Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Clear Light of Day is a novel by Anita Desai that was published in 1980. The novel is based on the Indo-Pak partition and it describes the tensions in a post-partition Indian family. Unlike other Partition novels or books on the partition of India (1947), Clear Light of Day doesn’t talk about the gory details of the religious and social struggles of that time, nor does it highlight the inappropriate political environment of that era. Rather, the novel describes the effects of all that on a common Indian family. The strength of familial relationships and the importance of forgiveness are the major themes of the novel. The novel also suggests how ‘time’ preserves, destroys, and rebuilds a family, a society, and a nation.
The novel also suggests biased religious undertones as Muslims are described as sophisticated, rich, educated, heroic, hardworking, and civilized while the characters belonging to other religions are depicted as lazy, lecherous, and uneducated. In addition, Urdu as a language is depicted as a language of intellectuals, poets, and educated and sophisticated people while Hindi is described as a banal language.
Characters of Clear Light of Day:
Bimla Das (Bim) is the eldest daughter of Das family. She is a history teacher and a great advocate of independence and individuality. She had her dreams and wished to lead an ideal heroic life but she finds herself a failure. She takes care of her brother and sick aunt even when everyone else deserts her. She wrestles with her anger towards her brother Raja, but she comes to forgive him and finds peace in her tempestuous family relations. Raja Das is Bim’s younger brother. He used to be very close to Bim in their earlier years. Raja is intelligent, romantic, and has a great passion for Urdu poetry. He hero-worships Hyder Ali, their Muslim neighbor and landlord. He is arrogant, irresponsible, ambitious, and occasionally insensitive. He later marries Benazir, Hyder Ali's daughter, and leaves his siblings in Old Delhi. Tara is the youngest sister of Bim and Raja. Unlike Bim and Raja, she is not intellectual and as a child, she hated going to school. She didn’t pursue higher education as her only dream was to be a housewife and become a mother. She has anxiety and avoids confrontation, but occasionally demonstrates more self-possession than Bim and Bakul give her credit for. Baba is Bim, Tara, and Raja’s youngest sibling. He is autistic and entirely dependent on Bim. Bakul is Tara's husband and a diplomat. He is arrogant, likes to impress other people, and is a narcissist who dislikes when he is not the center of attention. He is disdainful of the Das family and does not want Tara to be affected by its unruliness. Mr. and Mrs. Das were the parents of Bim, Tara, Raja, and Baba. Both of them hardly cared about the family. Mr. Das was often busy with his friends playing Bridge while Mrs. Das was a diabetic. Both died during the growing years of their children. Aunt Mira is a distant cousin of Mrs. Das. She was widowed when she was twelve and was blamed for her husband's death; thus she was made to work as an unpaid servant for her in-laws. She begins to age prematurely because of this. She is sent to take care of Baba, but all of the children are elated to have her since their parents don't care for them. Later on, she becomes an alcoholic and gets sick. Mr. Mishra and his family are neighbors of Das family. He made a huge fortune as a businessman during his younger days but his three sons are lazy, lecherous, and unprincipled who ruin his business. His two daughters Jaya and Sarla had no ambition, except to get married, and thus didn't complete their studies. Ironically, this is why they are deserted by their husbands. They run and provide for the Misra household by teaching dance and music to teen girls. They like the simple and unambitious Tara more than the independent and headstrong Bim. Dr. Biswas is the doctor who treated Raja when he was suffering from tuberculosis and Aunt Mira when she began to fall apart. He completed his education in Germany and returned to India. He likes Bim romantically but Bim shows no interest in him.
Summary of Clear Light of Day:
The novel is divided into Four Parts.
