Old Delhi does not change. It only decays.
Bim says these lines to Tara as they take a morning stroll in their childhood house. Tara feels that Bim is trying to make Tara feel guilty for deserting her and their younger brother, Baba, because Bim continues to compares Tara and herself—one who has traveled a lot and one who hasn’t at all. Bim compares herself to Old Delhi, which remains unchanged and highly uneventful. She says that Old Delhi isn’t capable of any sort of change and so it will decay as it is, much like Bim’s situation. She and the house continue to grow old, without going through any kind of changes. The house is thus a metaphor not only for Bim but also for childhood and the past, which remain locked in the way people look at them.
You’re thinking how old spinsters go ga-ga over their pets because they haven’t children. Children are the real thing, you think.
Bim says this to Tara as a response to Tara’s expressions of astonishment for Bim’s affection for her pets. Bim and Tara, who have met after a long time, seem to have a passive-aggressive relationship, in which Bim constantly attacks Tara for judging Bim for not changing or not escaping her conditions. Bim thinks she notes Tara’s surprise regarding her affection for animals when she could have had children. As with most relationships, both are right/wrong. Bim saw that Tara was looking at her and certainly has had her share of people's rude opinions regarding her decision not to marry and have children, but Bim did jump the gun and snap at Tara without actual provocation. Tara did not say anything to her sister, but it is clear that she and others have made Bim feel like she is missing out for not starting her own family. This small exchange indicates how fraught such intimate relationships can be.
But it was all just dust thrown into his eyes, dust.
Tara wonders this as she contemplates picking up a mulberry from the ground and eating it, but then she worries her husband would see and disapprove. Tara has repressed many of her feelings, as she felt the loss of her privileged position as baby of the family when Baba was born and she never experienced the closeness of Raja and Bim. She constantly felt the need for affection, gloming on to Aunt Mira and seeking friendships outside her family. She also chose to marry young, leaving India with Bakul and having her own children. Unsurprisingly, she is dependent on her husband emotionally, and constantly feels the need to prove herself to him. She married Bakul in her late teens, out of desperation to escape her household where no one cared about her, and while Bakul believes that he has ‘tamed’ his wife from a humble creature to a mature woman, she knows that isn't entirely correct. There are times when she is still the same repressed creature who longs for her childhood and for others’ attention, and she is afraid that her husband might see that she had fooled him into believing the lie.
Most of the time we simply sat there on the veranda steps, staring at the gate.
Bim says this to Tara as the two sisters and Bakul talk about being children and noticing things going on in their household. Bim and Tara disagree with Bakul that children rarely notice anything as they are always so busy running around and playing, to which Bim says that most of the time the siblings just sat at the veranda steps and stared at the gate, waiting for their parents to come, partly in anticipation and partly in dread. The parents hardly ever cared for the children and so they were left looking to each other or other people for attention. Bim feels that their parents' absence is responsible for the escapist tendencies the Das siblings have; their lives always revolved around waiting for their parents, and when they couldn’t wait anymore, they ran away.
To Tara he could speak in a different tone. From Tara he got a different response. He looked at her fondly, like an indulgent father.
Bakul is a completely stereotypical man in a patriarchal society in his desire for respect, acknowledgment, praise, and loyalty. He is arrogant and self-involved, thinking of Tara as his wife and his inferior, not his equal. In this quote, he moves from talking to Bim, whose intellect and frankness unsettle him, to Tara, who will always be pliable, sweet, and reverent. It is telling that in several parts in the text he admires Bim and wonders if she is superior to Tara, but quickly realizes that her independence is not something he can tolerate. While almost all of the male characters in the text evince sexist attitudes, Bakul is by far the worst.
...it was if my whole past vanished, just rolled away from me -the country of my birth, my ancestors, my family, everything -and I arrived in a new world.
Here, Dr. Biswas is extolling the merits of music, his time abroad, Mozart, etc. He tells Bim he can literally leave everything behind and dwell in the world of music only. Bim, however, is the complete opposite. For three reasons, she cannot leave everything behind; she cannot experience true and utter freedom. First of all, she is a woman and there are expectations placed upon her that cannot be ignored. Second, she is intellectually and emotionally attached to India, to her family, to her home, and to the life she has carved out for herself. Third, for better or for worse Bim cannot let go of the past. This is not to say that she should be like the fatuous doctor, but there are certainly things about her makeup and her position that render this an impossibility.
I think it's simply amazing—how very little one sees or understands even about one's own home or family...
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.
Together they would form a whole that would be perfect and pure.
In this beautiful sentiment, Bim finally lets go of the bitterness, bellicosity, and division that pervaded her heart and mind. In attacking Baba earlier she realized that her rage had gone too far and that if she was to be truly happy then she needed to reckon with her ghosts. She spent much of her adulthood creating those divisions between herself and her siblings, preferring to protect herself rather than experience deep and meaningful connection. Now that she has come to embrace Tara and forgive Raja, she sees that she and Baba are the real core of the family. They are anchors and touchstones, the foundation upon which the family is built.
"Time the destroyer is time the preserver."
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."
A way out of what? They still could not say, could not define the unsatisfactory atmosphere of their home. They did not realize this unsatisfactoriness was not based only on their parents continual absence, their absorption in each other. The secret, hopeless suffering of their mother was somehow at the root of this subdued greyness, this silent desperation that pervaded the house. Also the disappointment in Baba's very life and existence were to them, his hopeless future, their anxiety over him.
Here Desai provides insight into why it is the children were unhappy with their childhood and why they so desperately want to escape in a variety of ways. Their parents were absent, their mother mysteriously ailing. The climate was hot and stagnant, their house close and unchanging. Aunt Mira was a wonderful companion but did not possess anything high-minded for them to grasp at. Raja felt his studies were stifled, Bim her individuality, Tara her ability to connect with anyone deeply. And Baba was a cipher to them all: a silent sibling whose interior world could never be known to them. It is no wonder that such intelligent, intuitive children felt like they needed to do something—anything—to get out.
