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Part 3
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
Back in 1980, Bim corrects exam papers, and Tara writes her daughters a letter at the dining room table. Everything looks orange due to the dust storm. Tara says that Bim and Baba should come to Raja’s daughter Moyna’s wedding for a change of scenery. Noting that Bim talks aloud to herself all day while making hand gestures, Tara suggests that Bim is worried about her relationship with Raja. But Bim says that Raja isn’t interesting anymore, now that he’s “rich, fat and successful.”
Part IV of the novel returns to where Part I left off. After Parts II and III, readers now have the background knowledge they need to understand why Bim and Baba have stayed in Delhi, as well as why Bim continues to resent Tara and Raja now, decades after the conflicts that initially drove them apart. It’s now clear that the novel’s climax and conclusion will revolve around whether the siblings manage to reconcile. Tara is clearly invested in this project, and she makes a concerted effort to push Bim to give Raja another chance.
Themes
Tara points out that, while she visits Raja every three years, Bim knows nothing about his life. But Bim complains that Raja spends his time at parties reciting poetry (which she has not read) and spoils his five kids (whom she has never met). She points out that Raja’s family did visit her shortly after his first daughter Moyna’s birth. Raja was fat and brought gifts—pearls for Bim and a new gramophone for Baba—but they didn’t touch either gift. Raja complained that they “know nothing.” Bim wonders if Moyna, who is now getting married, is as fat as Benazir used to be. She complains that Raja and his family enjoy food too much, so they must be unhappy. Tara asks why, and Bim says that it’s because Raja turned poetry, his vocation, into a hobby. Dumbstruck, Tara repeats that Bim should go see Raja’s life firsthand.
Bim has not seen Raja for at least 15 years. Her bitter disdain for him is thus based more on rumor, history, and theory than actual experience. Rather than considering the love and support that she, Baba, Raja, and Raja’s children might have gained if they built loving relationships, she fixates on past slights and flatly rejects the possibility of reconciliation. She particularly distinguishes herself from Raja by contrasting his indulgence with her own sense of responsibility. Meanwhile, Raja’s thoughtful gifts clearly show that he wants to reconnect: he s willing to reconcile if and when Bim is willing to join him.
Themes
Tara opens and reads aloud a letter from Raja to Bim. Raja writes that he and Benazir bought their son a pony, and Bim interrupts to complain that Raja is “still trying to be Hyder Ali Sahib” and projecting his childhood desires onto his son. Bim predicts that the pony will buck the boy off, hurting him and causing a fight with his father. Tara reads on about Moyna’s wedding arrangements, but Bim ignores her and instead complains about her leaving peeled oranges out on the table. (It wasn’t her, but Bakul.)
Bim takes any opportunity she can find to criticize her brother, even though he has made the effort to write her. Curiously, while Bim previously mentioned Hyder Ali Sahib’s horse as a fond memory, here, she turns it into a means to criticize her brother. Admittedly, Raja’s letter focuses on himself and his family instead of Bim, but he has little alternative because he knows nothing about her day-to-day life. Lastly, with her comment about the oranges, Bim starts turning her anger against Tara, too—perhaps because Tara’s insistence that Bim give Raja another chance would force Bim to admit that she was wrong.
Themes
In the kitchen, Bim starts shaking in anger and drops the orange peels, furious that her siblings live in luxury and disdain her way of life. She tells herself that Tara is cruel and Raja is selfish, then she goes to the steps and calls Janaki to clean. Tara watches Bim from afar, confused at her behavior—for instance, she saves every scrap of uneaten food but spends a fortune on books. But Tara is glad that Bakul takes most of his meals with friends in the city. Another morning, she learns that the gardener has no seeds or fertilizer—only manure. Tara wonders if her childhood perception of Bim’s competence was wrong, or if Bim has simply grown less competent with the years.
Desai reveals that there’s really a degree of envy behind Bim’s anger at Raja and Tara’s wealth and status. Namely, even though Bim would never be caught dead living a life of plenty, she also sees that her siblings have grown rich without working a day in their lives—while she has worked tirelessly her whole life, but still struggles to make ends meet. While Bim calls Raja selfish and Tara cruel, it’s abundantly clear that both have tried to connect with her—and she is the one who refuses to build a relationship with them. Lastly, Tara’s observations about how Bim actually lives raise a difficult puzzle that gets to the nature of remembrance and identity: are her childhood memories unreliable, or has Bim simply changed? Does she have any way of knowing which of these two alternatives is right?
