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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Clear Light of Day, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family, Love, and Forgiveness
Memory, Change, and Identity
Gender and Indian Culture
Art and Social Divisions
Summary
Analysis
It’s 1980 at the Das family’s house on Bela Road in Old Delhi. Tara wakes to birds singing at dawn and walks out on the veranda. She sees her sister Bim down below, strolling on the only well-maintained part of their yard, a ribbon of grass between two rose beds. Tara remembers walking there as a young girl and finding a snail, which her mother found disgusting. She goes down to join Bim, who bends down and shakes a dying rose. Its petals fall, and one lands on a snail, which Tara picks up in wonder. Bim finds this childish, and she remembers a poem she read by her ill brother Raja’s bedside one summer. Tara says that Bim looks like their mother.
Desai begins her novel with characteristically rich imagery that emphasizes how the natural environment connects the past to the future: the house and the nature in and around it have stayed the same, even as Tara has grown. But returning gives Tara an opportunity to reconnect with her past. While readers do not yet know about Tara and Bim’s relationship—or even that Tara has left India and the house while Bim has stayed—there is clearly a sense of conflict beneath their loving sisterly connection. Indeed, since the novel revolves around this family drama, Desai purposefully reveals crucial details about the family history little by little over the course of the novel for the sake of pacing and mystery. To this end, it’s not yet clear what Bim’s resemblance to her mother says about her, or whether Tara means it positively or negatively.
Themes
Bim asks if Tara slept after coming from the airport. Tara admits that she didn’t, thanks to excitement and the barking dog, Badshah. But Bim says she finds Badshah’s voice beautiful. Badshah runs over to dig at the snail, and Bim caresses him and explains that he’s now 12. Tara says that the house is still the same. Bim asks if she wanted it to change and comments that people prefer to grow up and move away. Tara notes that Bim didn’t, and Bim replies that she and their brother Baba don’t travel, unlike Tara and her husband Bakul. Bim bitterly asks if Tara wishes Raja and Aunt Mira were there.
Tara and Bim’s conversation reveals traces of resentment. Tara judges Bim for never moving or updating the house, as though this means she has refused to grow up or move forward in life. And Bim judges Tara for seeing herself as superior because she did move away, as well as for her enduring affection for family members with whom Bim has fought: Raja and Aunt Mira. Badshah digging for the snail represents how the sisters are at odds—they see the same things through opposite perspectives. Bim sees Badshah as beautiful, but Tara sees him as grotesque, and while Tara finds the snail beautiful, Bim finds Tara’s obsession with it childish.
Themes
Bim comments that “Old Delhi does not change. It only decays.” Her students compare it to a cemetery and prefer the activity of New Delhi, but Bim and Baba never leave. Most people who leave go forever. But Tara notes that she and Bakul like returning home. They will go to a wedding in Hyderabad, and then Bakul will tour around India. (As a diplomat, he can’t lose touch with his country.) But Tara must go to their brother Raja’s house for another wedding, which she hopes Bim and Baba can attend.
Bim’s sees Delhi much the way Tara sees her: as decaying, not growing. But Bim’s comments also point to ongoing political conflicts and social transitions in independent India, where people’s obsession with newness may be leading them to lose sight of their history and traditions. This is particularly true in Delhi, which is full of centuries-old monuments as well as the nation’s new elite. Crucially, most of the monuments date from the era of Muslim rule, and the nation’s new elite is nominally secular but predominantly Hindu. Tara goes on to explain the purpose of her trip. Combined with her previous comments, Bim’s disinterest in attending the wedding points to an enduring conflict between her and Raja.
Themes
Before Bim can answer, Badshah notices the cat stuck in a tree; it starts to howl at her. Bim approaches the tree, gets the cat to slowly climb down, and embraces her. Bim accuses Tara of assuming that she only loves animals because she doesn’t have children.
Bim’s accusations reflect resentment and paranoia, but also underline how differently she and Tara now live. Unlike Tara, Bim has neither married nor had children. While Tara may attribute this to a lack of opportunity, readers will soon learn that it was actually a deliberate choice.
Themes
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Baba’s record-player screeches on, and Tara notices Bakul sitting on the veranda, waiting for tea. Walking back to the veranda, Bim explains that Baba still listens to the same records. While Tara serves Bakul’s tea, Bim pours out most of his milk in the cat’s bowl. The deafening record finally ends, and white-haired Baba stumbles onto the veranda for his tea. Bim gives him milk with sugar, and everyone—including the cat—watches Baba drink it in silence. Bim comments that the cat doesn’t like humans drinking her milk.
The fact that Baba keeps listening to the same records suggests that he, like Bim, has not changed in many years. His gramophone is as deafening as Badshah’s bark; the unusual volume of both suggests that Bim and Baba simply do not remember how most people live (or recognize what would make most people uncomfortable). Bim’s decision to give milk to the cat instead of Bakul again shows that she doesn’t necessarily have fond feelings toward her family.
