Clear Light of Day

by

Anita Desai

Tara’s husband Bakul is a diplomat who serves as the Indian Ambassador to the United States in the present-day sections of the novel. Arrogant, worldly, and eloquent, he craves power and attention but cares little about his family’s wellbeing—much like the Das mother and father. He complains incessantly about the Das family’s old house, spends most of his time visiting his own family elsewhere in Delhi, and grows angry with Tara when she refuses to join him. He also tries to impress the Misra brothers and frequently compares Tara to her older sister Bim, as though deciding if he should have married Bim instead. His temperament suggests that his and Tara’s marriage is less than blissful, and that she perhaps regrets marrying him as a teenager—which she did primarily to escape her unhappy home life in Delhi.

Bakul Quotes in Clear Light of Day

The Clear Light of Day quotes below are all either spoken by Bakul or refer to Bakul. 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 1 Quotes

“Old Delhi does not change. It only decays. My students tell me it is a great cemetery, every house a tomb. Nothing but sleeping graves. Now New Delhi, they say is different. That is where things happen. The way they describe it, it sounds like a nest of fleas. So much happens there, it must be a jumping place. I never go. Baba never goes. And here, here nothing happens at all. Whatever happened, happened lone ago—in the time of the Tughlaqs the Khiljis the Sultanate, the Moghuls—that lot.” She snapped her fingers in time to her words smartly. “And then the British built New Delhi and moved everything out. Here we are left rocking on the backwaters, getting duller and greyer I suppose. Anyone who isn’t dull and grey goes away—to New Delhi, to England, to Canada, the Middle East. They don’t come back.”

Related Characters: Bim (speaker), Tara, Baba, Bakul
Related Symbols: The Das House
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:

The ice-cream did have, she had to admit, a beneficial effect all round: in a little while, as the students began to leave the house, prettily covering their heads against the sun with coloured veils and squealing as the heat of the earth burnt through their slippers, the gramophone in Baba’s room stirred and rumbled into life again. Tara was grateful for it. She wished Bakul could see them now—her family.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Baba, Bakul
Related Symbols: Baba’s Gramophone
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4 Quotes

They had come like mosquitoes—Tara and Bakul, and behind them the Misras, and somewhere in the distance Raja and Benazir—only to torment her and, mosquito-like, sip her blood. All of them fed on her blood, at some time or the other had fed—it must have been good blood, sweet and nourishing. Now, when they were full, they rose in swarms, humming away, turning their backs on her.

All these years she had felt herself to be the centre—she had watched them all circling in the air, then returning, landing like birds, folding up their wings and letting down their legs till they touched solid ground. Solid ground. That was what the house had been—the lawn, the rose walk, the guava trees, the veranda: Bim’s domain.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Raja, Bakul, Misra Sisters (Jaya and Sarla), Misra Brothers (Brij, Manu, and Mulk), Benazir
Related Symbols: The Das House
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis:
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Clear Light of Day PDF

Bakul Quotes in Clear Light of Day

The Clear Light of Day quotes below are all either spoken by Bakul or refer to Bakul. 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 1 Quotes

“Old Delhi does not change. It only decays. My students tell me it is a great cemetery, every house a tomb. Nothing but sleeping graves. Now New Delhi, they say is different. That is where things happen. The way they describe it, it sounds like a nest of fleas. So much happens there, it must be a jumping place. I never go. Baba never goes. And here, here nothing happens at all. Whatever happened, happened lone ago—in the time of the Tughlaqs the Khiljis the Sultanate, the Moghuls—that lot.” She snapped her fingers in time to her words smartly. “And then the British built New Delhi and moved everything out. Here we are left rocking on the backwaters, getting duller and greyer I suppose. Anyone who isn’t dull and grey goes away—to New Delhi, to England, to Canada, the Middle East. They don’t come back.”

Related Characters: Bim (speaker), Tara, Baba, Bakul
Related Symbols: The Das House
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:

The ice-cream did have, she had to admit, a beneficial effect all round: in a little while, as the students began to leave the house, prettily covering their heads against the sun with coloured veils and squealing as the heat of the earth burnt through their slippers, the gramophone in Baba’s room stirred and rumbled into life again. Tara was grateful for it. She wished Bakul could see them now—her family.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Baba, Bakul
Related Symbols: Baba’s Gramophone
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4 Quotes

They had come like mosquitoes—Tara and Bakul, and behind them the Misras, and somewhere in the distance Raja and Benazir—only to torment her and, mosquito-like, sip her blood. All of them fed on her blood, at some time or the other had fed—it must have been good blood, sweet and nourishing. Now, when they were full, they rose in swarms, humming away, turning their backs on her.

All these years she had felt herself to be the centre—she had watched them all circling in the air, then returning, landing like birds, folding up their wings and letting down their legs till they touched solid ground. Solid ground. That was what the house had been—the lawn, the rose walk, the guava trees, the veranda: Bim’s domain.

Related Characters: Tara, Bim, Raja, Bakul, Misra Sisters (Jaya and Sarla), Misra Brothers (Brij, Manu, and Mulk), Benazir
Related Symbols: The Das House
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis: