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. While the primary theme is the importance of family, other predominant themes include the importance of forgiveness, the power of childhood and the status of women, particularly their role as mothers and caretakers, in modern-day India.Desai, Anita. Clear Light of Day. 1st Mariner Books edition, New York: Mariner Books, 2000. Print.
In 2022, the novel was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
Plot summary The novel is split into four sections covering the Das family from the children's perspective in this order: adulthood, adolescence and early adulthood, childhood, and a final return to an adult perspective in the final chapter.
The story centres on the Das family, who have grown apart with adulthood. Part one 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. Their conversation eventually comes to Raja, their brother who lives in Hyderabad. Bim, not wanting to go to the wedding of Raja's daughter, shows Tara an old letter from when Raja became her landlord, in which he unintentionally insulted her after the death of his father-in-law, also the previous landlord, Hyder Ali. The section closes with the two sisters visiting the neighbours, the Misras.Desai pp. 1–43.
In part two of the novel, the setting switches to partition-era India, when the characters are adolescents in the house. Raja is severely ill with tuberculosis and is left to Bim's ministrations. Aunt Mira ("Mira-masi "), their supposed caretaker after the death of the children's often absent parents, dies of alcoholism. Earlier, Raja's fascination with Urdu attracts the attention of the family's Muslim landlord, Hyder Ali, whom Raja idolises. After recovering from TB, Raja follows Hyder Ali to Hyderabad. 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.Desai pp. 44–101.
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. Raja is fascinated with poetry. He shares a close bond with Bim, the head girl at school, although they often exclude Tara. Tara wants to be a mother, although this fact brings ridicule from Raja and Bim, who want to be heroes.Desai pp. 102–141.
The fourth part returns to modern India and shows Tara confronting Bim over Raja's daughter's wedding and Bim's broken relationship with Raja. This climaxes when Bim explodes at Baba. After her anger fades, she decides that family love is irreplaceable and can cover all wrongs. After Tara leaves, she goes to her neighbors the Misras for a concert, where she is touched by the unbreakable relationship they seem to have. She tells Tara to come back from the wedding with Raja and forgives him.Desai pp. 142–183.
Background 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."Notes on the Biography of Anita Desai" . Elizabeth Ostberg. 12 February 2000. Haverford.edu. Retrieved 2012-06-21. She describes herself as placing "a premium on setting", unlike other Indian writers.Bliss, Corinne D. "Against the Current: a Conversation with Anita Desai", JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 September 2010.
Historical setting
Partition
The book is set at various times around the partition in Old Delhi. The tension between Muslims and Hindus are clearly shown by the father's refusal to allow Raja to go to a Muslim university and study Urdu literature because he has cause to fear for his safety. The book also mentions the partition riots as well as the refugee camps. It also depicts the flight of the Alis, the Das's Muslim landlords and neighbours.
These tensions often escalated into riots, but not in Old Delhi. The Hindus' claim to India led to the neglect, abuse and often violence towards Muslims in India or Hindus in Pakistan. The nation of India was torn apart in a violent manner, leaving refugees on both side of the border and mutual anger and hostility.Census of India, 1941 and 1951.Ansari, Sarah. 2005. Life after Partition: Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh: 1947—1962. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 256 pages. [.]Desai pp. 45–46, 50–53, 59, 71–72, 75, 85, 101.
Delhi In the book, Old Delhi is frequently referred to as old, stagnant, or decaying. Old Delhi is overcrowded and generally overlooked in favour of New Delhi. New Delhi is considered vibrant, modern and alive. In the book New Delhi is where the characters, specifically Bakul, go to avoid the soporific effects of Old Delhi or even to be connected with the outside world. Bim is in New Delhi when she hears of Gandhi death, and Raja finds diversion and entertainment as a teenager in New Delhi.Desai pp. 4–5, 17–19.
