Critically analyse using qotes and examples, the manner in which Anita Desai represents the influence of the past and memory in moulding family dynamics in the Das family.

The main characters in Clear Light of Day are constantly drawn into the past and memory. Indeed, Bim's current life is like a shrine to the past: the same house, the same routine, old papers kept, rooms never changing their decor. Bim dwells in the past in her mind as well, thinking on various grievances and memories that shaped her. Tara lives more in the present because she knows what letting in the past will do: weigh her down, make her feel as if she were sinking into the dark and scummy well. Nevertheless, Tara comes to see that some engagement with the past is necessary because it shaped her and because she needed to gain understanding and resolution to things that had haunted her. Bim, for her part, finally sees the danger in dwelling too much in the past, and releases some of her heavier, more noxious memories.

I think it's simply amazing—how very little one sees or understands even about one's own home or family...

Tara, 148

This is a striking comment, and not just because it came from Tara, the sibling who often preferred to ignore reality or live in her own version of it. Her thinking and saying such things belies her characterization as one who does not think deeply. Rather, she has come to see what we all come to see: that we curate, alter, downplay, and exaggerate our memories, and the way we view others is oftentimes a result of our own personal issues rather than objective truth. Furthermore, despite how well we think we know someone, in many respects they ultimately remain unknowable. Desai suggests that, in order to forge real relationships, it is important to acknowledge these issues and foster honest, compassionate communication.

"Time the destroyer is time the preserver."

T.S. Eliot/Bim, 182

Bim and Raja are fond of quoting T.S. Eliot, which is no surprise given the fact that Desai loved the poet and modeled the structure of Clear Light of Day on Eliot's Four Quartets. Here, at the end of the novel, Bim thinks of this line, which is entirely apposite given the fact that she has been wrestling with time and memory the weight of the past for decades. Time does destroy: people change, give up dreams, move on, and die. Houses decay and dust settles over everything. However, time also preserves what is important. It is time that Bim needs to forgive Raja. It is time that Tara needs to reckon with leaving Bim to the bees and alone with Aunt Mira and Baba. Desai told India Today, "Basically, my preoccupation was with recording the passage of time: I was trying to write a four-dimensional piece on how a family's life moves backwards and forwards in a period of time. My novel is about time as a destroyer, as a preserver, and about what the bondage of time does to people. I have tried to tunnel under the mundane surface of domesticity."