She was arranged to be married to Apu when she was eight ^[1] and Apu was to set out to the United States for college.^[2] She looked forward to it all her life. She occasionally works at the Kwik-E-Mart alongside Apu, but she is usually seen as a homemaker. She claims that Fried Green Tomatoes is her favorite book, movie, and food.

She has excellent culinary abilities, demonstrated by her ability to make a wide variety of dishes using only chickpeas, lentils, and rice or, sometimes, only chickpeas and lentils. She says when Apu dies, she will sell the store and will marry Sanjay.

She is good friends with Marge, since they go with their babies out together. Manjula cares for her babies, but sometimes she gets stressed like Apu.

Her relationship with Apu has not always been in good condition. When Manjula discovered that working 18 hours a day including weekends was not how Americans worked, she got mad at Apu, since she thought he didn't want to see her. He could compensate this with seven surprises for Manjula before Valentine's Day.^[3] Apu once had an affair with a Squishee lady. After Homer discovered this, he and Marge revealed their discovery to Apu, who eventually caved into the guilt and vowed to apologize to Manjula. However, she already knew it and kicked Apu out of the house. With some help from the Simpson family, she eventually agreed to give Apu another chance after he completed an often-vengeful list of grueling tasks fashioned by Manjula, such as performing "my Fair Lady" with the octuplets. Since then, their relationship has been strained, with the couple been seen attending marriage counselling.^[4]