Part 1
The story begins in a house in Old Delhi during the 1950s-1960s where Bim, an unmarried history teacher lives with her younger brother Baba. The house is owned by her brother Raja. Their sister Tara and her husband, Bakul, a diplomat, live in Washington, D.C. Tara is attractive, but, unlike the intelligent and fiercely self-possessed Bim, she is mild-mannered, pliable, and dependent on her husband. They come to Delhi for a brief visit on their way to their niece’s wedding. As soon as their two teenage daughters join them, Tara and Bakul plan to go to Hyderabad to attend the wedding. The bride is a daughter of Raja, the oldest of the four Das children. Tara tries to persuade Bim to come along with her and Bakul to attend the wedding. Bim insists that she will not attend the wedding; she no longer has anything to do with Raja. Bim expresses her resentment at being saddled with the house and with Baba while Tara and Raja live exciting lives. Baba is autistic and spends all his day listening to Gramaphone. Tara tries to encourage him to go to the office but he declines. She gets sad at his situation and worries about Bim who has taken responsibility for Baba.
In the evening, Tara and Bim go to their neighbor’s house along with Bakul. The Misras were a rich family fallen into hard times due to their sons’ debauchery, vices, and laziness. Their sisters, separated from their husbands, work hard to feed the family and yet are marginalized. The youngest of the Misra brothers is Mulk who is angry because his music consort was rejected. Bakul calms him down. Bim then decides to return back to home to avoid burdening the Misra family with the arrangement of their dinner. After returning home, Bim and Tara engage in their talks. Bim says how she misses Aunt Mira and often she would see her specter. Tara begins remembering their childhood, the Partition of India and Pakistan, and the events that followed. Tara talks about the impressive Urdu poems that Raja wrote during his younger days. After their father’s death, Raja inherited the business. He left Bim alone to take care of Baba without offering any monetary help. After Hyder Ali’s death, he inherited the house in which Bim was living. Bim shows Tara a letter that Raja wrote to her after the death of his father-in-law, Hyder Ali, who left his property to Raja. Bim is still angry because in the letter Raja made it clear that he was now her landlord, thus implying that he ranked above Bim. He insisted that he would never sell the house nor raise the rent. Bim took such offense at this letter that she hasn’t spoken to Raja in years and doesn’t plan to attend his daughter Moyna’s wedding.
Part 2
This part is retrospective which begins in 1947 when the Partition of India had resulted in sectarian strife. Hindu radicals at Raja’s school pressure him to join their movement, but after he contracts tuberculosis and is confined to his home they leave him alone. In fact, although they are Hindus, the members of the Das family have always been friendly with their Muslim neighbor Hyder Ali, and he has taken a special interest in Raja. Bim and Raja are close at this time, sharing a passion for poetry. Raja, despite being Hindu, develops a fascination for Urdu language and literature, associated with the Muslim population of India. Raja becomes drawn into the intellectual circles of their wealthy neighbor Hyder Ali. They exclude Bim from this male and predominantly Muslim world, so she devotes her time to her own studies in history. The Das children become even more distanced from their parents when their mother falls ill, and the duty of caring for their Aunt Mira who has an alcohol addiction, and their brother Baba, who has an intellectual disability, falls almost entirely to Bim. Both parents die, and when Raja falls ill with tuberculosis, it is Bim who cares for him, too. Tara spends more time with Misra's sisters, whom Bim finds unambitious. Tara meets Bakul there and is love-struck, although Bim finds him pompous, arrogant, and dull. Dr. Biswas, a young man who frequently ministers to Raja and Aunt Mira (the latter of whom is descending into a senile, drunken disaster), begins to be infatuated with Bim and invites her to a concert. She is not at all interested, and even though she agrees to a meeting with his mother, she realizes that she is not interested in marriage. After their father’s death, Raja gains control of his father’s business but Bim too holds some shares. Raja is not interested in business. He leaves it to be managed by Mr. Mishra.