Themes
“Our first morning in Delhi,” Bakul announces, and Tara smiles and asks what they should do. Bim says her students are coming for make-up lessons before summer vacation. Bakul says that he and Tara should visit his relatives, and Bim asks Baba several times if he will go in to the office. He smiles, obliviously stares at the floor, and says nothing. Everyone returns to their bedrooms, and Baba puts on a new record.
Nobody in the family truly sees eye-to-eye. Bim refuses to modify her schedule for her family visit, but Bakul is no better: he tries to pull Tara away from her family and get her to spend time with his instead. Baba’s lack of response is the first clear sign in the novel of his developmental disability.
Themes
In their room, Bakul says that he and Tara should have stayed with his relatives in central New Delhi. He also tells her that it’s time to go out. Tara says she would rather stay at home with her siblings, but Bakul angrily says that she can’t and enters the bathroom. Returning to the veranda, Tara gazes at the guava trees, remembers eating their fruit, and laments that her daughters don’t understand “such rustic pleasures.” She wonders why Bim, Baba, and the house haven’t changed, and she decides that Bakul is right to resent them.
Bakul’s stubbornness and anger show that he is no better than Bim: he also resents the family, and he also doesn’t truly see or value Tara’s needs. Of course, this reflects a key gender dynamic that repeats throughout the novel: women sacrifice their own needs in order to take care of men’s needs. Meanwhile, Tara’s reaction to seeing the guava tree reflects her daughters’ wealthy American upbringing and shows that she remains torn between her past and present selves—the lives she has lived with Bim and Bakul, respectively.
Themes
Tara finds Baba sitting on the bed and listening to the gramophone in his large, empty room. She asks if he wants a ride, and he shakes his head. Then Tara asks if he ever goes to the office, and he smiles and looks down. She asks again, forcefully, and he says nothing. Both frustrated at his silence and mad at herself for judging him, she says she’ll ask Bim instead, and Baba looks up and nods happily. Tara returns to her room.
Baba’s silence makes it all the more clear that he is somehow neurodivergent, but readers still don’t know if this is a lifelong condition or something he has acquired in middle age. Clearly, he is more comfortable following Bim’s decisions than making his own. In a way, he reflects the family’s troubling dynamics, writ large: he remains isolated because he cannot communicate across the distance separating him from his family members.
Themes
Baba’s record starts to repeat due to his gramophone’s worn-out needle, so he throws it away and paces around his room. Anxious at hearing other sounds, he hastily gets dressed and stumbles outside, through the gate and onto the road. Tara stops herself from yelling to him, unaware that his adventures always lead to trouble. Baba hesitates, then shuffles out into the dusty road, worried he will get hit. He hears a crash, but it is a horse-drawn cart falling over. The driver whips the horse until it bleeds, and Baba covers his eyes and ears and runs back inside, where Tara takes him to his bed and gives him water.
Desai gives the reader a glimpse into Baba’s mind. His anxiety shows that the gramophone’s familiar sounds calm him—in a way, since he cannot speak, the gramophone serves as a substitute voice. It’s significant that Tara doesn’t know how dangerous it is for Baba to go outside—even though she clearly cares for him, she has also grown distant from him, and only Bim truly understands his needs. The driver whipping the horse reflects the chaos, danger, and cruelty of the outside world—and may explain why Bim and Baba choose to avoid it.
Themes
While Tara looks for Bim, Bakul angrily asks why she isn’t getting ready to leave. She murmurs that she wants to stay, but instead of exploding in anger, he calls her “weak-willed and helpless and defeatist.” He says she’s unhappy at home and should come stay with his uncle, but she shakes her head. He leaves, and on his way out, he passes Bim and the young girls she’s teaching, who say they want to learn about empresses instead of emperors. Bakul decides that Bim has all the “decision, firmness, [and] resolve” that Tara lacks, but she is too plain and unattractive. His uncle’s driver arrives, and he leaves.
Bakul appears to be unwilling or unable to see things from Tara’s perspective. On the one hand, his characterization of her as “weak-willed and helpless and defeatist” doesn’t seem consistent with her relationship with Bim—who resents her for choosing to move away and live an independent life. On the other hand, readers will soon learn that Bim used to see Tara in much the same terms, and that Bakul worries about her reverting to her past self when she visits home. Bakul’s evaluation of Bim suggests that he is trying to decide if he should have tried to marry her instead. Like Bim’s insistence on teaching about emperors instead of empresses, this reflects men’s unquestioned dominance in much of Indian culture.