Themes
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That evening, Tara says that she is noticing all sorts of things about her family that she never saw before. Bakul says that this is because children are too busy playing to comprehend family dynamics, but Bim announces that children understand them better than anyone else and that she and her siblings didn’t play as kids—they just sat around. Tara feels obligated to agree. Bim says that she and her siblings understood the family dynamics, but just did nothing. Suddenly, Tara apologizes for not saving Bim from the bees in Lodi Gardens. After explaining what happened to Bakul, Bim says that Tara couldn’t have done anything else—and was right to go get help. In fact, Bim says she had forgotten the whole incident.
Bakul’s explanation makes sense on the surface, but it reveals that he doesn’t understand what Tara and her siblings’ childhood was really like. Meanwhile, Bim defends the opposite position, claiming that children are somehow wiser than adults. Clearly, the truth is somewhere in the middle: the Das siblings knew they were unhappy and could tell that their childhood was somehow unusual, but they did not have all the tools they needed to fully understand their family dynamics until much later. In this way, Tara once again gets caught between two stubborn, inconsiderate loved ones. Next, Tara’s apology for the incident at Lodi Gardens demonstrates how people’s differing memories of the same events can deeply shape their relationships and sense of self.
Themes
Conversation turns to the Misras. Bakul says it’s strange to come back time after time and find that they haven’t changed at all. Bim agrees and laughs with him. Bakul asks about the Misras’ spouses. Bim explains that they all got fed up with the Misras and Old Delhi, so returned to their own families. She thinks the Misra sisters “hate children [and] hate teaching,” but don’t realize it. Tara wonders if Bim may really be talking about herself. She asks if Bim ever sees Dr. Biswas, and Bim immediately says no.
The Misras continue serving as a foil for the Das family. On the one hand, the Misras are still as close as ever, while the Das siblings have drifted apart. Yet compared to the Misras, the Das siblings seem to have turned out alright. In part because they spend most of their time with one another and have no outside reference point, the Misras proved intolerable to their own spouses and are barely surviving financially. Of course, Bim’s comment further shows how she copes with her own conflicts and frustrations by projecting them outward onto other people, and Tara’s question about Dr. Biswas shows that she never fully understood Bim’s feelings toward the doctor or reasons for rejecting marriage.
Themes
Bim, Tara, and Bakul all sit in silence, swatting at mosquitos. Bakul is frustrated that nobody is listening to him, Tara about her blunder over Dr. Biswas, and Bim by Tara’s questions and letter from Raja. Bim concludes that Tara, Bakul, Raja, and his family are like mosquitos who sucked her blood and then flew away, leaving her behind like a dusty heirloom. She looks at Baba and wonders what he thinks of her and whether he would notice if she disappeared.
This evening of universal frustration over private, unspoken complaints is a microcosm of the pattern that has torn the Das siblings apart over the course of their lives. Namely, each resents the others for failing to acknowledge or meet their own needs during their childhoods. But they all fail to see that they were all doing the best they could in a difficult situation, where they lacked parental guidance or protection. Because they neither voice nor forget their complaints, they fail to move past them.
Themes
A letter comes from Sharma, who needs a family member to go to an important meeting. Bim asks Baba, who stares at his gramophone. She considers going herself or sending Bakul, lamenting that Raja doesn’t help. She complains to Tara, noting that their father never cared about her education and wondering if they should sell their shares in the business. Tara promises to ask for Bakul’s advice, but Bim says she sees herself as a fool and failure, since she has to beg men to help her make decisions. Tara promises that this isn’t about gender: it’s about consulting the whole family before making a major decision.
Desai reveals that the family business continues functioning just as Raja left it, with Baba at the helm. While Bim’s complaints about their father’s disinterest in her education and her inability to take charge of the business are perfectly valid, she takes them too far, both blaming herself and turning them against her family members in the process. Her disagreement with Tara about whether consulting Bakul means capitulating to men or reaching family consensus exemplifies this pattern. This suggests that Bim’s pride and need for control lead her to refuse cooperation and consensus in more contexts than just her frayed relationship with Raja.
Themes
Bim sourly asks if this includes Raja. Tara says he’d love to come home, but Bim says he’ll hate “this dead old house.” Tara replies that, while the house needs maintenance, now that Bim is in charge, it’s no longer the empty, foreboding place that she wanted to escape as a girl. Realizing that she was always busy with Raja and Aunt Mira, Bim asks if this is why Tara married young and didn’t go to college. Tara replies that she hated school and dreaded the idea of college, so when she fell in love with Bakul, she seized the opportunity to escape. Bim struggles to believe that Tara had such complex feelings as a child, and Tara admits that she is only putting words to those feelings now.