He rather wishes to follow Hyder Ali and be a hero. Hyder Ali and his family left for Hyderabad due to the communal tensions in Old Delhi during the period of Partition. Raja is still ill and doesn’t know about the departure of Hyder Ali. He insists Bim to visit Hyder Ali’s house and get information about him and his family. Bim doesn’t wish to do so but goes along with Baba on Raja’s request. She finds that Hyder Ali and his family have left Delhi for Hyderabad. Baba finds Hyder Ali’s daughter Benazir’s old gramophone in his house and brings it to Bim’s house. On returning Bim informs Raja that Hyder Ali has left. Bim notices that despite all her efforts and care for Raja when he is ill, he becomes more arrogant and dismissive of her. Bakul marries Tara and takes her with him. Aunt Mira grows worse and, after a series of embarrassing accidents, dies in her bed. She is buried in her only sari, which she never wore in life. Now that his health is improved, Raja leaves for Hyderabad to look for Hyder Ali. Baba and Bim are left together, and Bim decides to take responsibility of Baba, who is autistic.
Part 3
Part 3 further goes back to the past when Bim and Raja’s mother Mrs. Das gave birth to her fourth (and unexpected) child, Baba. He begins exhibiting some growth defects, so she calls for Aunt Mira to take care of the kids as she is suffering from diabetes. Aunt Mira was a distant cousin of Bim’s mother who was widowed in her early teenage years (in the 1940s) and was thus reduced to unpaid house help. She started aging prematurely and hideously, and so was deemed unfit for the men of her household. Initially, the kids do not like her but soon they become close to her.
While Bim and Raja were bright students and had higher dreams for their future, Tara was still a growing child and had bad memories of some childhood incidents, like the shooting of a rabid dog and the dismissal of a teacher for being in love with a foreigner. Bim, who does well at school and defends the principal in her firing of the teacher, becomes a figure of resentment for Tara. Tara soon loses interest in her studies. She begins dreaming of being a housewife and a mother. Bim and Raja begin ridiculing her. While Bim and Raja were close during those years, Raja began taking more interest in Hyder Ali, their neighbor, and his daughter Benazir. This forced Bim to be closer to Tara. However, Tara further had bad experiences with Bim. Once Bim forced Tara to to smoke while they dressed up in Raja’s pants and discovered a sense of power in wearing male clothing. Bim wished to feel the freedom the boys enjoyed so she cut down her hair and forced Tara to cut her hair too but Tara was not happy about it. Once Tara left Bim to face the bees alone. Tare begins to grow apart from her siblings and closer to Jaya and Sarla Misra, as there is levity and life in their house as compared to her own house. The Misra sisters treated her kindly and would frequently take her out to clubs and other places. At their marriage parties, Bim tells Tara she disapproves of the Misra girls marrying without proper education; she asserts that she doesn’t intend to marry.
Part 4
This part returns to the current times. Tara realizes how difficult Bim’s life is who is still taking care of their autistic brother Baba. She remembers how she took care of Aunt Mira and Raja too when he got ill. She notices that Bim got nothing from their parent’s fortune yet, she continues to take on her responsibilities while Raja never tries to help her. Tara witnesses that Bim is suffering financial troubles. Bim complains that Raja was “rich, fat and successful” when he last visited her and even brought them gifts they didn’t want, but in reality, she resents that her siblings live such easy, luxurious lives while she is still stuck at home, taking care of Baba and struggling to make ends meet.
Mr. Mishra offers a proposal to Bim and asks him to sell her shares in the business to him. Bim decides that she is going to sell off the family’s shares and refuses Tara’s advice to consult Bakul first. She starts treating Tara with cruelty, and then even tells Baba that he might have to move to Hyderabad with Raja—but catches herself, apologizes, and realizes that she loves her family but has to forgive them if she really wants to move forward in life. She spends all night throwing away old paperwork and finally tears up Raja’s letter. She finds that she can forgive Raja after all. She is overcome by a sense of wholeness and peace. The next day, Bakul, Tara, and their daughters, who’d arrived recently, prepared to depart for the wedding. As Tara leaves for the wedding, Bim tells her that, while she and Baba are not coming to the wedding because they do not leave the house anymore, she would love it if Raja came back here and brought the whole family. The novel closes with Bim attending a party at the Misras’ house, thinking about her family’s traditions and enduring connections, and resolving to grow back together with them.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
No comments:
Post a Comment