Shukumar is a graduate student working on his academic dissertation. Following a late-stage miscarriage, he has grown deeply withdrawn, spending days at a time inside his house and avoiding his academic work. He eats his meals in his home office, which was originally intended to be the baby's nursery. When a scheduled power outage forces him to sit in the dark with his wife, he hopes the experience will help them reconnect.

Shoba is a thirty-three-year-old proofreader who previously maintained a meticulously organized household. Before experiencing a traumatic miscarriage, she eagerly prepared for her future by stocking her pantry and freezer with homemade Indian foods. She now avoids spending time alone with Shukumar by taking on extra work assignments. She uses the forced darkness of the nightly power outages to play a confessional game with her husband.

Lilia is a ten-year-old American-born girl of Indian descent growing up in a Boston suburb in 1971. She learns exclusively American history at school, leading her to sneak books about Pakistan from the library to better understand the world. She keeps a wooden box of candy beside her bed, rationing the sweets she receives while secretly praying for her houseguest's family.

Mr. Pirzada is a botany professor from Dacca who is studying the foliage of New England on a research grant. He carries a pocket watch permanently set to Dacca time to keep track of the wife and seven daughters he left behind just before the Pakistani army invaded his city. Despite his polite demeanor and the meticulous way he helps carve Halloween pumpkins, his underlying panic surfaces whenever violence erupts on the television.

Mr. Kapasi is a middle-aged Indian man who works two jobs: conducting sightseeing tours of historical sites like the Sun Temple at Konarak, and interpreting symptoms for a doctor treating Gujarati patients. He initially took the interpreting job to pay for his late son's typhoid treatments. He feels a sudden spark of validation when a client takes a romantic interest in his linguistic work.

Mrs. Das is a young, American-born Indian woman traveling through India with her husband and three young children. She frequently hides behind large sunglasses, snacks on puffed rice, and avoids interacting with her family. She views Mr. Kapasi's role as an interpreter as deeply romantic, hoping he can translate the profound guilt she carries about her family.

Boori Ma is an elderly refugee who lives in the doorway of a run-down apartment building. She constantly regales the tenants with grandiose, unverified stories of her luxurious life before Partition, describing large estates and extensive comforts. Despite her immense pride and her diligent work guarding the building, her position is highly precarious and depends entirely on the conditional goodwill of the residents.

Miranda is a twenty-two-year-old American woman who becomes entangled in a relationship with a married Bengali man. Eager for romance and validation, she buys a silver cocktail dress and sheer stockings for their meetings. She attempts to learn the Bengali alphabet and eats spicy Indian food to feel closer to him, but she begins to reevaluate her choices when she confronts the real-world consequences of infidelity.

Dev is a married Bengali man who initiates an affair with Miranda while his wife is traveling. He is charming but highly controlling, carefully dictating when and how he and Miranda spend time together. He dismisses Miranda's genuine interest in his culture, preferring to keep their relationship compartmentalized to Sunday afternoon meetings.

Mrs. Sen is an Indian woman in her thirties who has recently moved to a small beach community in America for her husband's university job. She feels profoundly isolated, missing her family and the communal life of India. She finds comfort in preparing fresh, whole fish and forms a quiet, empathetic bond with the young boy she watches.

Eliot is an eleven-year-old boy living in a cold beach house with his working mother. He is highly observant and empathetic, quickly recognizing the profound sadness and displacement his babysitter feels in America. He approaches Mrs. Sen's Indian customs with genuine curiosity rather than judgment, enjoying the warmth of her apartment.

Sanjeev is a successful, ambitious executive in his early thirties who has recently entered an arranged marriage. He is fastidious, cares deeply about appearances, and struggles to understand his new wife's whimsical personality. He questions whether he is truly capable of love while meticulously attempting to remove the gaudy Christian statues left by his home's previous owners.

Twinkle is a graduate student writing her master's thesis on Irish poetry and Sanjeev's new wife. She is carefree, charming, and naturally charismatic, easily winning over Sanjeev's colleagues at parties. She refuses to cook elaborate Indian meals, preferring to improvise, and delights in uncovering massive Christian artifacts hidden in their new home's attic.

