A Fine Balance
Encyclopedia
A Fine Balance is the second book by Rohinton Mistry
. Set in Mumbai
, India
between 1975 and 1984 during the turmoil of The Emergency, a period of expanded government power and crackdowns on civil liberties, this book is about four characters from varied backgrounds—Dina Dalal, Ishvar Darji, his nephew Omprakash Darji and the young student Maneck Kohlah—who come together and develop a bond.
First published by McClelland and Stewart
in 1995
, it won the Giller Prize
. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1996. In 2001
it is currently one of the only two Canadian books that have been selected into Oprah's Book Club
. It was one of the selected books in the 2002
edition of Canada Reads
, championed by actress Megan Follows
.
An acclaimed stage adaptation of the novel by the Tamasha Theatre Company
was produced at the Hampstead Theatre
in London, England in 2006 and later revived in 2007.
Indira Gandhi
. Mistry is generally critical of P. M. Gandhi in the book. Interestingly, however, Gandhi is never referred to by name by any of the characters, and is instead called simply "the prime minister". The characters, from diverse backgrounds, are all brought together by economic forces changing India.
Ishvar and Omprakash's family is part of the Chamaar
caste
, who traditionally cured leather and were considered untouchable. In an attempt to break away from the restrictive caste system, Ishvar's father apprentices his sons Ishvar and Narayan to a Muslim tailor, Ashraf Chacha, in a nearby village, and so they became tailors. As a result of their skills, which are also passed on to Narayan's son Omprakash (Om), Ishvar and Om move to Mumbai to get work, by then unavailable in the town near their village because a pre-made clothing shop has opened.
Maneck, from a small mountain village in northern India, moves to the city to acquire a college certificate "as a back-up" in case his father's soft drink business is no longer able to compete after the building of a highway near their village.
Dina, from a traditionally wealthy family, maintains tenuous independence from her brother by living in the flat of her deceased husband, who was a chemist.
Dina distances herself from the political ferment of the period: "Government problems and games played by people in power," she tells Ishvar. "It doesn't affect ordinary people like us" (Mistry, 86). But in the end it does affect all of them, drastically.
At the beginning of the book, the two tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash, are on their way to the flat of Dina Dalal via a train. While on the train, they meet a college student named Maneck Kohlah, who coincidentally is also on his way to the flat of Dina Dalal to be a boarder. They become friends and go to Dina's flat together. Dina hires Ishvar and Om for piecework, and agrees to let Maneck stay with her. Dina then reflects on her past and how she was brought to her current situation.
The tailors rent their own sewing machines, and come to Dina's flat each day for nearly two weeks before the first round of dresses is completed. The three get along fairly well, but Dina and Omprakash don't see eye to eye all the time. Omprakash is angry that Dina is a middle-man and he wants to sew for Au Revoir directly. Dina locks the tailors in her flat from the outside so that they will not find out what company they are sewing for and thus cut her out of the picture, and sets off to Au Revoir Exports for the lady, Mrs. Gupta, to buy the dresses. Om and Ishvar remain enclosed in the flat and the author reveals their past and how they came to the current situation.
Maneck goes to college and stays at the student hostel. When he first arrives he is exhausted and settles on the bed. In the middle of the night he feels something crawling up his leg and discovers an infestation of cockroaches. His room turns out to be filled with vermin and he tries to kill all of them by stomping on them. A neighbor hears the noise and helps by giving him pesticide spray. Maneck becomes friends with this neighbor, Avinash, who is also the student president. Avinash teaches Maneck chess and they play together often. The hostel conditions they live in are poor and the food is nearly inedible. When a vegetarian discovers meat in his soup, the students are disgusted and they almost attack the cafeteria workers. The students eventually are inspired and Avinash leads them in an uprising against the Institution for better conditions. He becomes involved in political events, for which Maneck has little interest, and their friendship is no longer a priority for Avinash. They start seeing each other quite infrequently. But when the Emergency is declared in India, political activists had to go into hiding in order to be safe, Avinash included. Maneck, no longer having friends in the student hostel, has his mother arrange a different living situation for him, and he moves in with Dina Dalal, but he still has Avinash's chess set, because he can't return it.
