International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 5(4)

Jul-Aug 2020 |Available online: https://ijels.com/

Bondage of Time and Human Bondage in Anita

Assistant Professor of English, Institute of Modern Languages, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh

Abstract— The aliveness of nonexistent persons and their associations to those who exist are the themes
that are dealt with in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day. The present study endeavours to pass through the
consequences of time in the spheres of familiar and familial life. The history of the nation puts a collateral
impact on the story of the characters of the novel. In Clear Light of Day, it is pictured that the Partition
Movement and communal rioting of the nation coincidentally dissipate the Das family. The only person
who has stayed home is Bim who has nursed her memories and grudges, but who had been left behind by
all who chose the exit doors and ultimately, she lets go of her resentments by finding the strength of
bondage in herself for her siblings and relatives. Her house is the embodiment of kinship and love and she
fosters this sort of appreciation all through her life in a metaphorical way. Eventually, time as a preserver
emerges as triumphant and time as a destroyer is pushed into the background. Time, the Preserver, unites
the family and the essential bonding of the members persists finally.
Keywords— Time, Relationship, Memory, Destroyer, Preserver.

I. INTRODUCTION well as Bim's memories of the house, its past and present
In the domain of Indo-Anglican fiction, Anita character and atmosphere despite her death. The novel is
Desai’s Clear Light of Day may be regarded as one of the about a solemn song of praise for Old and New Delhi, the
masterpieces and it is one of the most unparalleled novels city that is the embodiment of both ancient and modern
of her. This novel superbly focuses on providing the times; it is a sombre song of a city that has witnessed the
messages of psychological analysis of indestructible ties of Muslim and British empires' build and collapse. Delhi is
blood and kinship and the paradox of time i.e. time as a that city that is compromising tradition with change, whose
destroyer as well as a preserver. The setting of Clear Light essential life continues with its own pace, and it is also
of Day is in India’s Old Delhi and Desai deals with family signified in this novel how this city is welcoming diversity
scars, the ability to forgive and forget, and the trials and to unity and is keeping alive its intrinsic relation to those
tribulations of familial love in a very tender, warm, and who still live in it or have fallen away. Bimla who lives in
compassionate way. Anita Desai was born in 1973 to an her childhood home, where she cares for her mentally
Indian father and German mother and Desai has spent most challenged brother, Baba. She is a discontented but
of her life in India. She mainly conjectures on the determined teacher at a women's college and her younger
individual psychology of the characters in her work. She sister, Tara is unambitious, estranged who is married and
accentuated this facet, in an interview with Feroza has children of her own. Both Bim and Tara have another
Jusswalla: “If they were simply representatives, they would younger brother, Raja who is popular, brilliant as well as
be like cardboard creatures; they would be posters rather successful. It is pictured here that old memories and
than paintings. They would simply stand for a certain tensions resurface and blend into a domestic drama when
society or a certain moment in history, which of course Tara returns for a visit with Bimla and Baba and the
they don’t” (O’ Reilly 26). recollections of the old days and the subsequent results are
intensely striking that ultimately lead to insightful self-
The members of the Das family have grown apart
understanding.
from each other and the moving relationships between the
members of the Das family are at the novel's heart. For
example, Raja is one of the central subjects in Delhi though
he lives in Hyderabad, Aunt Mira's presence in Tara's as

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II. DISCUSSION her home, nothing has changed; she shares her
Anita Desai in Clear Light of Day cites lines from observations to her sister Bim:
two poems by Emily Dickinson and T. S. Eliot as Tara: Now everything goes on and on here and
inscriptions to the novel. The initial epigraph has the never changes. I used to think about it all and it is
following lines of Emily Dickinson: all the same, whenever we come home.
Memory is a strange bell- Bim: But you would not want to return to life as it
Jubilee and knell- used to be, would you? All that dullness, boredom
waiting, would you care to live that over again?
These two lines signify that in the novel,
Of course not. Do you know anyone who would
memories of the past play an essential role and both
secretly, sincerely in his innermost self, really
memories and past are juxtaposed with the present as
prefer to return to childhood? (P.-6)
indicated in the endorsements “ Memories of the past
coalesce with the tensions and jealousies of the present in In this regard, we can compare Desai’s Clear Light
this sharply drawn an sorrowful portrait of the ebb and of Day with W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage.
