The Henna Artist

Radha is Lakshmi’s 13-year-old sister. The girl wasn’t yet born when Lakshmi left her village, so they only come to know one another over the course of the novel. With her parents dead and the entire village calling her the Bad Luck Girl, Radha is desperate to find a home and family of her own.

Because she is so young and naïve, she is easily seduced by Ravi Singh and impulsively wants to keep her baby when she falls pregnant. Her situation highlights the theme of Motherhood as a Personal Choice. Like her sister, Radha intends to assert control over her own body and her own life, yet she is far too young to understand the consequences of her bad choices. The novel suggests that Radha’s self-assertion in the face of so much resistance is laudable, but she also learns to temper that desire to choose with a willingness to take good advice until she is mature enough to chart the course of her own life.

Hari is Lakshmi’s abusive ex-husband. When he first appears in the novel, he is slovenly and penniless. Lakshmi assumes he has come to Jaipur to drag her back home. Contrary to Lakshmi’s expectations, Hari transforms himself over the course of the story. After acquiring the herbalist skills passed down by his mother, Hari tries to help the women of the pleasure district in Jaipur.

Rather than playing the role of the domineering man, Hari has learned from both his mother and Lakshmi what a terrible toll too many pregnancies can take on women. By the end of the book, he has transformed himself into a force for good, just as his ex-wife has done. Lakshmi admits, “By turns, I had feared him, been indifferent, felt contemptuous, full of hate or pity. Not once had I believed him capable of change. But if I could change, why couldn’t he?” (279).

Doctor Kumar is a Western-educated friend of Samir’s. If Samir represents the old India, Kumar represents a bridge between the old and new. He shows respect for Lakshmi’s herbal skills rather than scoffing at old wives’ remedies. Kumar is humble enough to believe that he has something to learn from her rather than assuming that Western medicine holds all the answers. He also doesn’t place himself in a superior role simply because he is a man. The novel suggests that Kumar and Lakshmi will eventually become romantically involved. The possibility offers hope for establishing an equal footing between the sexes in Indian society.