Themes
Later that morning, Tara watches Bim bring her students into the yard and buy them ice cream from a man on his bicycle. She buys one for Tara too, takes one into Baba’s room, and then jokingly scolds one of her students for giving her leftovers to Badshah. The girls leave, Baba’s gramophone turns back on, and Tara feels at home.
Bim’s gentle affection for her students contrasts sharply with her cruel indifference toward Tara. But it’s also redeeming: it shows that Bim hasn’t become a mean person. (She’s just angry at Tara.) Seeing the sister she once knew and loved, Tara eases into the comfort of home, which she hasn’t felt in many years.
Themes
Bakul returns in the afternoon. While he naps, Tara reads and contemplates the house’s old, worn-out decorations. She nearly goes out to the veranda, but she gets a glimpse of the sweltering afternoon sun and decides against it. She remembers how Bakul stayed busy in the Moscow winter by filling his calendar—which he taught Tara to do, too. But here, at home in summer, she cannot. She feels her mother and father’s spirits in the room where they used to play bridge all day with their friends. She reminisces about napping with the cat in Aunt Mira’s room, and she remembers seeing her father give her mother an injection and thinking that he was killing her.
It’s ironic that Bakul complains about Tara’s passivity and weakness of will, but spends the day being driven around by a chauffeur and the afternoon sleeping. This suggests that the scorching Delhi summer is getting to him, too. The details about their life in Moscow suggests that they have traveled all over the world to follow his diplomatic career, and Tara’s memories of the house offer glimpses into her parents—who seem to have been distant, fearsome figures.
Themes
From the roof, Bim and Tara look down onto the garden, the neighborhood, and the muddy Jumna river, which Tara says she can’t believe they used to play in as girls. Joking that Tara has become a snob, Bim points out that the Jumna is holy and that she wants her ashes thrown there when she dies. Bim reminisces about riding with the ferryman and watching Hyder Ali Sahib pass on his horse, but Tara says that she wasn’t there—only Bim and Raja. Tara remembers Raja reciting poems there on the roof, but Bim calls Raja’s work terrible, offers to read her some of his old poems, and threatens to shred them.
Tara’s comments about the river and Bim’s accusations of snobbery reflect both how different they have become and how differently they remember their childhoods. While Tara seems to have lost touch with India’s traditions, yet chosen motherhood over education and a career, Bim has made a career out of teaching India’s history. The contrast between Bim and Raja going to the river together as children (without Tara) and Bim criticizing Raja’s poetry today again reflects how a breach has formed in their relationship.
Themes
Bim leads Tara into her room, which used to be their father’s office and is still full of file cabinets and stacks of paper. She pulls out Raja’s poems, but Tara realizes that they are in Urdu, which she can’t read. Bim finds an English letter from Raja and hands it to Tara. Raja writes that he has inherited his father-in-law Hyder Ali Sahib’s property but won’t raise the rent on Bim and Baba. Tara remembers Hyder Ali, their onetime landlord, who lived across the street and was greatly respected in Old Delhi. He left in the Partition and sold all his property—except this house.
Bim’s room seems frozen in time. The stacks of her father’s documents suggest both that she has inherited her parents’ role as master of her house and that she struggles to move on from the past. It’s significant that Raja wrote in Urdu—the old language of Delhi’s high culture and Muslim leaders, which has been on the decline in India since the Partition that Hyder Ali fled. This suggests that Raja and Hyder Ali were able to connect across Hindu-Muslim lines in a way that is no longer common.
Themes
Bim explains that she can’t attend Raja’s daughter Moyna’s wedding because she feels guilty to still be in the house, paying so little for rent. Flipping through a history book, Tara proposes they go to the wedding and move on, but Bim says she’ll never forget the insult in the letter. Tara can’t believe that Bim and Raja are now at odds—they were so inseparable growing up. She encourages Bim to tear up the letter, but Bim insists on keeping it.
Bim appears to have brought Tara to the office specifically to show her Raja’s letter, which is the main source of her discontent with him. While Bim claims to feel bad about not paying enough rent, it’s also possible that she finds it unfathomable that her brother would charge her rent at all. She clearly refuses to forgive Raja—and her struggle to do so will form the backbone of the novel’s plot.
Themes
Tara, Bim, and Bakul visit the Misras, the neighbors and mutual friends who introduced Tara and Bakul. While the Misra sisters teach dance classes inside, Tara and Bakul join the Misra brothers, who are lounging on the porch. Bim goes to the veranda to chat with the Misra father, who recounts how he was supposed to study law in England, until a swami (holy man) told his father to send his son east instead. So he ended up working in a family friend’s lumber business in Burma instead.
Throughout this novel, the Misra family will serve as a foil to the Das family (Tara, Bim, Baba, and Raja). Much like Bim, the Misras still live in the same house where they grew up. Bim’s decision to talk to the father reflects both her distaste for the siblings and the way her personality has aged beyond her years. Beyond highlighting how whims and randomness can shape family dynamics and people’s lives in profound ways, the father’s story about working in Burma also indicates that—contrary to Bim’s earlier comment—some people do leave Old Delhi and later return.
