Clear Light of Day

by

Anita Desai

Aunt Mira Character Analysis

Aunt Mira (or Mira-masi) is the distant relation of the Das siblings’ mother who raises them—and particularly the younger siblings, Tara and Baba. As a girl, she is married off to a man who goes to study in England but dies almost immediately, leaving her widowed. She remains with her husband’s family, as tradition dictates, but they brutally exploit her; she is grateful for the opportunity to move in with the Das family instead. She cares deeply for the children, giving them the attention their parents never did. She feels a strong connection to animals, and Tara bonds very closely with her. But the scars of Mira’s past are still too much to bear, and she turns to alcohol, which gradually diminishes her capacities as the children come of age and then leaves her entirely bedridden by 1947, when Part II of the novel is set. Her last days are a horrifying mixture of alcohol-driven hallucinations, drunken delirium, and self-harm. Bim and Dr. Biswas try to nurse her back to health, but instead, she dies drinking in bed. Besides highlighting the Das mother and father’s poor parenting by contrast, Aunt Mira’s trajectory demonstrates how restrictive gender roles and family structures limit women’s potential in India culture. In this sense, she is a significant character foil for Bim—who also spends much of her life as a caretaker due to circumstances outside her control.

Aunt Mira Quotes in Clear Light of Day

The Clear Light of Day quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Mira or refer to Aunt Mira. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Family, Love, and Forgiveness Theme Icon
).
Part 2 Quotes

She needed protection. She wanted help. She reached out for the hand that would help her, protect her …

… Here it was. Here, in this tall, slim coolness just by her hand, at the tips of her fingers. If she got her fingers around it, its slender pale glassiness, and then drew it closer, close to her mouth, she could close her lips about it and suck, suck little, little sips, with little, little juicy sounds, and it would be so sweet, so sweet again, just as when they were little babies, little babies for her to feed, herself a little baby sucking, sucking at the little trickle of juice that came hurrying in, sliding in …

And she sucked and laughed and sucked and cried.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Raja, Aunt Mira
Related Symbols: Baba’s Gramophone
Page Number: 78-79
Explanation and Analysis:

“Now I understand why you do not wish to marry. You have dedicated your life to others—to your sick brother and your aged aunt and your little brother who will be dependent on you all his life. You have sacrificed your own life for them.”

Related Characters: Dr. Biswas (speaker), Tara, Bim, Baba, Raja, Aunt Mira
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3 Quotes

No one could help noticing how slow he was to learn such baby skills as turning over, sitting up, smiling in response, talking, standing or walking. It all seemed to take an age with him. He seemed to have no desire to reach out and take anything. It was as if his parents, too aged, had given birth to a child without vitality or will—all that had gone into the other, earlier children and there had been none left for this last, late one. […] His mother soon tired of carrying him about, feeding him milky foods with a silver spoon, washing and powdering him. […] “My bridge is suffering,” she complained. There was the ayah of course, Tara’s ayah made nurse again, but she could only be made to work twelve hours a day, or sixteen, or eighteen, not more. She could not stay awake for twenty-four.

Related Characters: The Das Mother (speaker), Tara, Baba, Aunt Mira, The Ayah
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:

The girls […] looked through the green tin trunk once again for some remnant of her wedding, of her improbable married life. And there was one: a stripe of crimson and gold edging an untouched Benares silk sari. Since it was white, she had been allowed to retain it, and now it was yellowed like old ivory. The strip of crimson and gold made it impossible for her to wear: taboo. It was wrapped carefully in tissue and laid away like some precious relic. […] It contained Aunt Mira’s past, and the might-have-been future, as floating and elusive as the musk itself. But she would not touch it. When they became insistent, she said, laughing, “All right, when I die, you may dress me in it for the funeral pyre.”

Related Characters: Aunt Mira (speaker), Tara, Bim
Page Number: 108-109
Explanation and Analysis:

They grew around her knees, stubby and strong, some as high as her waist, some rising to her shoulders. She felt their limbs, brown and knobby with muscle, hot with the life force. They crowded about her so that they formed a ring, a protective railing about her. Now no one could approach, no threat, no menace. Their arms were tight around her, keeping her for themselves. They owned her and yes, she wanted to be owned. She owned them too, and they needed to be owned. Their opposing needs seemed to mingle and meet at the very roots, inside the soil in which they grew.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Baba, Raja, Aunt Mira
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:

“I shall earn my own living—and look after Mira-masi and Baba and—and be independent. There’ll be so many things to do—when we are grown up—when all this is over—” and she swept an arm out over the garden party, dismissing it. “When we are grown up at last—then—then—” but she couldn’t finish for emotion, and her eyes shone in the dusk.