Bibi Haldar is a twenty-nine-year-old Indian woman afflicted by an undiagnosed condition that causes sudden public seizures. Marginalized by her family and treated as an object of pity by the community, she desperately longs for marriage and a normal life. When traditional medical treatments fail, the local doctor prescribes marriage as a cure, prompting the town to prepare her for a hypothetical suitor.

The unnamed narrator is an Indian immigrant who survives on cornflakes at the YMCA when he first arrives in Boston to work at MIT's library. He is intensely frugal, dutiful, and initially uncertain about his arranged marriage to a woman he barely knows. His brief interactions with an ancient landlady teach him patience, preparing him for the arrival of his unfamiliar new wife.

Mrs. Croft is a strict, eccentric, 103-year-old woman who rents a room to the narrator. She insists on peculiar daily rituals, such as demanding the narrator repeatedly declare the American moon landing "splendid." Despite her rigidity and extreme age, she becomes an unexpected surrogate mother figure to the narrator, helping him bridge the gap between his old life and his new one.

Mala is the narrator's wife, entering into an arranged marriage and leaving her entire life in India behind. Initially overwhelmed and deeply homesick, she cries every night and struggles to connect with her distant new husband. Her gentle nature and traditional modesty eventually win over both Mrs. Croft and the narrator.

Lilia's father is an Indian immigrant living in a Boston suburb who frequently invites international scholars from the local university to his home. He is highly invested in global politics and feels a strong cultural duty to offer hospitality to fellow South Asians. He insists on educating his daughter about the differences between India and East Pakistan.

Mr. Das is a middle school science teacher and an American-born Indian man traveling abroad. He relies heavily on his tour guide and views India primarily through the lens of a tourist, stopping frequently to photograph everything from barefoot men to local wildlife. He appears completely oblivious to the deep emotional rifts within his marriage.

Bobby is the young son in the Das family, traveling with his parents and siblings through India. He is active and frequently wanders off from the main group. He becomes the focal point of a tense situation when his mother inadvertently draws aggressive monkeys toward him.

Mrs. Dalal is a resident of the apartment building who shows genuine, if distractible, sympathy for the building's elderly doorkeeper. She promises to buy Boori Ma new bedding, but when her husband receives a promotion at work, she becomes swept up in his attempts to modernize their lives. Her shifting focus inadvertently sets the stage for a tragic change in the building's social dynamic.

Mr. Dalal is a tenant whose job selling plumbing parts suddenly improves, allowing him to purchase luxury items for the building. His decision to install a communal washbasin in the stairwell triggers a wave of competitive home improvements among the other residents, permanently altering the ecosystem of the apartment complex.

Mr. Chatterjee is a respected resident of the apartment building who has not left his home since before Independence. When the community faces a crisis regarding property theft, the other tenants turn to him for a final ruling on what must be done.

Laxmi is Miranda's Indian colleague. She is deeply invested in supporting her cousin through a painful separation caused by infidelity. She remains completely unaware that her friend Miranda is simultaneously participating in an affair with a married man.

Rohin is Laxmi's young cousin, whose parents are going through a painful separation due to his father's infidelity. He is precocious, demanding, and highly observant of adult behaviors. His blunt definition of what the word "sexy" truly means forces his babysitter to confront her own romantic illusions.

Mr. Sen is a mathematics professor at a local university. Unlike his wife, he navigates American life with relative ease and expects her to do the same. He repeatedly pressures Mrs. Sen to learn how to drive to foster her independence, though he struggles to fully comprehend the depth of her homesickness.

Eliot's mother is a working single parent who finds Mrs. Sen's customs and hospitality strange. She is practical and somewhat detached, viewing the babysitting arrangement as a temporary necessity until Eliot is old enough to manage the beach house on his own.

Haldar is Bibi's cousin and reluctant guardian. He views her as a major burden and an unmarriageable outcast, making only half-hearted, dismissive attempts to help her secure a husband. His ongoing cruelty toward his vulnerable relative eventually turns the local community against him.

Haldar's wife intensely dislikes her cousin-in-law and fears that her mysterious illness is contagious. When she becomes pregnant, she forces Bibi into total isolation, demonstrating a complete lack of empathy for the vulnerable woman living in her home.

Helen is Mrs. Croft's daughter, a woman in her late sixties who dutifully brings her mother a week's worth of soup. She serves as a bridge of information between the narrator and Mrs. Croft, revealing the true extent of her mother's remarkable age and vulnerability.