flow of sisterly love.” Memory of the bondages of human Maugham’s Of Human Bondage concerns with varieties of
relationship plays even a very vital role in the context of personal bondage. Through Philip's travail, we see he
their autistic brother Baba who is increasingly unquiet and suffers from the bondage of passion, of religious belief and
in his mind, there are certain impressions that keep emotional dilemmas, etc. Philip gradually frees himself
recurring. Baba cannot go beyond those thoughts because from the bondage of religion, passion, class-prejudice, art,
of his limited mental enactments. ambition, economic dependence, and the natural human
desire to discover meaning and order in the universe. The
Desai has quoted the second inscription from a
revelation of life philosophy through his pilgrimage gives
poem by T.S. Eliot that describes the passage of time and
the enlightenment: one can overcome his weak points and
how things do not change reality despite the passing of
surpass human bondages by exerting his will and reason.
time, only the pattern changes:
Like Maugham’s Of Human Bondage’s protagonist
See, now they vanish,
Philip's spiritual struggles, doubts, search for truth and
The faces and places, with the self which, as meaning, disillusions, and final attainment of a philosophy
it could, loved them, of life that releases him from the most galling shackles of
his human bondage, Desai’s Clear Light of Day strikes a
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.
significant chord of a desire of the protagonist(s) to revive
Anita Desai has said that time plays a crucial part her/their primary self/selves. We observe that the passage
in the novel and at the end of the novel, there is a quotation of time has brought a change in all the characters’
from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quarters: “Time the destroyer is circumstantial reality that a shift occurs in their
time the preserver”. More or less, this line fortifies the materialistic roles and this same sort of experience is
thought suggested in Eliot’s quotation in the epigraph. manifested in their physical displacement from their old
Nowadays, uncertainty, dissatisfaction and total ‘home’ to new places contextualizing Tara and Raja. The
rootlessness are increasing because of the growth of two major protagonists of the novel namely Bimla and
technology, the expansion of communication, the varying Tara turn out to be the carriers of subtle signification
family patterns, diverse social, political and economic state wherein the dynamics of duality can be traced with a
of affairs of the contemporary man. Desai deals with these compelling craving to come back to the most important
concepts with an entire visualization of human life. The nature of realization with special indication to the
concept of alienation and rootlessness are common among disposition of Bimla. Both of them experience chaos and
Indians irrespective of their status in the society, misery only because of their desired ‘being’. Now they
unfortunately, Anita Desai's protagonists seem to undergo wish to harbour a solace in returning to their prime self that
sociological alienation in the beginning; in the end, they connotes a condition of harmony and serenity in their
experience lacking of bondage among themselves. beings.
Desai sets off the story at a point when Tara and her Bim tries to surge to go deep of her thoughts of her
diplomat husband are coming to visit home after a time own relational situationally with relation to understanding
that passes away from all the family members. When Tara and re-understanding the relationships. The existential gaps
comes back home, she becomes totally astonished that in to be filled are preferred and that can indeed be found in
her psychic agony as uncovered by the sequence of events.

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The narrative also brings forth about her being of holding the members of the Das family who embody all Indian
responsibility as well as of fulfilling the quoted desirability victims of time and broadly the whole human race who are
in the later rejuvenation and re-negotiation. At the end of somewhat affected by time. In Mira-masi’s case, we see
the storyline, Bim experiences the clear light of day that how much havoc time can bring in one’s life and she
wherein all the dualities disintegrate and are negotiated certainly experiences it although her life. Time itself brings
resulting in the exchange of emptiness into the catastrophe of her immature marriage as well as the
meaningfulness. premature death of her husband and it is time that brings
The setting of the novel is typical as per Desai's the premature death of Masi herself.
fictional world view and it also upholds bondage of time Mira-masi’s intolerable pressure of suffering and
and the relationships. It is an old home in old Delhi which sorrow were brought by the tragic and pathetic time of her
is counter-pointed to New Delhi. Shifting from the life. She wanted to escape from those sufferings and
depiction of the old house symbolizing boredom, therefore addicted to drug that ultimately took her breath.
