Summary
A dust storm is raging outside. Bim is correcting papers and Tara is trying to finish a letter to her daughters before they arrive in India. Tara looks up and tells Bim she and Baba must come to the wedding because it will be good for them and Bim needs a change. Bim is confused but Tara persists, telling her she has heard Bim talking to herself when she is alone. Bim is flustered, but returns to Raja and tells Tara point-blank that rich, fat, successful people are dull and she wants nothing to do with them.
Frustrated, Tara reminds Bim she hasn’t seen Raja for years even though they live in the same country. Bim sneers that she knows what Raja’s life is like because it is so obvious—he lives off his father-in-law’s money, makes money off his father-in-law’s property, has babies, throws parties, etc. She remembers his fat child and his fat wife the one time they did visit her after the child was born. They brought ridiculous presents and a woman to cook for them at her house.
Tara comments that the food is good but Bim proclaims that only unhappy people eat like that. It is all nonsense and Raja never wanted this sort of life to begin with. Tara wants to protest but she sees how explosive her sister is. Finally, she tells Bim she ought to go see Raja and that the family wants her at the wedding.
Bim looks at the letter and tosses it aside. She scoffs at how Raja has always wanted to be Hyder Ali on his white horse and he probably pushes his own son to ride when he doesn’t want to. The pony will no doubt throw him someday.
Tara winces and asks Bim why she sees these terrible things. Bim sighs that she cannot help but foresee these things.
The morning wears on. Bim chastises Tara for not eating a whole orange but Tara defends herself by saying that part of it was rotten. Bim is shaking with frustration about Tara’s comments, the world she’d envisioned for Raja and his family, Raja’s letter, and more. Anger “[flowered] in her like some red tropical bloom” (147).
Tara begins to watch Bim closely and notices how oddly she runs the house. Bim is very parsimonious and doesn’t seem to eat properly, but expensive books arrive all the time, and so does tea that sits and withers. The gardener complains to Tara that Bim does not provide fertilizer or seeds or water, so he does not know how to grow food. Tara had always thought Bim so capable but now she sees Bim as causing more havoc than order. She realizes that she’d always seen her through herself, not as she was.
That evening Tara muses on this to Bakul and Bim, stating how amazing it is that one knows so little about their own home and family. Bim suggests that only children really see. Tara feels Bim dragging her down into lethargy and ennui as they talk about their childhood.
Suddenly Tara bursts out that she is so sorry for not coming back for Bim when the bees attacked. Bim is genuinely surprised that Tara seems so upset. Tara is even more distressed when Bim lies that she sent Tara for help.
Tara wishes she could “ask for forgiveness and understanding, not simply forgetfulness and incomprehension. But neither Bim nor Bakul was interested” (150). She listens to her sister and husband talk, aware of both how much Bakul admires Bim and how dependent she, Tara, was on him.
All three discuss the Misra sisters. Tara is sorry that their husbands abandoned them. The women were sent home and always used to talk about going back and made excuses for the men. Now all they discuss is their school, and Bim says they seem to hate teaching and the children. Tara is shocked and wonders why they teach at all.
Tara then remembers Dr. Biswas and interrupts Bakul to ask if Bim ever sees him. Bim curtly says no. All three are quiet now and annoyed in their own fashion.
Later that night the mosquitos are as oppressive as their thoughts. Bim thinks about everything she heard—Tara’s query, Raja’s letter. She feels like everyone’s back is turned to her. For so long she had felt like the center here in this house but now she feels faded and precious to no one. She looks at the sleeping Baba and wonders if he cares about her.
The next day Bim marches to Baba with a letter from Mr. Sharma at the office, needling him if he will go in. Baba is flustered so Bim says fiercely that Bakul can go. She bursts out that she wishes Raja could help.
Later Bim pounces on Tara and rages about Raja not being able to help and how Father never bothered to teach her anything, She is frustrated that she has to appeal to Raja or Bakul, and it would be absurd to have to ask for help. Tara tries to console her that it is a family business and maybe Raja will come. Bim is bitter and cannot imagine him here. Tara assures her that the house is fine and that it actually feels different now that Bim has taken over.
Bim and Tara muse on Tara’s marriage to Bakul and what she deemed as an escape. Bim is surprised that her sister is so self-possessed, not the flighty and irritating child she remembered. Tara asks if she remembers what they all said they would be someday when they grew up, and she chuckles. Bim is not amused and tells Tara she always felt like she’d end up in the well someday. Tara wonders if she is being melodramatic or serious.
