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)
- Shirin Aunty (Rustom's uncle)
- Darab Uncle (Rustom's uncle)
- Mr Toddywalla (chatty man at the music recitals)
- Fredoon (Dina's male friend)
- Xerxes and Zarir (Ruby and Nusswan's children)
- 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)
Read more about this topic: A Fine Balance
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my lifethe first twenty years of ithad about them something semi-fictitious.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (18991973)
“Thus we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (18391914)
“For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)