meaninglessness, pathos and decay, the inmates further She also experienced the difficult time of Das family along
enhance the thematic impact of negativity and passivity with her sorrows and pains. It was the transitional period of
wherein absence of mutual love is strongly foregrounded. the Das family when she entered into the family as all the
It appears that the house is always been like this, with its existing family members became helpless after the parents'
overgrown bushes and undernourished flowers, stultifying death. Although the parents were not so joyful in their life-
and strangling human life, and people either die or abandon time for the children, but the existence of them gave the
it(Jain: 417). The parents have been depicted as the carriers children breath. Now their death or absence turns out to be
of unconcern signifying mechanical relationship with their a challenge for the children and each member of the Das
children. family come to realize their presence in their absence. The
In Desai’s Clear Light of Day, time plays a vital absence of parents’ shelter brings forth the breakdown of
role and it delineates time as a force which is a destroyer at the closest relation of family members particularly of Bim
the same time a preserver. With great success the author and Raja within a short period of time. It is time that makes
has brought out a deep truth underlying the paradox that Raja adamant to leave beloved parents’ family for
time is a destroyer, should also be regarded as a preserver. Hyderabad and Bim becomes hurtful and frustrated. She
This duality of time – time as a destroyer as well as a faces a lot of difficulties in handling the family as a woman
preserver- has been intensely pictured by the author in her and it shows how Raja’s absence destroys the remaining
novel. happy atmosphere of Das family. In terms of familial or
brother-sister relation, the recurrent time is more
It is needless to say that Anita Desai has culled
disparaging and the humiliating letter of Raja to Bim
the concept of time from eminent modern poet Thomas
demonstrates how the relationships are changed by the gap
Stern Eliot who personifies time as the destroyed as well as
of time, how most beloved ones are now most hated ones
preserver as Shelley personifies the west wind as the
and how their psychological bonding is also shattered.
“Destroyer and Preserver”. Shelley also views time as a
Time again universalizes its nature as a destroyer when we
destructive and creative power or god what is vivid in his
see the precious relation of Das family is now cut into
sonnet Ozymandias and Ode to the West Wind. W.B Yeats
pieces by time. If the parents and the society gave
in his The Second Coming shows how time destroys one
preference to the time of family, the sweetest relations
civilization and gives birth to others. Time causes great
might not be destroyed; but ultimately the family could not
empires lime Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian etc. flourish
get away from the assailment of destructive time.
and decay at the same time. However, Anita Desai herself
opines: Time antagonizes the lives of the Das family as a catalyst.
Dr Madhusudan Prasad interprets:
“My novel is about time as a destroyer, as a preserver,
and about what the bondage of time does to people. I have The obsessive episodes of their shared past,
tried to tunnel under the mundane surface of domesticity.” discussed or remembered with unforgettable
sweetness and sourness of Bim and Tara in part
It is delineated in Clear Light of Day that the
one are elaborately depicted being actually
characters are moving in past and present. Desai provides
enacted in their early life thus properly connecting
the affirmation that "Time is presented as the fourth
the apparently sprawling pattern of part one with
dimension of human existence". The novel, in fact,
that of part three and revealing the aesthetic
revolves around 'Time'. It is shown that how time plays the
relevance of the episodic repetitiveness in the
role of destroyer and preserver predominantly in the life of
novel.
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In the novel’s second part, Desai portrays the life she is unable to be acquainted with time's existentialist
in Delhi with horrors of riot, suspense, sensation and significance as the destroyer, and how time brings changes
terrorist activities during the partition in 1947. A novel in human life. She becomes astonished at the changed
dimension of deep pathos is added in the novel by the attitude of Bim towards her brother, Raja with whom she
portrait of aunt Mira. She fails in fits twice or thrice and had a very sweet and adorable relationship. Tara’s
she has been described dreadfully ill with a bizarre type of realization of Bim’s sufferings, her dedication for others
disease. She is obsessed with the image of a well and her and self-sacrifice intensify Tara’s feeling of loneliness.
last hysterical fit is symbolic of her mania. Tara is an Tara regrets and yearns for her childhood days, but all in
escapist and she flees from the situation by marrying vain. She contemplates:
Bakul; amid the partition and the death of Gandhi, Bim is Although it was shadowy and dark…she felt only
left alone bearing the total responsibility of Baba. love and yearning for them all, and if there were
In the third part of the novel, Raja and Tara are illustrated hurts, these gashes and wounds in here side that
awaiting the birth of their brother Baba in pre-partition India. Mira- bled, then it was only because her love was
masi who is a widow and mistreated by her in-laws is brought in to imperfect and did not encompass them thoroughly
help with Baba, who is autistic. To return to modern India, it is enough, and because it had flows and
shown that Tara is confronting Bim over Raja's daughter's wedding inadequacies and did not extend to all equally (P.-
and Bim's disillusioned relationship with Raja. When Bim's 165).
