Lenny

Lenny is the protagonist and central character of the novel. When the novel begins, she is approaching five years old, and when it ends, she has begun puberty. Lenny belongs to a Parsee family living in Lahore. At the beginning of the novel, Lenny is particularly close with her ayah, who she simply calls Ayah. However, when a mob of Muslims swarms the house looking for Hindus, Lenny inadvertently reveals Ayah’s whereabouts.

Compared to her brother Adi and her cousin, Lenny is naïve. Unlike Cousin, Lenny does not know the history of the Parsee community nor does she understand sexual relations between males and females with the same level of detail as her Cousin. Thus, she often finds herself prey to unwanted "demonstrations" of sexual acts. However, even if Lenny is not sexually experienced, she nonetheless proves herself to be romantic. While Lenny likes her limp...