Related Characters: Bim (speaker), Tara, Baba, Aunt Mira, Misra Sisters (Jaya and Sarla)
Page Number: 140-141
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4 Quotes

She had always thought Bim so competent, so capable. Everyone had thought that—Aunt Mira, the teachers at school, even Raja. But Bim seemed to stampede through the house like a dishevelled storm, creating more havoc than order. […] Tara saw how little she had really observed—either as a child or as a grown woman. She had seen Bim through the lenses of her own self, as she had wanted to see her. And now, when she tried to be objective, when she was old enough, grown enough and removed enough to study her objectively, she found she could not—her vision was strewn, obscured and screened by too much of the past.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Raja, Aunt Mira
Related Symbols: The Das House
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
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Aunt Mira Quotes in Clear Light of Day

The Clear Light of Day quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Mira or refer to Aunt Mira. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Family, Love, and Forgiveness Theme Icon
).
Part 2 Quotes

She needed protection. She wanted help. She reached out for the hand that would help her, protect her …

… Here it was. Here, in this tall, slim coolness just by her hand, at the tips of her fingers. If she got her fingers around it, its slender pale glassiness, and then drew it closer, close to her mouth, she could close her lips about it and suck, suck little, little sips, with little, little juicy sounds, and it would be so sweet, so sweet again, just as when they were little babies, little babies for her to feed, herself a little baby sucking, sucking at the little trickle of juice that came hurrying in, sliding in …

And she sucked and laughed and sucked and cried.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Raja, Aunt Mira
Related Symbols: Baba’s Gramophone
Page Number: 78-79
Explanation and Analysis:

“Now I understand why you do not wish to marry. You have dedicated your life to others—to your sick brother and your aged aunt and your little brother who will be dependent on you all his life. You have sacrificed your own life for them.”

Related Characters: Dr. Biswas (speaker), Tara, Bim, Baba, Raja, Aunt Mira
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3 Quotes

No one could help noticing how slow he was to learn such baby skills as turning over, sitting up, smiling in response, talking, standing or walking. It all seemed to take an age with him. He seemed to have no desire to reach out and take anything. It was as if his parents, too aged, had given birth to a child without vitality or will—all that had gone into the other, earlier children and there had been none left for this last, late one. […] His mother soon tired of carrying him about, feeding him milky foods with a silver spoon, washing and powdering him. […] “My bridge is suffering,” she complained. There was the ayah of course, Tara’s ayah made nurse again, but she could only be made to work twelve hours a day, or sixteen, or eighteen, not more. She could not stay awake for twenty-four.

Related Characters: The Das Mother (speaker), Tara, Baba, Aunt Mira, The Ayah
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:

The girls […] looked through the green tin trunk once again for some remnant of her wedding, of her improbable married life. And there was one: a stripe of crimson and gold edging an untouched Benares silk sari. Since it was white, she had been allowed to retain it, and now it was yellowed like old ivory. The strip of crimson and gold made it impossible for her to wear: taboo. It was wrapped carefully in tissue and laid away like some precious relic. […] It contained Aunt Mira’s past, and the might-have-been future, as floating and elusive as the musk itself. But she would not touch it. When they became insistent, she said, laughing, “All right, when I die, you may dress me in it for the funeral pyre.”

Related Characters: Aunt Mira (speaker), Tara, Bim
Page Number: 108-109
Explanation and Analysis:

They grew around her knees, stubby and strong, some as high as her waist, some rising to her shoulders. She felt their limbs, brown and knobby with muscle, hot with the life force. They crowded about her so that they formed a ring, a protective railing about her. Now no one could approach, no threat, no menace. Their arms were tight around her, keeping her for themselves. They owned her and yes, she wanted to be owned. She owned them too, and they needed to be owned. Their opposing needs seemed to mingle and meet at the very roots, inside the soil in which they grew.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Baba, Raja, Aunt Mira
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:

“I shall earn my own living—and look after Mira-masi and Baba and—and be independent. There’ll be so many things to do—when we are grown up—when all this is over—” and she swept an arm out over the garden party, dismissing it. “When we are grown up at last—then—then—” but she couldn’t finish for emotion, and her eyes shone in the dusk.

Related Characters: Bim (speaker), Tara, Baba, Aunt Mira, Misra Sisters (Jaya and Sarla)
Page Number: 140-141
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4 Quotes

She had always thought Bim so competent, so capable. Everyone had thought that—Aunt Mira, the teachers at school, even Raja. But Bim seemed to stampede through the house like a dishevelled storm, creating more havoc than order. […] Tara saw how little she had really observed—either as a child or as a grown woman. She had seen Bim through the lenses of her own self, as she had wanted to see her. And now, when she tried to be objective, when she was old enough, grown enough and removed enough to study her objectively, she found she could not—her vision was strewn, obscured and screened by too much of the past.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Raja, Aunt Mira
Related Symbols: The Das House
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis: