Dramatic Irony: Tara's goals
When the Das children were young, during their visit to the roof with Aunt Mira, Raja proclaimed that he wanted to be a hero one day, to which Bim proclaimed that she wanted to be a heroine. At this point, Tara proclaimed that she just wanted to be a mother, and Raja and Bim chided her. They laughed at the randomness of Tara's goals and how inferior her goals were in comparison to their own. Aunt Mira, however, believed Tara's goals were more likely to come true than the other two. In the end, that is how it turns out. Raja controls a huge business he has not built it by himself and has just taken over it from his father-in-law, a task he ironically found beneath him when Bim asked him to take over their father's business after his death. Bim herself has been teaching to keep her household running, and is far from the heroine she imagined herself to be. Tara has truly become what she said would, ironically, unlike her elder, more dynamic siblings.
Situational Irony: The car accident
Mr. Das dies in a car accident, one the narrator describes thusly: "There was no damage to the car at all. It could scarcely be called an accident, so minor was it in appearance" (64). This is ironic given the fact that the car sustained no damage but a human being was killed. Desai delivers this news in a straightforward, almost passive way, which cements the reader's understanding of Mr. Das as a rather inconsequential figure in the text.
Situational Irony: Raja's Heroism
Bim notes, "Raja was truly the stuff of which heroes are made, she was convinced, yet here he lay, ironically, too ill to play the hero he longed to, and she half-believed, he was meant to be" (45). Raja and Bim see Raja as a hero, a romantic and brilliant poet who is going to do great things. He is full of ideas and plans, but, ironically, it is he—not the listless Tara—who is bedridden with a devastating disease. His heroism is muted and, though he rages and complains, he can do nothing.
Situational Irony: Raja developing as a copycat
Raja, when he is young, shows a great fascination with Urdu and Muslim culture, so much that it frightens his family because the time was ripe with the stories of the Partition and communal hatred. Raja, however, proclaims his love for Urdu and adoration for Hyder Ali and leaves for Hyderabad instead of working for his father's firm after his death (he felt that such tasks were beneath a poet of his caliber). But, after marrying Hyder Ali's daughter and taking over their family business, he lets go of his ambitions as a poet and ends up living as a businessman himself; furthermore, the poetry he did write is hopelessly derivative.
