Such a Long Journey

Dilnavaz, Gustad’s wife, represents home and family in the novel. Dilnavaz is a traditional Parsi wife, though when we meet her we learn she has a pixie haircut, a slightly daring choice she made when Roshan turned one year old. Dilnavaz is such a strong representation of home that the reader never sees Dilnavaz outside the Khodadad Building. Dilnavaz never goes out to do the family’s shopping; instead, she buys groceries from the various travelling merchants who regularly come to their building. If there is a need for something from the city’s markets, it is Gustad who makes the trip. Dilnavaz is concerned only with home and children. As such, she is a less developed character than Gustad. The reader isn’t privy to Dilnavaz’s memories or her personal interests beyond her family. In addition to home and family, Dilnavaz represents the role of superstition and magic in the novel. It is Dilnavaz who turns to Miss Kutpitia for spells and rituals to help her family, to cure sickness, heal upset, and ultimately bring Sohrab back into the fold.

Gustad and Dilnavaz have three children. The eldest, Sohrab, has been admitted to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) but doesn’t want to attend. The two younger children are Darius, age 15, and Roshan, who turns nine early in the novel. Each child represents a different thematic element through the novel.

Sohrab embodies the new, modern India. He was born after Partition and has never known anything but a self-governing India. Contrary to his father’s wishes, Sohrab wants to stay at his liberal arts college, where he is happy and has made friends. Gustad, who holds to the older generation’s traditional values, doesn’t see that as a pathway to success. Also, Gustad’s family barely escapes poverty, and he wants Sohrab to choose a financially lucrative career. The conflicts between Gustad and Sohrab represent the struggle between tradition and the new as well as the older generation and youth. It’s highly significant that Gustad saved Sohrab’s life by jumping out of a moving bus to push him out of the path on an oncoming taxi. Gustad broke his hip in the accident, and he is aggrieved that Sohrab doesn’t redeem his sacrifice by honoring Gustad’s wishes for his future. When the two reconcile at the end of the novel, they preserve their emotional bone, though it is clear they continue down their own paths.

Darius is “a younger, shorter reflection of his father’s muscular frame” (9). He and Gustad bond over their shared interest in physical fitness and exercise. Darius takes on the exercise routine Gustad began as a child. Darius is portrayed as a typical young boy. He’s interested in Mr. Rabadi’s daughter Jasmine, helping her balance as she learns to ride a bicycle. Darius becomes Gustad’s hope for the future once Sohrab makes it clear he won’t follow his father’s plans. Darius is also the youthful embodiment of Gustad; it’s as if Gustad has the chance to relive his own life through his second son. Darius is therefore a representation of the traditional moving forward into the future.

Roshan is a happy girl who enjoys school and loves the doll she wins in the raffle. She is the apple of her father’s eye. When she falls sick for nearly the entire novel, the reader associates her with the theme of loss, as her parents carry constant stress that things will not work out as they should. That Miss Kutpitia lost a young nephew amplifies the sense that Roshan is in danger. Roshan’s illness strikes another blow to Gustad’s adherence to traditions when the medicines he has always relied on don’t work.

Tehmul is a tragicomic figure in the Khodadad Building. He’s in his mid-30s and lives with an older brother who is frequently away on business trips. As a boy he fell from a tree, breaking bones and damaging his brain. He therefore has significant physical difficulties, such as a severely hobbled gait and the intellectual capacities of a small child. He tends to follow residents around the building, annoying them with his habit of scratching his armpits and groin. He speaks at breakneck speed with a limited vocabulary, and it is difficult for everyone but Gustad to understand him.

Despite mostly preferring the company of children, Tehmul loves Gustad, who acts as his surrogate father. Tehmul’s own parents are dead, and his elder brother is always away from home on business trips. Gustad is the only adult in Khodadad Building who takes the time to speak to Tehmul and help him. When the women at the House of Cages reject Tehmul’s solicitations, he falls in love with Roshan’s doll. Tehmul represents innocence in the novel. His death is tragic not only because it means the loss of life, but also because it symbolizes the journey of the novel’s title—the journey from the innocence and hope of childhood to the knowledge and experience of adulthood.

Miss Kutpitia is an elderly lady who has lived in Khodadad Building for many years. She has alienated many of the tenants “because of the reputation she had acquired over the years, of being mean and cranky and abusive” (2). The children in the building are afraid of her, and even Gustad avoids speaking to her as much as possible. Dilnavaz, however, is a frequent visitor to Miss Kutpitia’s apartment, primarily to ask the older woman to recommend spells and magical rituals. Perhaps most importantly, Dilnavaz appreciates that Miss Kutpitia “claimed to know about curses and spells: both to cast and remove; about magic: black and white; about omens and auguries; about dreams and their interpretation” (4). She isn’t a witch, although the children believe she is, but a woman who uses her personal experience with grief to try to see more deeply into the souls of people and situations.

When she lost her brother and her dear nephew to a car accident years ago, Miss Kutpitia decided, perhaps unconsciously, to stop living her own life. She kept their bedrooms intact, preventing others from entering beyond the front hall of her apartment. Instead of busying herself with her own concerns, she watches the comings and goings of her neighbors, and draws conclusions about how and why they are related to each other in magical terms. Miss Kutpitia is also the only person in the building with a working telephone. She seems to have more money than the others, which may explain the phone, but it’s thematically important in the novel as the only connection to the outside world available to the residents besides physically leaving the building. Miss Kutpitia allows the others to use her phone for a small fee, requiring that they don’t fully enter the apartment. Gustad is therefore able to call Roshan’s school and Dr. Paymaster, and Dilnavaz is able to reach Gustad at the bank. In this way, Miss Kutpitia is a conduit both to the real world outside the Khodadad Building and to the spiritual world of energies and evil eyes.

Dinshawji is Gustad’s friend and work colleague. He has a larger-than-life personality, lighting up the lunch room at work with jokes and stories. He is a loyal friend who agrees without hesitation to assist Gustad in the illegal scheme to deposit Jimmy’s money into a fake bank account. Dinshawji is also kind and attentive to Roshan, singing her a funny birthday song and playing games with her. The reader sees nothing of Dinshawji’s home life. Even Gustad has never met Dinshawji’s wife, the “domestic vulture” (36), and only learns that she and Dinshawji adopted her nephew, raising him as their son, after Dinshawji’s death. When Gustad reprimands Dinshawji for pushing the jokes and lewd comments too far at work, Dinshawji responds by dropping the joviality and shrinking down to his real self, a sick man who is tired of playing the fool.