Ishvar and Om return to their village to find a wife for Omprakash, who is now 18. Maneck returns home, finished with his first year in college (he has received a certificate but not a degree), but has stiff relations with his family and finds that his father's business is failing due to the invasion of cheap commercial sodas. He takes a lucrative job in the Middle East to escape the conditions.
Dina being alone now, and her protector the Beggarmaster having been murdered, has no protection from the landlord who wants to break her apartment's rent control and charge more rent, so she is evicted. Dina is forced to again live with her brother, Nusswan, to her utter dismay and embarrassment.
Omprakash and Ishvar return to their old town to find that Ashraf Chacha is an elderly man whose wife died and daughters were all married off. He barely survives with his tailoring business but is safe from mob violence because there is little Muslim persecution. He gives them a place to stay while they search for marriage prospects for Om. While they walk around the village, they run into the upper-caste Thakur Dharamsi. Omprakash recognizes him and spits in his direction. Thakur in turn recognizes Om, and decides to somehow pay Om back for his disrespect of an upper caste member. When Ashraf Chacha, Ishvar, and Om are in the village, they run into herders from the Family Planning Centre. At the Family Planning Centre, the government gives free vasectomies and tubectomies in an effort to control population. They are supposedly optional, but encouraged, and each Centre has a certain quota to fill or they are not paid. The Centre in this city did not fill its quota, so they took random people from the street and forced them into a truck that drove them to the Family Planning Centre. Ishvar and Om resist, because Ishvar wants Om to have a family once he is married. However they are beaten into the truck, including Ashraf Chacha. But since Ashraf Chacha is so old, he is gravely injured by the beating and later dies on the street. Ishvar and Omprakash weep in the truck and beg to escape the forced sterilization, but the surgery takes place. As they lie in an outside tent recovering with other victims, Thakur Dharamsi comes by to be sure that the Centre's quota has been filled. He sees Om recovering and whispers something to a doctor. The doctor, horrified, nonetheless takes Om back to surgery and cuts off his testicles. They encounter no more trouble from Thakur, now that he has had revenge by making Om a eunuch. Ishvar's legs become infected due to the vasectomy and must be amputated. However, Ishvar and Om have nowhere to go now that Ashraf Chacha has died. His son-in-law sells his house and they are forced to leave town.
While at home he reads old newspapers that his father has kept for some reason. In one he sees a picture of three teenage girls who hanged themselves from a ceiling fan. He is saddened by the picture and reads from the article that the three girls hanged themselves because their parents could not afford dowries for them to get married, and didn't want to shame their family by being unmarried their whole lives. The parents of the three daughters are heart-broken, but the article says that this is not the first time they have experienced heartache. They had a son, Avinash, a former student who advocated for fair politicians and better public conditions. He was found dead by railroad tracks, apparently having fallen off a train, but his injuries were suspicious and did not seem inflicted by his supposed cause of death. Maneck already knew of Avinash's death, but is astounded at the suffering the family went through. He runs out into the rain storm that was occurring and later decides to visit Dina in the city.
He visits the city and visits Dina at her brother's house, and they catch up. He is pleased to see her and happy that she remembered him. She feels the same, as since she met Maneck she regarded him as a son. She gives Maneck Avinash's chess set that he accidentally left behind, and Maneck feels like he lost Avinash all over again. Maneck asks about Ishvar and Om, and Dina tells him that they have become beggars, and Ishvar lost his legs. Maneck is appalled, because he can't believe that the spirited tailors he knew would ever stop working and stoop so low as to become beggars. He can't understand how his friend Om would let himself down, and he excuses himself from Dina and promises to visit soon, upset from the news. As he leaves, he encounters Om and Ishvar on the street. The two former tailors are nearly unrecognizable because of their filth, and don't appear to recall him. They say "Salaam" to him, but he doesn't know what to say and walks on.
Maneck goes to the train station, his world shattered. He walks out on the tracks as an express train approaches the station. The author said, "Maneck's last thought was that he still had Avinash's chessmen."
