I
One morning in 1980, Tara Das wanders around in her childhood home in Old Delhi, feeling nostalgic. Her sister, Bim, is a teacher and takes care of the house. The two discuss the old days. Tara has been married to Bakul, who works in Indian embassies in foreign countries and travels a lot, and has two teenage daughters. Tara is attractive, but, unlike the intelligent and fiercely self-possessed Bim, she is mild-mannered, pliable, and dependent on her husband. Tara and Bakul are in town for the wedding of Raja’s daughter; Raja is their brother, from whom Bim is estranged.
The sisters discuss the aging house and have tea sometime after. Tara serves Bakul tea with little milk that is left after the cat is fed, demonstrating Bim’s disdain towards Bakul. Their brother, Baba, comes in. He is a grown man but is mentally slow. Baba plays musical records all day long, which worries Tara. She asks Baba to go to the office, which he sadly declines. Tara is sad looking at the state of her brother and declines Bakul’s invitation to go out.
The needle of Baba’s gramophone breaks and the silence caused by it disturbs him so much that he rushes out to the streets; there, he gets distraught by the crowd and comes running back crying. Bim and Tara discuss their brother, Raja, and his marriage to the daughter of Hyder Ali, their landlord. There are sour feelings between Bim and Raja, the two of whom used to be very close, and Bim shows Tara a letter in which Raja tells Bim that, in the aftermath of Hyder Ali’s death, he will charge her the same rent as their parents were charged. Bim finds his tone insulting and arrogant; she keeps the letter as a token of remembrance and refuses to go to Hyderabad for the marriage.
That evening they visit the Misras, their neighbors. 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, Mulk, causes a scene for not getting to host his musicians or an audience; only Bakul can quell his temper. Bim has them all return home, in order to avoid the Misras having to feed them all.
Back at the house, Bim speaks of seeing a specter of their Aunt Mira after she died; the two sisters talk of the Partition of India and Pakistan, and of the events that followed.
II
In 1947, Bim and Raja are closer to each other than the rest of the siblings. Raja hero-worships Hyder Ali, their landlord and neighbor. Given his aptitude for Urdu, he is invited frequently to their house to browse among the vast collection of Urdu poetry. He takes to going there frequently, earning disapproval from his parents, aunt, and Bim. He begins to compare the two households and begins to detest his own. He takes Urdu as his primary language in school instead of Hindi, against his family’s wishes. He yearns to go to Jamia Millia, a college known for its inclination towards Islamic culture, but this is against his father’s wishes. Mr. Das finally tells him that it is unsafe for a Hindu boy to study Islamic culture during these troubled times. Raja does not know how to refute this, and he enrolls at the Hindu college.
Bim, Raja, Tara, and Baba are not particularly close to their parents, who are rarely home. One day, their mother falls ill and dies in the hospital. They are not very affected, but their aunt takes to drinking out of stress.
The father also dies in an accident and Raja is stricken with tuberculosis. He is querulous and miserable, and Bim is frustrated by his obsession with the Alis. Raja is particularly distressed when the Alis flee town due to the riots and fires resulting from the Partition.
Tara spends more time with Misra 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 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.
Raja is required to take over his father’s business, but he refuses. He wants to go to Hyder Ali, who has left for Hyderabad given the communal tension. On Raja’s insistence, Bim goes to Hyder Ali’s house to see what is going on. Baba sees the daughter’s gramophone and records and immediately becomes obsessed. They bring the gramophone, a dog, and a servant back with them.
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, but they are pleased with this development.
III
Mrs. Das gives birth to her fourth (and unexpected) child, Baba. He begins exhibiting some growth defects, so she calls for Aunt Mira.
Aunt Mira, a distant cousin of Bim’s mother, 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. Aunt Mira—disposable to her in-laws, for whom she was forced to work for as payment for the death of the husband—was sent for. The children are skeptical, but they all begin to love each other. She became a parental figure for children, as their parents hardly cared for them.
Aunt Mira had the parents buy a cow for fresh milk, but the animal later died when a careless servant did not lock it up and it fell into the garden well. Aunt Mira was forever haunted by this incident, as were the children.
Tara develops as a diffident, anxious child while Bim and Raja flourish. Tara is haunted by her childhood incidents, like shooting of a rabid dog and 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.
As Raja grows up, Tara and Bim spend more time together but their relationship has many fractures. Tara abandons Bim twice in minor events—first in the midst of a bee-attack and then when Bim forced her to smoke while they dressed up in Raja’s pants and discovered a sense of power in wearing male clothing. Tara has trouble forgetting when Bim cuts off Tara’s hair, promising her that she will grow curls afterward.
Tare begins to grow apart from her siblings and closer to Jaya and Sarla Misra, as there were 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.
IV
Tara tries to make Bim forgive Raja, but she won’t relent. She also learns of Bim’s financial problems and wonders how she is coping. Bim grows restless and angry and begins to snap at everyone, particularly when a letter from her father’s company comes about financial decisions. She is angry at Raja for leaving her like this and snaps at Baba, who doesn’t respond. Tara and Bakul try to convince Bim to seek out Raja’s help, or at least Bakul’s, but she does not relent.
The sweltering night before the wedding, Bim realizes that she has been taking her anger out on Baba, and that is unacceptable to her. She begins to think deeply about her siblings and how tightly their lives are interwoven. After looking through some of Raja’s old poems and looking at an excerpt from an Indian saga, 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, prepare 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 if Raja came back here and brought the whole family.
That evening, Bim and Baba attend a concert at Misra garden, and Bim realizes that families, despite their disputes, eventually come together.