alienation and resentment fades, she comprehends that family love is The national life of India is also in turmoil by the
irreplaceable and can cover all distresses and wounds. She tells Tara uproar of time. India got independence from the British by
to come back from the wedding and she also discloses that she shedding a cost of blood and the British separated India
forgives Raja. based on religion that led to the separation of beloved ones,
Time has brought tremendous transformation and both Bim and loss of numerous lives of human beings, loss of properties,
Tara come to realize this fact. Bim, Tara and Raja face a severe relatives. The hard and harsh truth is highlighted by Desai
identity crisis. Santosh Gupta depicts: that how the Indians once lived in a house irrespective of
The period that lies in between the growing consciousness their religious views and identities and how time has made
and search for individuality of adolescence fails to provide them eternal enemies now. Hyder Ali is the embodiment of
continuity from the early period of childhood to the later Indian Muslims who moved from place to place for
stage of adulthood, causing deep psychological trauma secured living and lost everything being the victim of the
and stress. wrath of Hindus. The summer of 1947 is the time that
became, therefore, haunting for Muslims as a demolisher
Tara’s obsession with her old days of childhood can be
of their lives and relationships.
seen in the following lines:
In the life of the family as in the life of the country,
This room had been hers and Bim’s when they
1947 is the crucial year. The three houses in Old Delhi:
were girls. It opened on to the same grove of
Bim’s house, the Misra’s, and the Hyder Ali Sahib’s figure
guava’s trees that separated the back of the house
in the lives of these characters contain three distinctive life
from the row of servant’s quarters. Bright
cycles and are set up as contrasts to one another. They all
morning sounds of activity come from them, a
appear empty and dreary over time and some of them who
water tap running, a child crying, a cock crowing,
then inhabited these houses are still there, though many
a bicycle bell ringing, but the house was separated
have disappeared, either by death or by moving to another
from them by the thick screen of low, dusty guava
place. The following passage, beyond specific life and
trees in which invisible parrots screamed and
incident, pictures the central theme of the novel:
quarrelled over the fruit. Now and then, one fell to
the ground. Tara could see some line in the dust Who is the third who walks always beside you?
which chunks bitten out by the parrots (P.-11). When I count, there are only you and I together
The vision of the childhood dominates the novel. But when I look ahead up the white road
The contrast between past and present time, between There is always another one walking beside you
childhood and adulthood, is crucial to the aesthetic get-up
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
of the characters of the novel. The children of the novel are
alienated from the external world that intrudes upon their I do not know whether a man or a woman
consciousness and also breeds anguish in their unruffled ---But who is the on the other side of you?
existence. Tara is not able to recognize the power of time;
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The passage from the last section of T.S. Eliot’s into this universe with nothing at all but he was going away
1922 poem The Waste Land, a poem that, according to from here with a heavy burden of irreverence on his mind.
Eliot, was written as a necessity against a personal crisis, Bim’s heart was calmed by these words of the Emperor
recurs towards the end of Section II in the novel, invoking and these words brought tears into her eyes. That night by
Eliot's note on the inspiration: tearing off, she removed the letter which Raja had written
“The … lines were stimulated by the account of to her many years back, and which had hurt her intensely.
one of the Antarctic expeditions …: it was related In Desai’s Clear Light of Day, the philosophy is
that the party of explorers, at the extremity of idealized that time cannot destroy some experiences of a
their strength, had the constant delusion that there human being. Tara's reminiscence of the earlier period and
was one more member than could actually be her guilty feeling of not assisting Bim when she was bitten
counted.” by a swarm of bees are vivid examples of how time makes
Both Tara and Bim hold the delusion that Aunt the memory everlasting and unforgettable. Other positive
Mira's soul still seems to inhabit the house or garden. She and remarkable events are preserved by time, for example,
is a missing person but her presence is felt. Though the Mira-masi's sacrifices for Das family particularly for Baba,
autistic brother, Baba is physically there but his existence what she did as an ideal and ultimate well-wisher althrough
is nothing to amount as he has no responses or activities her life till death. Along with this, Bim's sacrifice and
which may cohere in his own or others' lives; Raja struggle for the family living alone in the old house when
absented himself physically by moving to Hyderabad; the all the family members are away from her except Baba as a
Das father and mother are dead but they were rarely at burden upon her helpless shoulder, her love for Baba; Bim
home and with the children even when they were alive; preserves all these memories in her mind. The humiliating
across the street, Hyder Ali Sahib and his family no longer letter of Raja and what it does to Bim’s relationship with
live in the house; Tara lives in abroad now, though, at him can also be not forgotten by Bim; while talking with
present, she is present in the Old Delhi home. Tara about the facts of time, she thinks over this pathetic
matter time and again.