Tara’s comment about the house becoming comforting and welcoming under Bim’s tenure indicates that she hopes to put the past behind her and demonstrates how families’ ability to transform over time is one of their particular strengths. Just as Tara finally learns about Bim’s real feelings toward Dr. Biswas, Bim finally learns why Tara really married so young. Readers may be surprised that the sisters didn’t understand decisions that were so central to both of their lives for so many years. This again speaks to how isolated they were as children, but also how much space they have to grow as adults.
Themes
Bim and Tara agree that it’s ironic that, as children, Tara preferred to stay home and Bim to go out, but Tara ended up leaving and Bim staying home. Bim remembers how she and Raja dreamed of being a heroine and a hero, but she concludes that those dreams have been lost “down at the bottom of the well.” She jokes that she’ll die there just like the cow.
While in some ways Bim and Tara have switched roles, in others, they have also both fulfilled their dreams: Tara has become a mother and Bim a history teacher; Tara surrounds herself with family and Bim with books. Bim’s comment about losing track of her heroic dreams again links the well to death, forgetting, and the inaccessibility of the past. Yet in a way, she does become a hero: Desai writes her into this book, and she will be the one who saves her family in the end.
Themes
Just before bed, Tara tells Bakul that she’s worried about Bim, who may seem to have achieved the life she wanted but is actually “angry and unhappy and upset.” At first, Bakul is too busy thinking about his travel plans to seriously listen. But as Tara describes Bim’s conflict with Raja, Bakul realizes that there is a problem to solve—and an opportunity to impress—so he tunes in. He proposes Tara get Bim and Raja to meet, but she protests that she’s been trying the whole time. He says he didn’t know, and he goes to sleep. Tara broods, and Badshah runs to the gate and howls.
Tara notices that Bim’s unhappiness stems not from her own day-to-day life and career, but from her frayed relationships and enduring resentment toward her family. But Bakul’s advice is clearly unhelpful: he cares less about Tara’s issue than about what resolving it will achieve for himself, and he doesn’t have the empathy or consideration to realize that Tara is already several steps ahead of him. When he learns that she has already thought of his proposal, instead of continuing to work on the problem, he resents that his image has been tarnished and goes to sleep.
Themes
In the morning, Bakul tells Bim that he’s willing to ask Sharma about the letter, but Bim curtly tells him that she will be selling the family’s shares. Bakul says the whole family should discuss this decision, but Bim says that it’s up to her and Baba now. Bakul proposes asking Raja, and Bim firmly refuses.
Bim seems to make this decision out of pride, stubbornness, and a desire for power, rather than careful consideration. Put differently, she appears willing to destroy her family’s finances just to prove that she can—and, consequently, that the others can no longer ignore her.
Themes
Tara grows increasingly desperate. One morning, she points out Bim’s moods to Jaya, one of the Misra sisters, who had visited to ask if she should repaint her furniture pink or blue. But Jaya says that Bim is fine and busy taking care of Baba. Tara explains that Bim doesn’t want to go to the wedding, but Jaya just calls Bim stubborn, says Tara should have fun at the wedding, and leaves.
Like Bakul, Jaya doesn’t take Tara’s concerns seriously. The pretense for her visit (choosing her furniture color) highlights her shallowness, and her insistence that Bim is fine seems designed to protect herself from the reality of the situation, rather than to truly help Tara with it. Above all, unlike Tara, Jaya does not seem to see the prospect of Bim changing or the Das family healing its divide.
Themes
Bim becomes angry and cruel. She criticizes Tara’s jingling keys and feeds her a curry too spicy to eat. She gets furious at having to clean up a dead baby bird, and when Baba keeps playing the song “Don’t Fence Me In,” she goes to his room, turns off his record player, and sits down. She explains her plan to sell the family’s shares, then tells Baba that he might have to go live with Raja in Hyderabad. Baba says nothing, as usual, but seems to draw away. Catching herself, Bim apologetically says that she didn’t really mean it.
Frustrated by Tara’s attempts to make her take stock of her life and reconcile with Raja, Bim lashes out at her siblings. Her interaction with Baba may be the most important turning point in the novel’s plot, because it precipitates a breakthrough for her. Throughout the whole novel, Baba is an absolutely innocent figure, incapable of committing harm. When Bim threatens to send him away to Hyderabad, she sees that her anger and resentment have gotten in the way of her vow to protect him for the rest of her life. She realizes that she has gone too far and must make a change.
