Clear Light of Day

Clear Light of Day is a novel published in 1980 by Indian novelist and three-time Booker Prize finalist Anita Desai.

Set primarily in Old Delhi, the story describes the tensions in a post-partition Indian family, starting with the characters as adults and moving back into their lives throughout the course of the novel.

It starts with Tara, whose husband Bakul is India's ambassador to the US, greeting her sister Bimla (Bim), who lives in the family's Old Delhi home, teaching history and taking care of their autistic brother Baba.

Aunt Mira ("Mira-masi"), their supposed caretaker after the death of the children's often absent parents, dies of alcoholism.

Tara escapes from the situation through marriage to Bakul, leaving Bim to provide for Baba alone, in the midst of the partition and the death of Gandhi.

[4] In part three Bim, Raja and Tara are depicted awaiting the birth of their brother Baba in pre-partition India.

Aunt Mira, widowed by her husband and mistreated by her in-laws, is brought in to help with Baba, who is autistic, and to raise the children.

[6] Desai considers Clear Light of Day her most autobiographical work as it is set during her own coming of age and also in the same neighbourhood in which she grew up.

The nation of India was torn apart in a violent manner, leaving refugees on both side of the border and mutual anger and hostility.

His fascination with the Muslim culture, however, first manifests itself when he takes Urdu instead of Hindi, a language he considers banal, at school.

The dissolution in the family that begins in 1946 parallels the growing Partition movement and the escalation of violence, such as the attacks in Calcutta in August 1946, in response to this division into two nations.

Gatherings happen outside, such as at Hyder Ali's house and the Misra's; Tara's guilt is physically represented by bees; Nature is present even on clothes and in the poetry that Bim and Raja recite.

It is significant that the novel begins with a description of the garden ("the koels began to call before daylight"), and Anita Desai clearly places an emphasis on setting.

The first instance of this is when Tara, at the very beginning of the story, thinking she has seen a pearl, finds a snail instead and plays with it, as she did when they were children, performing "the rites of childhood over the creature".

A few pages later, Tara muses over the "rustic pleasures" that she used to derive from the garden, longing to run to the guava trees and find a whole one to bite into.

The garden is their source of refreshment in the heat of summer, and the nature filled surroundings provide Tara with reprieve from the business of her city life.

The garden is "overgrown", "neglected" and "uncontrolled", not perfect and square, so she feels like she can relax and forget about her engagement book.

Many paragraphs end with a reference to Nature, such as "the dog suddenly pounced upon the flea" or "a koel lifted itself out of the heavy torpor of the afternoon and called tentatively, as if enquiring into the existence of the evening".

The garden, so beautiful and enjoyable in their childhood, has become old and grey as the years have progressed and the Das children have grown apart.

For example, mosquitoes are mentioned at the beginning as "singing and stinging", and when the gardener waters the garden, "bringing out the green scent of watered earth and refreshed plants", mynahs quarrel and parrots come, a "lurid, shrieking green", ripping flowers to bits.

Like the roses, the Das children were not properly cared for which has led them to bicker and row, ultimately failing to understand each other.

Tara, when Bim cuts off her hair, looks "like a baby pigeon fallen out of its nest, blue-skinned and bristly, crouching behind the water tank and crying".

The idea of a bird too weak to fly is an accurate representation of Aunt Mira, widowed and rejected, and Tara, who is an introvert with no grand ambitions.

In this insight, she concludes that the bond of family is greater than any other thing in this world, that she felt their pains, and that she couldn't live without them.

[23] A major a part of the book is devoted to the first years of the Das siblings and to how that period shaped their current lives.

Raja, who was selfish and proud, becomes an upscale , pompous man who remains trying to be the hero he idolized, Hyder Ali.

Bim witnesses the degradation of her widowed aunt in her house and therefore the limitations of marriage, and she or he decides to measure a lifetime of independence.

Baba also tries to flee his immediate surroundings, albeit during a more unconscious manner, by constantly playing an equivalent music on a loop.