It turned out that Om and Ishvar were on their way to visit Dina. They are still friends, and she gives them meals and money when the house is empty. They visit her nearly every day. Dina and the beggars discuss their lives and how Maneck has changed from a pleasant and friendly college student to a distant refrigeration specialist. Om and Ishvar leave as Ruby returns, promising to visit after the weekend. Dina washes up their plates and clears up all evidence of their visit, and returns the plates to the cupboard, where they are to be used later by Nusswan and Ruby.
Rohinton Mistry
Rohinton Mistry is an Indian-born Canadian writer in English. Residing in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, Mistry is of Indian origin, originally from Mumbai, Zoroastrian and belongs to the Parsi community. Mistry is a Neustadt International Prize for Literature laureate .-Biography:Rohinton Mistry was...
. Set in Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
between 1975 and 1984 during the turmoil of The Emergency, a period of expanded government power and crackdowns on civil liberties, this book is about four characters from varied backgrounds—Dina Dalal, Ishvar Darji, his nephew Omprakash Darji and the young student Maneck Kohlah—who come together and develop a bond.
First published by McClelland and Stewart
McClelland and Stewart
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is partially owned by Random House of Canada, now a subsidiary of Bertelsmann....
in 1995
1995 in literature
The year 1995 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is opened by Jimmy Carter....
, it won the Giller Prize
Scotiabank Giller Prize
The Scotiabank Giller Prize, or Giller Prize, is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English the previous year, after an annual juried competition between publishers who submit entries...
. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1996. In 2001
2001 in literature
The year 2001 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The film version of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic book, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, is released to movie theaters...
it is currently one of the only two Canadian books that have been selected into Oprah's Book Club
Oprah's Book Club
Oprah's Book Club was a book discussion club segment of the American talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, highlighting books chosen by host Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey started the book club in 1996, selecting a new novel for viewers to read and discuss each month. The Club ended its 15-year run, along with...
. It was one of the selected books in the 2002
2002 in literature
The year 2002 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 16: Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested and jailed poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam and fired a newspaper editor following the publication of Musalam's poem The Corrupt on Earth that criticized the state's Islamic...
edition of Canada Reads
Canada Reads
Canada Reads is an annual "battle of the books" competition organized and broadcast by Canada's public broadcaster, the CBC.-Overview:During Canada Reads, five personalities champion five different books, each champion extolling the merits of one of the titles. The debate is broadcast over a series...
, championed by actress Megan Follows
Megan Follows
Megan Elizabeth Laura Diana Follows is a Canadian/American actress. She is most known to international audiences for her role as Anne Shirley in the acclaimed 1985 Canadian television miniseries Anne of Green Gables and its two sequels.-Biography:Follows was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as the...
.
An acclaimed stage adaptation of the novel by the Tamasha Theatre Company
Tamasha Theatre Company
Tamasha is a British theatre company founded in 1989 by director Kristine Landon-Smith and actor / writer Sudha Bhuchar with a mission to bring contemporary drama of Asian influence to the British stage....
was produced at the Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...
in London, England in 2006 and later revived in 2007.
Plot summary
The book exposes the changes in Indian society from independence in 1947 to the Emergency called by Indian Prime MinisterPrime Minister of India
The Prime Minister of India , as addressed to in the Constitution of India — Prime Minister for the Union, is the chief of government, head of the Council of Ministers and the leader of the majority party in parliament...
Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
. Mistry is generally critical of P. M. Gandhi in the book. Interestingly, however, Gandhi is never referred to by name by any of the characters, and is instead called simply "the prime minister". The characters, from diverse backgrounds, are all brought together by economic forces changing India.
Ishvar and Omprakash's family is part of the Chamaar
Chamar
Chamar |tanner]]"; from the Sanskrit Charmakara) is a prominent occupational caste in India, Pakistan and Nepal. Chamar is a Dalit sub-caste mainly found in the northern states, such as Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi and in Nepal at least north to the Himalayas...
caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
, who traditionally cured leather and were considered untouchable. In an attempt to break away from the restrictive caste system, Ishvar's father apprentices his sons Ishvar and Narayan to a Muslim tailor, Ashraf Chacha, in a nearby village, and so they became tailors. As a result of their skills, which are also passed on to Narayan's son Omprakash (Om), Ishvar and Om move to Mumbai to get work, by then unavailable in the town near their village because a pre-made clothing shop has opened.
