Like her mother, the tragic and doomed Ammu, seven-year-old Rahel Ipe is impetuous, romantic, and passionate. As a child, in her behavior, in her attitude, even in her dress, she is flamboyant and self-assertive. Her gaudy hairstyles, kitschy, red-tinted plastic sunglasses, joyous penchant for spontaneously dancing to her radio, restless curiosity, and fascination with noticing the small things—the beauty of the florescence of plants and weird insects around her home—all demonstrate Rahel’s independence and her instinctual dislike, even distrust, of authority. Within the claustrophobic confines of her native India’s culture and its long conservative tradition of rules governing and restricting behavior, Rahel stubbornly resists. Indeed, her most meaningful relationship other than with her twin brother is with the untouchable Velutha, who, unlike her family, treats her with gentle respect and an open and generous heart.

Because at least part of the novel is shared from Rahel’s perspective, she is the most immediate and the most sympathetic of the novel’s wide cast. She is a fraternal twin, and for most of her life, despite being physically separated from Estha, she believes she is psychologically and emotionally completed by her brother—that they are an integral part of each other, and that they can communicate without words and even share each other’s dreams.