a 46-year-old tailor who comes from the untouchable caste. His face is scarred, but his demeanor is kind: “Ishvar’s disfigured cheek was grotesque […] His smile and his funny, undecided moustache tended to soften the damage” (75). Ishvar looks after his nephew Om with fatherly concern. Even though Ishvar and his family suffer at the hands of those in power, he never loses his ability to look on the bright side, partly because he would rather forget what has happened than confront those responsible. Ishvar’s perpetual optimism balances Om’s tendency to see the dark side of things.

Omprakash is Ishvar’s 17-year-old nephew, called “Om” for short. He is unusually thin no matter how much he eats: “The skeletal figure, sharp and angular, seemed a mechanical extension of the sewing-machine. Delicate as cut-glass crystal” (75). Om is as pessimistic as his uncle is optimistic. He frequently sees the downside of any situation. His impulsive outbursts of anger and envy often get him into trouble. Still, he is able to form a brotherly attachment to Maneck, a relationship that keeps him out of harm’s way for some time.

Dina is a pretty 42-year-old widow who is struggling to maintain her financial independence so that she doesn’t have to become her brother’s maid. To cover expenses, Dina runs a prohibited sewing business from her home and rents a room to Maneck. Because she has lived in isolation for so many years, Dina initially resists befriending the tailors and Maneck. Eventually, however, she bonds with them so much that she feels free to call Ishvar her husband, and Om and Maneck her sons. She feels that the four flatmates are a family: “But what else to say? […] That they cared about her, and gave her more respect than she had received from some of her own relatives? That she had, during these last few months, known what a family was?” (540).

Nusswan is Dina’s greedy older brother. After the death of his parents, he becomes head of the household, exploiting his sister by making her do all the housework so that he can save money on servants’ wages. Nusswan tries to marry Dina off when she is old enough. After she becomes a widow, he wants her to move back into his house so that she can continue to provide free maid service for his family. By the end of the novel, when Dina must live in his house, their originally contentious relationship has cooled into mutual tolerance.

Rajaram the hair-collector is a smooth-talking con artist. He shows Ishvar and Om the ropes when they first move into the shantytown. Om is repulsed by the fact that Rajaram collects hair and sells it to wigmakers. Rajaram often borrows money from the tailors and is continually reinventing himself. When he murders two beggars for their hair, Rajaram shaves his own head and plans to go to the Himalayas to become a monk. He resurfaces years later as a self-appointed guru selling blessings and charms. Part of Maneck’s suicidal distress comes from realizing that Rajaram is the type of person who succeeds in the corrupt, power-hungry system that rules India.

Shankar is a beggar who moves around on a wheeled platform because he lost his legs and his fingers. He has a kind and generous nature—he tends to the sick tailors in the work camp and later arranges their release by petitioning his boss, the Beggarmaster. He never learns that Beggarmaster is actually his half-brother who was responsible for surgically creating all Shankar’s physical disabilities.

Beggarmaster is the boss of a large band of beggars in the city. He pulls political strings to make sure his beggars don’t get harassed by the police, connections he uses to help the tailors and Dina get on their feet financially for a cut of their business. Despite his role as a seeming benefactor, Beggarmaster has created many of his beggars by surgically blinding and maiming them as children to make them appealing objects of charity. He feels some remorse when he learns that his favorite beggar Shankar is actually his half-brother.

Vasantrao is a middle-aged proofreader who likes to philosophize. Maneck meets him during the long train ride from his home village to the big city. Vasantrao crops up at several points in the story, always with a new job: proofreader, political organizer, Dina’s lawyer, and finally Guru Rajaram’s assistant. He offers pithy observations about life and the political climate of India to anyone who will listen.