Religious The religious undercurrents in the book manifest themselves in two ways: the partition and Raja's relationship with the Alis. As a young adult he found acceptance (albeit not inclusion) in Hyder Ali's nightly gatherings. His fascination with the Muslim culture, however, first manifests itself when he takes Urdu instead of Hindi, a language he considers banal, at school. Eventually he integrates himself into the Muslim culture and marries Hyder Ali's daughter, Benazir. However this relationship is strained during the partition and the Ali's subsequent flight to Hyderabad.Desai p. 47.
Symbolism and motifs
Education During the book education is mentioned a lot. Not just school, but also in the nightly gatherings at the Ali's. Raja and Bim both go to college, although Raja's education is much more prominent. Even Hyderabad, where he went following the Alis, is a considered a place of learning in India; it is the home of universities such as Osmania University, one of the oldest in India.NAAC. "INTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE CELL". Welcome to Osmania University Hyderabad N.p., n.d. Web. 27 September 2010. Raja symbolizes culture refinement and knowledge, as does poetry.
Music The primary manifestations of music in the book are Baba's gramophone, Dr. Biswas's musical inclinations, and Mulk's singing at the end of the book. The idea of music relating to life experiences is present. Baba constantly playing his gramophone at the same volume with the same records shows the stagnation of his development. Dr. Biswas refinement in musical taste shows the personal refinement he learned in Europe. Mulk and the Guru show that while life alters our experiences, we are still the same people; as they used the same style but with different experiences shaping their performance. This is confirmed by Mulk complaining about his sisters sending away his musicians, like the partition of India. But the musicians return at the end of the book to accompany Mulk.
Tara also mentions her daughters' music but says it develops with their growth.Desai pp. 13, 38.Desai p. 177.
Of particular interest is what music Desai has Baba play; all the records are from the same time period and he never gets any new ones. But the most potent of these songs seems to be "Don't Fence Me In", performed by Bing Crosby. Every primary character in the book with the exception of Bim finds some way to escape. A song about being free, however, is what angers the one character who, on the surface, had no desire to do so.Desai pp. 12, 14, 163.
Separation The novel tells not just the story of the separation of a family, but also of a nation. The partition of India is a tangible reality that is concurrent to Raja leaving, Tara marrying, the deaths of the Das parents as well as Aunt Mira, and the separation of the Das family. These familial separations are parallel to the social events leading up to Partition and to the continued social upheaval that followed the separation of Pakistan from India.
The summer of 1947 is described as tumultuous: it is the summer when Bim takes care of Raja in his illness, the Hyder Ali family abandons Delhi for Hyderabad under the threat of ethnic violence, and the father of the Das family dies. During the previous summer of 1946, the same summer that Jinnah made public demands for a Muslim homeland, the mother of the Das family had also died. 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. In the summer of 1947, Tara marries Bakul and they leave for Ceylon (Sri Lanka), leaving Bim alone to care for the remaining family members: this coincides with the official division of India from Pakistan in August of that same year. The following summer, after the assassination of Gandhi earlier in January 1948 and the continued flight of refugees across Indian borders, Aunt Mira dies and Raja leaves for Hyderabad, thus isolating Bim further and leaving her to care for those who are left behind: Baba and herself. In particular, each of the three people who escaped (Tara, Raja and Aunt Mira) used a way of escape common during the Partition era: Tara fled the country for somewhere else, Raja fled to a Muslim center, and Aunt Mira left the earthly life entirely.Rao, P. Mallikarjuna. Postcolonial Theory and Literature. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2003. Print.
Language Each of the languages in Clear Light of Day represents different things. Urdu is the language of culture, refinement and knowledge. Hindi is considered every day, mundane and banal.Desai p. 47. Additionally the repeated examples of poetry emphasise the beauty of the one language compared to the other as more often than not they are in Urdu. Raja expounds how an Urdu poet could do that in a single couplet. Urdu symbolizes Raja and the Ali's culture and sophistication.Desai p. 46.Desai pp. 2, 41, 45, 46, 47, 50, 55, 82, 83, 98, 100, 182.
Nature
Nature is omnipresent in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day. The children are constantly in the garden to escape the stuffy interior. 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. Nature in the novel is a source of entertainment, but more significantly, it is often analogous to the relationships and actions of the characters.