Themes
Bim jokes about grading exam papers and the Misra father comments that she overworks herself—like his own daughters. Meanwhile, his useless sons just sit around, drink, and launch failed business ventures. Worrying about the Misra family’s future, Bim feels relieved that their father’s old insurance business still keeps the family afloat. Misra Uncle complains that the doctor won’t let him smoke or drink anymore, then he admits that he used to be even worse than his sons.
The Misra family’s gender dynamics largely reflect the Das family’s—and specifically the conflict between Bim (who is a teacher, like the Misra sisters) and Raja (who lives off family money and does not work, like the Misra brothers). The Misra father’s comments about his past vices suggest that no matter how much people like Bim seem never to change, it actually is possible for people to continue growing, even later in life. He points to how younger generations grow into older ones, adopting habits and social roles they used to see in their parents and elders.
Themes
One of the Misra sisters, Jaya, comes to bring Bim downstairs. She promises that the cook is bringing the Misra father’s food. Down in the garden, the Misra brothers ask Bakul how he explains India’s political situation to foreign reporters, and Bakul replies that he only comments on India’s strengths and ancient culture, not its poverty or internal politics. Bim jokes that it’s easy to forget India’s problems while living abroad. Tara jokes that Bim doesn’t see those problems because she scarcely leaves the house. While Bakul lights Bim’s cigarette, Tara observes that she used to be prettier than Bim when they were young, but Bim is now more attractive in middle age. Perhaps it’s Bim’s cigarette, or maybe it’s because she never married.
Bakul’s comments demonstrate that he cares primarily about appearances and status, not truth or India’s development. To some extent, this may be an understandable response to foreigners’ prejudices about India, but it also suggests that he is too selfish and superficial to honorably represent his country. Tara and Bim’s spate over whether Bim or Bakul has a truer knowledge of India raises key questions about class, power, and national identity. They are both social elites, and he works for the government but clearly has lost touch with the country’s traditions, culture, and reality, while she teaches its history for a living but knows little beyond her house’s walls. Lastly, in addition to suggesting that beauty standards are different for women of different ages, Tara’s thoughts about Bim again point to the way that people and their relationships inevitably change over time.
Themes
The Misra brothers ask about the price of scotch in Washington, and the Misra sisters say it’s time for Tara’s daughters to marry—they are 16 and 17. The youngest brother, Mulk, drunkenly sings to himself, then stands up and starts yelling at the family for firing his musical accompanists because they ran out of money. Bakul calmly leads the incoherent, crying Mulk away.
The Misras’ concerns are typical of gender roles among the Indian elite: scotch is many (if not most) well-to-do Indian men’s preferred drink, and women’s status depends largely on marriage. It is still typical for many Indian women to marry in their late teens—although less so among urban elites now than during the 1980s. Mulk’s incoherent outburst shows that the Misra family’s income isn’t enough to keep up with their social class—but it’s also something readers should keep in mind for later.
Themes
Bim hears Badshah barking and says it’s time to go home. The Misra sisters insist they stay for dinner, but Bim remembers that there was very little to eat last time, so she leads Tara and Bakul to the gate. The Misra sisters reminisce about a picnic they all once shared. While crossing the street, Bakul points out that Hyder Ali’s old house is falling apart, and Bim explains that the only person living there is a poor, opium-addicted relative of Ali’s from Hyderabad.
Mulk’s troubled music career and the Misra sisters’ invitation to a likely meager dinner demonstrate the gap between their outward class status and their inward reality. They seem like decaying shells of their former selves—much like Bim, in Tara’s eyes. The picnic is another detail readers should keep in mind going forward.
Themes
Back at home, Tara and Bim pass the sleeping Baba, who looks like a shell of his former self. As they walk through the garden, Bim comments that she used to feel Aunt Mira’s presence there after her death in the summer of 1947, and she quotes a verse from T. S. Eliot. Unbeknownst to Bim, Tara has spent her whole life “both admiring and resenting” Bim and Raja’s knowledge of poetry. Bim and Tara remember the turmoil of that summer, which will forever define their youth in their minds. They solemnly agree that they are grateful to have grown up.
Just as Baba’s past self is more resonant and meaningful to the sisters than his present one, Aunt Mira lingers in the garden primarily through what she used to be—and the way the sisters remember her. Poetry not only unifies Bim and Raja, but also marks their sophistication and connection to the world beyond India. In a way, then, it’s ironic that Tara now leads a sophisticated, jet-setting life, while Bim stays at home. The sisters’ conversation about 1947 foreshadows the next part of the novel, which will return to that fateful era of their lives.
Themes
