The adult characters, with the exception of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) crews, are insignificant to the central action; it is the teen-age Lalu who takes charge of his own life. Lalu's father, like the other villagers, is superstitious and old-fashioned in his thinking. He firmly believes that the stars determine fate; hence, he refuses to seek medical help for his daughter's blindness: "God will never allow Maya to go blind unless it is ordained that she shall go blind." The illiterate villagers are equally suspicious of school learning, believing that the truly wise do not need to read books and that schooling gives children a false sense of superiority. Of the older generation, only Nani, Lalu's grandmother, challenges this mode of thinking. She feels that the journey to Agra will make an adult of...