Maneck, from a small mountain village in northern India, moves to the city to acquire a college certificate "as a back-up" in case his father's soft drink business is no longer able to compete after the building of a highway near their village.
Dina, from a traditionally wealthy family, maintains tenuous independence from her brother by living in the flat of her deceased husband, who was a chemist.
Dina distances herself from the political ferment of the period: "Government problems and games played by people in power," she tells Ishvar. "It doesn't affect ordinary people like us" (Mistry, 86). But in the end it does affect all of them, drastically.
At the beginning of the book, the two tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash, are on their way to the flat of Dina Dalal via a train. While on the train, they meet a college student named Maneck Kohlah, who coincidentally is also on his way to the flat of Dina Dalal to be a boarder. They become friends and go to Dina's flat together. Dina hires Ishvar and Om for piecework, and agrees to let Maneck stay with her. Dina then reflects on her past and how she was brought to her current situation.
Dina's Story
Dina grew up in a wealthy family. Her father was a medical doctor who died when she was twelve. Her mother was withdrawn and unable to take care of Dina after her father's death, so the job fell to Nusswan, Dina's brother. Nusswan was rather abusive to Dina, sticking her with all the housework, forcing her to do all the cooking, cleaning, and drop out of school, hitting her when she misbehaved, and once making her tape the hair she cut off back to her head after she cut it without his permission. Dina rebelled against Nusswan and his prospective suitors for her when she became of age, and found her own husband, Rustom Dalal, at a concert hall. Nusswan and his wife Ruby were happy to get Dina out of their hair and let her marry Rustom and move to his flat. Dina and Rustom lived happily for three years until Rustom died on their third wedding anniversary, after being hit by a bus while on his bicycle. Dina became a tailor under the guidance of Rustom's surrogate parents to avoid having to move in with Nusswan. After twenty years her eyesight gave out from complicated embroidery and she was once again jobless. She eventually met a lady from a company called Au Revoir Exports (Mrs. Gupta), who would buy ready-made dresses in Au Revoir patterns. She agrees to let Dina sew the patterns and she will buy the dresses and pay Dina. But since Dina has very poor eyesight, she decides to hire tailors. She also decides to have a paying guest to generate more income for her rent.The tailors rent their own sewing machines, and come to Dina's flat each day for nearly two weeks before the first round of dresses is completed. The three get along fairly well, but Dina and Omprakash don't see eye to eye all the time. Omprakash is angry that Dina is a middle-man and he wants to sew for Au Revoir directly. Dina locks the tailors in her flat from the outside so that they will not find out what company they are sewing for and thus cut her out of the picture, and sets off to Au Revoir Exports for the lady, Mrs. Gupta, to buy the dresses. Om and Ishvar remain enclosed in the flat and the author reveals their past and how they came to the current situation.
Maneck's Story
Maneck was born in a mountain village to loving parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kohlah. His father owned a store that had been in the family for generations. The store sold household necessities and manufactured the locally popular soda, Kohlah Cola. Maneck spent his days going to school, helping at the store, and going on walks with his father. When he was in the fourth standard, Maneck was sent to boarding school to help his education, much to his dismay. After this, his relationship with his parents deteriorates because he does not wish to be separated from them and feels betrayed. On a break from school, he is left alone to care for the shop for two days when his parents attend a wedding, and he rearranges some of the displays because he feels that the shop could use some pizzazz. He is extremely proud of his ideas and eager for his father's positive reaction. But when his father returns and finds the shop different, he yells at Maneck and is angry that the shop is not how he left it. Maneck loses much respect for his father and begins to shut himself off from his family. His parents only want the best for him, such as an education, and they are willing to send him away if that is what it takes, so they send him to a college and pick his major, refrigeration and air-conditioning, for him.Maneck goes to college and stays at the student hostel. When he first arrives he is exhausted and settles on the bed. In the middle of the night he feels something crawling up his leg and discovers an infestation of cockroaches. His room turns out to be filled with vermin and he tries to kill all of them by stomping on them. A neighbor hears the noise and helps by giving him pesticide spray. Maneck becomes friends with this neighbor, Avinash, who is also the student president. Avinash teaches Maneck chess and they play together often. The hostel conditions they live in are poor and the food is nearly inedible. When a vegetarian discovers meat in his soup, the students are disgusted and they almost attack the cafeteria workers. The students eventually are inspired and Avinash leads them in an uprising against the Institution for better conditions. He becomes involved in political events, for which Maneck has little interest, and their friendship is no longer a priority for Avinash. They start seeing each other quite infrequently. But when the Emergency is declared in India, political activists had to go into hiding in order to be safe, Avinash included. Maneck, no longer having friends in the student hostel, has his mother arrange a different living situation for him, and he moves in with Dina Dalal, but he still has Avinash's chess set, because he can't return it.