Tara talks to Bakul that evening about her sister. He is barely paying attention and Tara is impatient, wanting the question of Bim solved tonight. Bakul says he has not noticed Bim’s unhappiness. He sighs that it seems to be Raja again, and complains about what he perceives to be the chilly cemetery-like atmosphere of the house. He suggests she arrange a meeting between Bim and Raja, and Tara protests that she is trying. She stays up late, thinking and watching the moon illume everything.
The next morning Bakul asks Bim if she wants help at the office and she says briskly that she decided to sell out. Bakul is surprised, but Bim states that Raja would not care, and dismisses Bakul with a flick of her hand.
Tara talks to Jaya about her sister, but Jaya says Bim has always been that way and can look after herself. Plus, she has Baba. Tara feels like Jaya isn’t understanding her anxiety. Jaya shakes her head that the two sisters are so different, but Tara remonstrates that they’re more alike than it seems.
Bim’s anger is growing. She is restless and irritable and takes it out on Baba, stopping his music and announcing he will go live with Raja in Hyderabad. Baba is shaken and silent. Bim’s rage passes and she feels terrible for saying that.
She moves into her room. The house is silent and hot and she wonders why she did what she did to Baba, why she would not will to Raja, why she attacked Tara. She realizes she wanted to break Baba’s silence and otherworldliness so she could clean it up. She then thinks about her love for Raja and Tara and how “deep and full and wide” it was, and how “they were really all parts of her, inseparable, so many aspects of her as she was of them” (165). The wholeness of that love is heavy and incredible. She knows her love for Raja took a battering and her love for Baba is inarticulate, but she has to make this whole again.
Later Bim goes to Baba and brings him tea. She sees that he cannot bear grudge nor punishment. He smiles. She lies down next to him and sees them as a perfect, pure whole.
That evening the sisters perambulate the terrace. Tara wants to talk but Bim is quiet. She is exhausted by loving and not loving, by the conflicts and understanding. She wonders how she will face herself.
At night she decides not to go to bed. She hears everyone else prepare and shuffles through papers. She stumbles across Life of Aurangzeb and reads of his death. He goes alone into this void, and reading this makes Bim feel still at last. Warm tears slip down her cheeks. She then reads some of the translations of Raja’s old poems, marveling at his clichés and his lack of originality. His ambitions were quite modest, she realizes, and he learned his craft well. She debates whether or not she should throw them away and lighten her load, but knows they are not hers. The only paper she tears up is the hated letter he’d written her; all she can do now is pretend it never happened. This makes her think she is truly lightening her load, and she continues to clean house. She is a little bitter about how Tara’s visit cracked this all open, but it is necessary.
The nieces arrive, full of laughter and hugs and compliments. They spend a lot of time with Baba, listening to his records with him and playing with the old bagatelle board.
The next morning they are to leave, and they are sitting and drinking tea. Bakul speaks, of course, and says it is their last night until another family gathering tomorrow. Tara reminds Bim that she and the girls will be back soon for a few quiet weeks while Bakul does traveling for work. They gently joke about the girls finding a husband and Bim says she wants time with them to show them her perspective on that. Tara gently says of course, as aunts have that prerogative –just like Aunt Mira-masi. Bim starts.
Bim wanders up and down the paths of the garden while the others get ready for the next day. Tara comes and finds her, and Bim wonders to herself if this is what Mira needed –time alone without being found. It seems like Tara might grab Bim’s arm and Bim tenses because this was not something they did, and for a moment the danger passes. Then Tara does, and urgently says she can never forgive herself or forgot that she got married and left and never helped with Mira. Bim dismisses this, and tells Tara Bakul is calling. Tara seems to need something, a reprimand or something. Bim states that it was long ago and is over, but Tara says nothing is really over. Finally, Bim sees that they “were not so unlike. They were more alike than any other two people could be. They had to be, their hands were so deep into the same water, their faces reflected it together” (174).
The next day the family is busy as they prepare to depart. Bim is secretly worried Baba will go with them, remembering her command. Bakul is annoyed, calling for Tara. Tara finally comes out, exasperated that Baba will not say goodbye outside. Bim relaxes.
Tara looks at Bim asks, haltingly, if she should tell Raja…she trails off. Bim says yes, she and Baba do not travel anymore but he should come. He should come here, and bring Tara, and bring all of them. She is waiting for him and wants to see him.
Tara and Bakul and their girls depart. Bim wanders back into Baba’s room and tells them they’ve gone and they are alone now. They sit silently. Everything has been said, everything is out of the way; there is only clear light pouring down from the sun.
Jaya comes over and tells them both excitedly that her brother Mulk is going to sing tonight and they must join them.
Bim agrees and goes next door, Baba in tow. It is bustling as everyone prepares for a night of music in Old Delhi under the stars. The two sit down on a blanket. They see the Misra brothers joking around with Mulk. Finally, Mulk begins tentatively, notes of his deep and melodic voice filling the night.