Themes
Bim spends the rest of the day lying still in bed, unsettled by the silence, wishing Baba’s gramophone would fill it. She wonders why she took her anger out on Baba instead of Tara or Bakul—and instead of finally writing Raja a letter. She realizes that she hoped to break through “Baba’s silence and reserve and otherworldliness.” She admits that she loves her whole family deeply, that they are inseparable parts of one another. She wishes she could love them better, to accept their flaws: her parents’ distance, Raja’s abrupt departure, Baba’s silence. She realizes that she needs to reconcile with Raja and earn Baba’s forgiveness.
This passage is the novel’s climax, the crucial turning point that makes it possible for the Das family to reconcile. Bim finally starts analyzing herself instead of blaming her siblings, and she accepts that they all share a fraught past, which she cannot blame her siblings for escaping—even if this meant leaving her behind. In fact, their departures were never about her at all. She thus realizes that she has the power to choose between forgiveness and spite. This epiphany will finally redeem her to her family, and her family to her.
Themes
When Bim brings Baba his tea that afternoon, she is relieved to see that he wasn’t punishing her by leaving his gramophone off—he just fell asleep. She feels a profound, ethereal love for him. That evening, she and Tara struggle to make conversation because they are both exhausted, so they go to bed early.
Bim had wished to push past Baba’s “silence and reserve and otherworldliness” in order to get some sign that he loves her the same way that she loves him. But now, she accepts that she will never get the clear sign she wants. Instead, she must trust that he loves her on faith, and she must recognize that the beauty of the feeling of love is her reward for loving him. Her reconciliation with Baba will become the model for her reconciliation with Tara in the coming pages and Raja sometime in the future.
Themes
Bim is too anxious to sleep, so she spends the night reading. She turns to a passage about the emperor Aurangzeb’s last words: “Strange that I came with nothing into the world and now go away with this stupendous caravan of sin!” She looks through her old translations of Raja’s Urdu poems—which are well-crafted but unoriginal emulations of his favorite writers—and wonders how he would feel if he saw them. Reflecting on Aurangzeb’s words, she decides to atone for her sins in order to leave the world free from them. She tears up Raja’s letter about the rent, as well as her own old papers—exams, letters, pamphlets, and so on. She realizes that she can’t wait to finish with “all this storm of emotion” and return to teaching, and she finally sleeps.
Aurangzeb’s words express his terror of God on his deathbed and suggest that people are the culmination of their moral choices. For Bim, this underlines the importance and urgency of forgiveness: she wants to live the rest of her life and die at peace, rather than loading her soul down with resentment. When she peruses Raja’s poetry, she realizes that she holds a precious piece of him that not even he can see anymore, which is a metaphor for the special relationship between siblings. When she shreds her papers and Raja’s letters, this represents her resolving to put the past behind her once and for all.
Themes
Tara and Bakul’s daughters, Mala and Maya, arrive in the morning and each greet Bim with a kiss when she wakes up. They ask if she has slept, point out the mess of papers in her room, and compliment her clothes. She teases them and makes tea. The girls spend lots of time listening to music and playing bagatelle with Baba, and when Bakul tries to send them out to buy saris, Tara refuses.
Mala and Maya’s arrival brings joy to everyone at the house on Bela Road, showing what kind of love and connection the Das family can share if they overcome their differences. Indeed, their affection for Bim demonstrates what she is missing by refusing to build a relationship with her brother and his children.
Themes
The next morning, the last one before the wedding, the whole family shares tea and discusses their plans. Tara and her daughters will return to Delhi after Hyderabad, and they look forward to relaxing at home. Bakul insists that Mala and Maya meet his family, who will introduce them to people their age, but Bim accuses him of trying to marry them off and interrupt their studies—just like Tara.
Tara and the girls’ plan to return to Delhi means that they will have further opportunities to deepen their relationships with Bim and guide her towards reconciliation with Raja. But Bim’s comments to Bakul reflect her fear that Maya and Mala—like Tara—will opt for marriage even when careers might be a better choice for them.
Themes
After breakfast, Bim goes to walk in the garden, which is shriveling in the summer heat. Tara calls out to Bim, who says that Tara should be packing. But Tara says she’s already done, and she approaches Bim. She holds Bim’s arm and apologizes for marrying Bakul and disappearing so many years ago, without returning to help take care of Aunt Mira. Bim says that Tara couldn’t possibly have come back, but Tara still feels guilty. She didn’t even make it to Aunt Mira’s funeral. Bim tries to change the subject, but Tara repeats herself and explains that, even if it all happened so long ago, “nothing’s over, ever.”