Emergency Effects
Dina and the tailors' business runs fairly smoothly for almost a year, but effects of the Emergency bother them often. The shantytown where the tailors live is knocked down in a government "beautification" program, and the residents are uncompensated and forced to move into the streets. Later Ishvar and Om are rounded up by a police beggar raid and are sold to a labor camp. After two months in the camp, they bribe their way out with the help of the Beggarmaster, a kind of pimp for beggars. Ishvar and Om are lucky and Dina decides to let them stay with her. The tailors and Dina find trouble from the landlord, because she is not supposed to be running a business from her flat. She pretends that Ishvar is her husband and Om their son and also get protection from the Beggarmaster.Ishvar and Om return to their village to find a wife for Omprakash, who is now 18. Maneck returns home, finished with his first year in college (he has received a certificate but not a degree), but has stiff relations with his family and finds that his father's business is failing due to the invasion of cheap commercial sodas. He takes a lucrative job in the Middle East to escape the conditions.
Dina being alone now, and her protector the Beggarmaster having been murdered, has no protection from the landlord who wants to break her apartment's rent control and charge more rent, so she is evicted. Dina is forced to again live with her brother, Nusswan, to her utter dismay and embarrassment.
Omprakash and Ishvar return to their old town to find that Ashraf Chacha is an elderly man whose wife died and daughters were all married off. He barely survives with his tailoring business but is safe from mob violence because there is little Muslim persecution. He gives them a place to stay while they search for marriage prospects for Om. While they walk around the village, they run into the upper-caste Thakur Dharamsi. Omprakash recognizes him and spits in his direction. Thakur in turn recognizes Om, and decides to somehow pay Om back for his disrespect of an upper caste member. When Ashraf Chacha, Ishvar, and Om are in the village, they run into herders from the Family Planning Centre. At the Family Planning Centre, the government gives free vasectomies and tubectomies in an effort to control population. They are supposedly optional, but encouraged, and each Centre has a certain quota to fill or they are not paid. The Centre in this city did not fill its quota, so they took random people from the street and forced them into a truck that drove them to the Family Planning Centre. Ishvar and Om resist, because Ishvar wants Om to have a family once he is married. However they are beaten into the truck, including Ashraf Chacha. But since Ashraf Chacha is so old, he is gravely injured by the beating and later dies on the street. Ishvar and Omprakash weep in the truck and beg to escape the forced sterilization, but the surgery takes place. As they lie in an outside tent recovering with other victims, Thakur Dharamsi comes by to be sure that the Centre's quota has been filled. He sees Om recovering and whispers something to a doctor. The doctor, horrified, nonetheless takes Om back to surgery and cuts off his testicles. They encounter no more trouble from Thakur, now that he has had revenge by making Om a eunuch. Ishvar's legs become infected due to the vasectomy and must be amputated. However, Ishvar and Om have nowhere to go now that Ashraf Chacha has died. His son-in-law sells his house and they are forced to leave town.
