This novel addresses a lot of history, both the ancestral history of Moor's family, and then also general human history, like the fall of the Moors, the Bombay bombings, and other important moments of Indian and world history. One can conclude from this that the novel is concerned with the flow of time.
Moor himself is obsessed with time. He doesn't even tell about himself until after a thorough, four-generation history. Then there is the problem of his fascination with women. This curiosity begins at home with his love for his mother and sisters, but eventually, Moor realizes that he has serious romantic interests in Uma, the sculptor (notice that she is an artist, like Moor's mother). This dilemma seems to be primarily emotional, but actually, Moor is just growing older, moving forward in time into a new stage of his life. The novel is a Bildungsroman because of this feature, and the feature is hinted at from the beginning of the novel by Moor's inclusion of the fall of Granada (because it signifies regime change).
If those weren't enough evidence that the novel is secretly about time, maybe this is: Moor has a supernatural affliction that causes him to age twice as quickly. He also has a deformed hand. These are physical embodiments of his primary character traits: his awareness of the flow of time, his advanced maturity (for his age), and his struggle with ability (his hand signifies his inability to change his fate, which because of his aging problem, is death. He will die considerably earlier than most people, and he knows it).
