The Secret Keeper of Jaipur

In the first novel, Abbas Malik is an orphan living on the streets and whom Lakshmi takes in as her assistant in the henna trade. He proves bright and resourceful at an early age and also learns many secrets about the social elite of Jaipur. The second novel opens with him at age 20 after Samir Singh has paid for his expensive Western education. When Lakshmi insists that Malik go to Jaipur to learn the construction trade, he finds himself enmeshed in a scandal involving his former benefactor.

Over the course of the novel, Malik must decide whether it’s more important to please those in power than to speak the truth. In addition, he must learn to assert his own independence over Lakshmi’s objections by marrying the girl he loves.

A young widow with two children, Nimmi comes from a nomadic group of sheep and goat herders. At the beginning of the story, she’s portrayed as “unsophisticated” and illiterate. Nimmi forms a romantic attachment with Malik but fears that Lakshmi wants a more educated wife for the young man.

Despite Nimmi’s initial hostility toward Lakshmi, she eventually comes to trust the older woman and offers valuable assistance in the Healing Garden because of her knowledge of local plants. By the end of the story, Nimmi marries Malik and continues to work happily in Shimla at the clinic’s herb garden.

A former school friend of Samir Singh, Jay Kumar meets Lakshmi in the first novel in the series. Despite his initial prejudice against folk medicine, he eventually comes to respect Lakshmi’s knowledge of plant remedies and invites her to establish a garden at the hospital in Shimla. Several years later, Jay and Lakshmi get married. Throughout the story, Jay supports Lakshmi’s ideas and participates with her in helping Nimmi discover who is behind the mountain gold smuggling operation.

A successful contractor in his fifties, Samir Singh owns the largest building company in Jaipur. He’s Ravi’s father, Sheela’s father-in-law, and Parvati’s husband. Samir is also a womanizer. In the first novel, Lakshmi provides him with contraceptive sachets to keep his many mistresses from becoming pregnant. He develops a fondness for Lakshmi herself, and they have a brief sexual encounter.

Knowing that his wife forced Lakshmi out of business, Samir tries to make amends by footing the bill for Malik’s education at a Western prep school. Despite Samir’s infidelities, he’s an honest businessperson and isn’t responsible for the theater collapse. When he realizes his son’s guilt, Samir pays for the damages, closes his business, and plans to relocate to the US to avoid shame and scandal.

Samir’s son, Ravi Singh, follows his father’s pattern of seducing women. When Lakshmi’s sister was only 13, Ravi got her pregnant and then denied all responsibility. In the second novel in the series, Ravi’s lack of conscience also becomes apparent in his gold smuggling operation. The cheap materials he uses in the theater’s construction are the direct cause of the balcony collapse.

Ravi is motivated by the desire to get out from under his father’s thumb economically, but the methods he uses to do so are unpardonable. After his family discovers his crime, Ravi is sent to the US to start fresh.

Ravi’s attractive wife, Sheela, is materialistic, status-conscious, and demanding. Sheela knows about her husband’s philandering and chooses to pay him back by flirting aggressively with Malik. At the end of the novel, she’s shocked to realize that Malik is the orphan boy she mistreated when she was a teen and that he has won the affection of the dowager maharani. Sheela is unhappy about the downturn in her family’s fortunes at the end of the story.

The matriarch of the Singh clan, Parvati Singh is the real power in the family rather than her husband, Samir. In the first novel, she refuses to make Ravi take responsibility for Radha’s pregnancy. To deflect gossip, she spreads rumors about Lakshmi to drive her out of business. Because Parvati is distantly related to the ruling family, she prizes her social status and will do anything to preserve it. When she learns that her son is responsible for the theater collapse, she quietly arranges for the family to leave Jaipur before any scandal attaches to their name.

The general manager for all the palace’s construction projects, Manu Agarwal is in his late thirties and is the husband of Lakshmi’s friend Kanta. He’s also the adoptive father of Radha’s baby, Niki. After the theater balcony collapses, the public blames Manu because his name is on all the approval paperwork. He becomes overwhelmed and worries about his family’s future if the scandal attaches to him. Despite these concerns, he passively takes the blame until Lakshmi and Malik intervene to discover the real culprit.

A former henna client of Lakshmi’s, Kanta Agarwal is a woman who in the first novel longs to have a baby after having many miscarriages. She delivers a stillborn boy at the same time that Radha goes into labor. Because Lakshmi’s sister is only 13 and far too young to become a mother, Kanta adopts Radha’s child as her own. Radha’s baby was intended to be claimed by the palace in a deal that Lakshmi negotiated with the dowager maharani. However, Kanta’s stillborn baby is substituted, and the contract is rendered void, allowing Kanta to have the child she always wanted.

The 12-year-old adopted son of Kanta and Manu, Nikhil Agarwal, or Niki, is the biological son of Lakshmi’s sister Radha. He’s a good cricket player, and his performance attracts the notice of Samir, who sees a resemblance between Niki and his own son, Ravi. Even though Samir is Niki’s biological grandfather, he makes no move to claim the child or reveal the Agarwal family secret. Niki doesn’t know that Radha is his real mother either.

The middle-aged director of the accounting records for Samir’s company, Hakeem trains Malik when the young man first arrives. Hakeem is involved in a relationship with the theater manager, even though he has a wife and four daughters living in Bombay (now Mumbai). Ravi extorts Hakeem and threatens to expose his secret life unless Hakeem keeps silent about discrepancies in the accounting ledgers. Even though Malik penetrates this ruse, Hakeem is afraid to tell the maharanis the truth because of the shame it would bring to his family.

A prosperous jeweler in Jaipur, Moti-Lal is a friend of Malik’s, and his wife is a former client of Lakshmi’s from years earlier. It’s the jeweler who reveals the lucrative gold smuggling operation going on in India because of the Gold Control Act that limits how much of the precious metal he and other jewelers can keep on hand to satisfy customers. Moti-Lal provides the missing pieces of the puzzle that help Malik and Lakshmi solve the mystery.

The glamorous widow of the Maharaja of Jaipur, Latika met Lakshmi in the first novel during a period of deep sadness, after her husband disinherited her son on the advice of an astrologer and planned to adopt a foundling as his heir instead. Lakshmi’s various herbal remedies cured Latika, and the maharani has been grateful ever since. Because she’s the sponsor of the Royal Jewel Theater, its collapse tarnishes her public image. She’s eager to find a scapegoat but is fair-minded enough to give Lakshmi a chance to clear Manu’s name.

Latika’s mother-in-law, Indira, appears in the first novel as the person who summons Lakshmi to the palace to help Latika. In addition, she negotiates a deal to name Radha’s baby as the new heir if it’s a boy. She never learns that Lakshmi reported the baby stillborn and gave Kanta the child to raise instead.

In her seventies, Indira is outspoken and humorous. She develops a fondness for Malik and gives him her talking parakeet. In the second novel in the series, she’s instrumental in resolving the theater collapse and placing the blame on Ravi, where it belongs.