Meet the Cast
Shukumar
Through My Eyes OnlyThink self-involved, unmotivated grad student and you've got Shukumar in a nutshell. He's the kind of guy who, even though his wife is trying to recover from losing their baby i...
Shoba
Before the BabyWe don't get to know Shoba that much since her story is told through her husband Shukumar. What we do know though is this: she's a total, organizational neat freak who plans ahead—...
Lilia
As a ChildSensitive, private, intuitive: Lilia as a kid is about as sweet as they come. She's the kind of kid parents can depend on to treat guests respectfully, as she does with Mr. Pirzada. She a...
Mr. Pirzada
Family GuyMr. Pirzada seems like the perfect dad. Okay, sure, he can't keep the names of his seven daughters straight but can you blame him? Their names all start with "A"—we would probably have...
Mr. Kapasi
The Romantic/RealistMr. Kapasi's a lover, not a hater. It just takes a little effort to crack his jaded exterior. Which is what Mrs. Das does when she points out that his second job as an interpret...
Mrs. Das
Think of all the worst stereotypes of an American suburban housewife: rich, entitled, aimless, materialistic, bored, inattentive to her kids. That's Mrs. Das. Oh and by the way, she's also an adult...
Boori Ma
On one hand, you've got to sympathize with Boori Ma. She's a refugee in Calcutta who lives on the open rooftop of a lower/middle-class apartment building. Her "job" is to guard the building and kee...
Miranda
Miranda is basically Jhumpa Lahiri's version of Carrie from Sex and the City. She's young, naïve, beautiful, and a die-hard romantic who falls in love with the wrong (read: married) guy. She's als...
Dev
Dev seems to be the exotic lover Miranda always dreamed about—good looking, a gentleman, passionate. He first hits on her at a department store cosmetics counter. He opens her eyes to new experie...
Mrs. Sen
Think of Mrs. Sen as the opposite of a freezing New England winter. In fact, her place is the opposite of the "tiny beach house where [Eliot, the boy she babysits] and his mother lived year-roundâ€...
Eliot
Precocious. Mature. Way beyond his eleven years. Eliot's super-observant and perceptive (which is why the story works from his perspective). He notices little things, like how his mother doesn't re...
Sanjeev
A little neurotic. Also kind of a neat freak. That's Sanjeev. He's the type who, instead of entertaining guests at his party, cleans up everyone's mess. Case in point: his housewarming party. While...
Twinkle
If you're wondering what Twinkle—Sanjeev's wife and Stanford (ahem) English grad student extraordinaire—is like, just take a look at the lyrics to "Twinkle, twinkle little star": "Twinkle, twin...
Bibi Haldar
It's hard to feel sorry for Bibi Haldar at first. Yeah, she's in a terrible state so we're supposed to sympathize with her. She's got some kind of epileptic-seizure illness that's apparently incura...
Narrator of "The Third and Final Continent"
Mr. ResponsibleWe may not know exactly who our unnamed first-person narrator is in the final story, but that doesn't mean we don't know him. That's because, even though he doesn't share his name wi...
Mrs. Croft
This 103 year-old lady is independent and feisty. She's wedded to her old-fashioned value system where it's not polite for a man and woman to even be alone together in a room if they're not married...