Epilogue
Eight years later, Maneck returns home for the first time from his Middle East job for his father's funeral. He has been unhappy there as well. He tries to hail a taxi to the train station from the airport, but most taxi drivers refuse to take him because of the dangerous riots going on. He finally manages to convince a taxi driver to take him for double the normal fee. The taxi driver tells him that the riots going on are targeting Sikhs, a religious minority. Like the Muslim riots of long ago, they are burning their houses, chopping up the men and boys, raping the women and girls, and destroying their places of worship. The driver himself is a Sikh, and desperately needs the money. Maneck is repulsed by the violence and angry that there is nothing he can do. He returns home and goes to the funeral, but can't bring himself to truly miss his father, only the father of his young childhood.While at home he reads old newspapers that his father has kept for some reason. In one he sees a picture of three teenage girls who hanged themselves from a ceiling fan. He is saddened by the picture and reads from the article that the three girls hanged themselves because their parents could not afford dowries for them to get married, and didn't want to shame their family by being unmarried their whole lives. The parents of the three daughters are heart-broken, but the article says that this is not the first time they have experienced heartache. They had a son, Avinash, a former student who advocated for fair politicians and better public conditions. He was found dead by railroad tracks, apparently having fallen off a train, but his injuries were suspicious and did not seem inflicted by his supposed cause of death. Maneck already knew of Avinash's death, but is astounded at the suffering the family went through. He runs out into the rain storm that was occurring and later decides to visit Dina in the city.
He visits the city and visits Dina at her brother's house, and they catch up. He is pleased to see her and happy that she remembered him. She feels the same, as since she met Maneck she regarded him as a son. She gives Maneck Avinash's chess set that he accidentally left behind, and Maneck feels like he lost Avinash all over again. Maneck asks about Ishvar and Om, and Dina tells him that they have become beggars, and Ishvar lost his legs. Maneck is appalled, because he can't believe that the spirited tailors he knew would ever stop working and stoop so low as to become beggars. He can't understand how his friend Om would let himself down, and he excuses himself from Dina and promises to visit soon, upset from the news. As he leaves, he encounters Om and Ishvar on the street. The two former tailors are nearly unrecognizable because of their filth, and don't appear to recall him. They say "Salaam" to him, but he doesn't know what to say and walks on.
Maneck goes to the train station, his world shattered. He walks out on the tracks as an express train approaches the station. The author said, "Maneck's last thought was that he still had Avinash's chessmen."
It turned out that Om and Ishvar were on their way to visit Dina. They are still friends, and she gives them meals and money when the house is empty. They visit her nearly every day. Dina and the beggars discuss their lives and how Maneck has changed from a pleasant and friendly college student to a distant refrigeration specialist. Om and Ishvar leave as Ruby returns, promising to visit after the weekend. Dina washes up their plates and clears up all evidence of their visit, and returns the plates to the cupboard, where they are to be used later by Nusswan and Ruby.
Characters
- Dina Shroff (later, Dina Dalal when married to Rustom Dalal)
- Ishvar Darji
- Omprakash "Om" Darji (Ishvar's nephew)
- Maneck Kohlah
- Nusswan Shroff (Dina's brother)
- Zenobia (Dina's friend)
- Mrs. Gupta (Zenobia's Client/Dina's boss)
- Vasantrao Valmik (the proofreader and lawyer)
- Ibrahim (the rent collector)
- Dukhi Mochi (father of Ishvar and Narayan)
- Thakur Dharamsi (killed Om's father and is later in charge of the Family Planning)
- Ashraf Chacha (Dukhi's friend. A tailor)
- Nawaz (Ashraf's friend)
- Rajaram (initially, a hair collector and later, Bal Baba)
- Monkey-man (a resident of the slum who kills Beggarmaster)
- Aban Kohlah (Maneck's mother)
- Farokh Kohlah (Maneck's father)
- Avinash (Maneck's good friend that mysteriously disappears, President of the Student Union and Chairman of the Hostel Committee)
- Sergeant Kesar
- Shankar (the crippled beggar) also known as Worm who rolls on the ground
- Beggarmaster (Step or Half Brother of Shankar) and who controls all the beggars
- Shanti (a girl in the slum)
- Jeevan (Tailor who was with Om and Ishvar in their first assignment)
- Ruby Shroff (Nusswan's wife)
- Rustom Dalal (Dina's deceased husband)
- Narayan Darji (Ishvar's brother.) Ordered flogged, burned and hanged by Thakur Dharamsi because he (along with two other men) demanded they be given a ballot.
- Kim ( lazy child )
- Pandit Lalluram (a brahmin)