Back in the garden, the same place where they began the novel, Bim and Tara finally work past their differences. Having reflected on her childhood and understood Bim’s resentment, Tara recognizes that she must be the first to recognize her past mistakes and ask for forgiveness. When Tara says that “nothing’s over, ever,” she doesn’t mean that people ought to hold grudges from the past indefinitely, but rather that old conflicts stay around and fester until they get resolved—no matter how long this takes.
Themes
Bakul, Tara, and their daughters bring their suitcases to the car and say goodbye to the servants. Tara runs back inside, and Bim worries that Baba will try to leave with her. Instead, Tara returns to the car and says that Baba refuses to leave his room. Bim explains that Baba finds arrivals and departures overwhelming, and Tara asks, “Shall I tell Raja—?” Bim says yes: while she and Baba can’t travel, he should come visit them in Delhi. He can bring his whole family, settle the business with Sharma, and even fix Hyder Ali’s old house. She actually wants him to visit. Shocked and delighted, Tara gets in the car and the driver speeds off. Everyone waves goodbye.
Bim’s concern about Baba leaving with Tara reflects her own insecurities—and shows that she depends on Baba for her sense of self just as much as he depends on her for his. Tara and Bim’s conversation about Raja demonstrates that Bim has decided to forgive him. This means that Tara’s efforts to repair her family are proving successful. While readers will not get a chance to see Bim and Raja reconcile up close, Raja’s past visit, letters, and wedding invitation suggest that he will cherish the opportunity.
Themes
Bim returns to the veranda. Baba and the cat join her. Bim asks if Baba wanted to attend the wedding, and he shakes his head. Having said all she needs to, Bim feels like she’s floating in an ocean of sunlight.
With harmony reestablished in the Das household, Bim feels the consequences of her decision to shed the past and choose love over resentment: sublime pleasure and psychological security.
Themes
One of the Misra sisters, Jaya, comes over to invite Bim and Baba to attend (and help set up for) the youngest Misra brother Mulk’s guru’s birthday party at their house. They agree. A few hours later, they are sitting on the Misras’ lawn, watching the musicians set up and Mulk jovially greet the crowd. Mulk starts singing, improvising until he finds a melody he likes. When he does, he repeats it triumphantly, launching his song, and the instruments follow him. Bim looks around at the crowd—a little girl points out Bim’s cigarette to her mother, and the Misra brothers sway to the music and yell out “Vah! Vah!” in approval.
This final scene serves as a sort of coda to the novel, which metaphorically captures several of its central ideas—like the power of love and the beauty of forgiveness. Tellingly, it does so not only in the form of music, but in a performance genre historically linked to Delhi and its Muslim high culture. Mulk has only appeared one other time in the novel, when he stumbled drunkenly out of his chair at the beginning of Part I and complained about no longer being able to sing. But here, he finds redemption—like Bim. Indeed, she also seems to be giving another chance to him and the rest of the Misras, whom she has long despised.
Themes
The Misra sisters start passing out tea, and then a small old man—the guru—goes up to sing. While the younger Misra brother Mulk’s voice is “full and ripe,” the guru’s is rough and full of “sadness and passion and frustration,” as though he were approaching death. Bim takes comfort in a line from T.S. Eliot: “Time the destroyer is time the preserver.” Since Mulk and his guru have learned to sing as part of the same tradition, Bim wonders if Mulk’s voice will eventually grow to sound like his guru’s. She thinks the same applies to her home and the family that has rooted their “deepest selves” in its soil. The guru sings some of Raja’s favorite lines from the great poet Muhammad Iqbal, and someone calls out, “Vah! Vah!”
The guru and Mulk, the T.S. Eliot quote, and the Das family’s troubles all point to the old wisdom that time heals all wounds. Specifically, enduring commitments give people the opportunity to change together over time, and such commitments are central to the formation of people’s “deepest selves.” As Bim points out, Mulk and the guru belong to the same musical school, and their voices reflect their experience. The T.S. Eliot line suggests that things are preserved over time for posterity only because they decay and cease to be what they once were. And Bim’s remarks about her family indicate that she will make the effort necessary to overcome her rift with Raja—and build a new, happier future alongside him, Tara, and Baba.
Themes