Bim sways with the melody and watches the people moving and whispering. She is content. The song is vibrant and not drowned out by the audience’s shifting and talking. Everything seems part of a tapestry.
During a break, Bim compliments Jaya and Sarla about their brother, but they are busy getting tea ready. Sarla tells Bim that Mulk’s guru has also agreed to perform this evening.
The group seems full of “pleasure and confidence and well-being” (181). The old guru begins to sing, his ancient voice rough and full, filled with the senses of pain and disappointment. All “the storms and rages and pains of his life were in that voice” (182), and it could not be more different than Mulk’s sweet one. Bim remembers a line of Eliot: “Time the destroyer is time the preserver.” She sees her own history and house contain her and all her family and their separate histories; the soil has the past and future in it.
Suddenly Bim recognizes the guru singing Iqbal, and she excitedly tells Baba it’s Raja’s favorite. Baba nods gravely, listening.
Analysis
Desai brings her narrative back to present day, allowing Bim and Tara to grapple with their memories and decide if there are things that are worth leaving in the past.
We will look at Bim in just a moment and consider Tara first. In terms of an epiphany or transformation, Tara does not have one on any level even close to Bim. However, she does realize a few different things. The first is that she now understands that she used to view Bim in a certain way, a way that was filtered through her own understanding. She observes that Bim is not as capable around the house as she once was, that “she had seen Bim through the lenses of her own self, as she had wanted to see her” (148). She knows that it is still difficult to be objective because “her vision was strewn, obscured, and screened by too much of the past” (148) but the fact that she can have this moment of clarity means something.
Tara also tries to push Bim into recognition of her, of the things that are weighing them down. She “wanted to ask for forgiveness and understanding, not simply forgetfulness and incomprehension” (150) in terms of the bee situation, and she admits to Bim that “I must have used [Bakul] as an instrument of escape” (157). The final notable thing Tara realizes is that she and Bim are not as different as they may seem; she tells Jaya Misra, “We’re not really [that different]…We may seem to be – but we have everything in common. That makes us one. No one else knows all we share, Bim and I” (162).
The sense of being one is what Bim also arrives at. After long days and nights of poring over old grievances and wallowing in uncomfortable memories, of being prickly and annoyed, of lashing out at Baba, of fixating on the putative wrongs of Raja, Bim finally lets much of this go. Her epiphany stems from a few different things, most notably her treatment of Baba that forces her to confront just how angry she is. She is able to see how much she loves her siblings and how much they are a part of her: “they were really all parts of her, inseparable, so many aspects of her as she was of them, so that the anger and disappointment she felt in them was only the anger and disappointment she felt in herself” (165). She observes a “wholeness of that love” (165) that takes her breath away.
This realization does not come easily, of course. She has a long evening of looking through Raja’s old papers and seeing her brother for who he was/is, not who she thought he was/is. She wishes for college to begin so she can escape into that again, and she notes “what a strain Tara’s visit had been, what it had cost her by constantly dragging her apart into love and hostility, resentment and acceptance, forgiveness and hate” (169). Overall, though, she arrives at a point where she can forgive Raja and bring him back into her life again; the significance of this for Bim is quite profound.
As it is Tara and Bim who are the subjects of Desai’s last section, we will briefly conclude by looking at the aspects of femininity present in their characters. Critic Renu Juneja explains how Bim as a strong, individualized female character “achieves transcendence over inner division and social restrictions through celebration of her nurturing female self, through acceptance and accommodation rather than withdrawal and rejection.” Desai doesn’t make the “female self” an easy, uncomplicated ideal, however. Many women in the text –Mrs. Das, Mrs. Biswas, Tara, the Misra sisters –are varying levels of problematic and the roles of wife and mother and unmarried woman are never simple. Tara, for example, is an unhappy wife but a happy mother. She is still hesitant, though, which is a stark comparison to the forthright and bold Bim. Bim is uninterested in marriage, in the restraints imposed upon young women, in molding her life around someone else. This is not to say that she has no nurturing impulses; in fact, she demonstrates such impulses towards animals and her students. Importantly, though, Juneja notes, “Desai is…very careful to separate Bim’s nurturing from any predilection for self-denial associated with Indian women.” Bim is headstrong and intolerant of weakness in others, and in her “seeking assurance of love, she is driven to hurt Baba.”
Overall, Bim’s night of confronting her demons leads her to understand that certain aspects of the female self –nurturing, commitment to family, forgiveness –are important to her. Bim as a character allows Desai to “affirm nurturing as an essentially feminine attribute while simultaneously freeing the feminine role from stereotypical associations of dependence, weakness, and passivity.”
