Main Characters:

Uma:
Uma is the main character in the book and the author's symbol for the grossly subservient role of women, especially in Indian society. The portrait painted of Uma is one of a not especially pretty girl who is clumsy, slow, and not academically inclined. Uma has an earnest desire to learn, despite her handicaps, because she seeks stimulation outside the confining world in the home of her parents. Uma's world narrows even more when she is removed from the convent school in order to help care for her newborn brother, Arun. This act will destroy Uma's source of joy and hope. In keeping with Indian customs, girls are raised to be married and boys to be educated, a premise which will ultimately destroy Uma's spirit and opportunities for a fulfilling life.


Tara:It begins on a fantastic note: on a winter night in an east Bengali village in 1879, the narrator's ancestor, 5-year-old Tara Lata, is married to a tree after her 13-year-old husband-to-be dies of a snakebite on their wedding day. The novel ends some 120 years later, when Tara, the 36-year-old narrator, returns to this same village in winter with her teenaged son. Like her ancestor, Tara Bhattacharjee is the youngest of three sisters of a Brahmin family. Although they grew up in Calcutta, Tara and the oldest sister now live in America while the middle sister lives in Bombay. Tara was married (in an arranged marriage) at age 19 to Bish Chatterjee, a genius who makes a fortune from a cutting-edge computer process. He and Tara are estranged when the novel opens, but when a stranger claiming kinship shows up at the house that Tara shares in San Francisco with her son and her boyfriend, she reconsiders her assumptions about her entire family.