However, the passage of time does not eradicate
everything. There are certain indestructible and
imperishable things and in course of time, certain things The memorable and touchy event of recollection
acquire greater weight, validity and an enduring value of with Tara ultimately led Bim to be compassionate and
time. For instance, ancient Roman culture can be affectionate to preserve relationship with Raja. The dying
mentioned that still exists and is still regarded as a model Emperor Aurangzeb’s words are meditated by Bimla and
to be emulated. Time can be regarded as a preserver in this she forgives all of Raja's ill-treatment with her and
respect. eventually reconciles with her beloved brother. Bim comes
In Clear Light of Day, it is shown that time to realize that there have been flaws with her in terms of
preserves certain positive experiences and values and her love and concern not only for Raja but for Tara and
certain things continue to exist despite the ravages of time. Baba also. Though she tears off Raja's letter in anger, she
Here Mira-masi's sacrifice can be exemplified who had gives assurance to Tara with a loving message for Raja
assiduously been attending upon the mentally retarded from whom she had been estranged for a long time. With
child Baba and had been taking relentless pains to keep her beloved brother and sister, Bim renews all her
him cheerful. Along with this, there is Bim’s love and relationships in this impressive and sensitive time of
affection for Baba and she had told Tara that she would realization. Time works as a preserver for her in this way.
never marry but would look after Baba. And afterwards, In the concluding episode of Clear Light of Day, Bim also
Tara had gone away to a foreign country, Mira-masi had attains the realization that her relationship with her brother
died and Raja had left for Hyderabad, but Bim was alone in can be compared with the harmonious bonding of Mulk
the house to look after Baba. Then, stimulated by the guru’s harsh voice and the sweet voice of young Mulk.
presence of Tara and Tara’s talk, in an introspective mood, Bim’s delusion disappears and by the clear light
Bim begins to think of the blunder done by Raja to her of day, she can see what her fault is. Her attitude changes
relationship with him by sending the humiliating letter. The towards Raja and she becomes repentant. Her alienation
dying Emperor Aurangzeb’s words moved Bim deeply and vanishes and she reminds of Eliot's line 'time the destroyer
supplemented by those words, her meditations and is time the preserver'. Ultimately, it is seen that time is
reflections lead her to forgive Raja for his unjustifiable eternal and Bim feels that relationship of time with
letter. Emperor Aurangzeb had said that he had entered eternity. She begins to sense her inadequate love for her

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siblings and she decides to seek forgiveness of Baba to reach out to new experiences and new
whom she has spoken insensitively a little while ago. In lives, but always drawing from the
this way, a new impetus is gained by Bim concerning her same soil, the same secret darkness.
love for her sister Tara and her brothers, Raja and Baba. That soil contained all time, past and
Thus, here, at this point, we come to observe how time has future, in it. It was dark with time,
served as a preserver and Bim's love for her brothers and rich with time. It was where her
sister is not only revived in its full strength but is further deepest self lived, and the deepest
increased. selves of her sister and brothers and
The title of the novel, Clear Light of Day, refers to all those who shared that time with
a passage in the fourth part of the novel in which Bim, who her” (P. 278).
had always believed in the past, achieves the maturation
now and begins to looks afresh in the ‘clear light of day’ REFERENCES
that she felt only love and affection for them all:
[1] Desai, Anita. Clear Light of Day: Published by Penguin
“If there were hurts these gashes and wounds in Random House India Pvt . Ltd, 2007, (All the Subsequent
her side that bled, then it was only because her References taken from this edition).
love was imperfect and did not encompass them [2] Jain, Jasbir. “Airing the Family Ghosts: Anita Desai’s Clear
thoroughly enough and because it had flaws and Light of Day”, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Vol.24,
inadequacies and did not extend to all equally” (P. No.2, 1984: 416-422.
[3] Prasad, Madhusudan: Anita Desai: The Novelist, New
165).
Horizon. Allahabad, 1981: P.122.
[4] O’Reilly, Christopher. Postcolonial Literature. UK:
III. CONCLUSION Cambridge University Press, 2001.
[5] Gupta, Santosh, Indian Women Novelists: Clear Light of
Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day is a novel about Day, Gaziabad: Vimal Prakashan, 1984.
laments for what was lost, but it does not stop merely at [6] T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962 (New York:
laments which echo and circle themselves endlessly; rather Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970), The Waste Land lines 360-
it is about the real significance of the past and it poses of 66; Eliot's note on the lines, pp. 74-75. For Eliot's intention
how to live in the present that has been constructed from in writing the poem, see the documents in The Waste Land:
the past. The story of the Das family is told through each A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts including
the Annotations of Ezra Pound ed. Valerie Eliot (New York:
sister's memory and by beginning and ending in the
Harcourt, Brace, 1971).
present, the novel moves us backwards to understand
where we are now; then again enters the past but then
returns to the present. The storylines emerge and submerge
to make the presence of the people who are felt even they
are not seen. Bim lives in the boundaries between what is
real and what is imagined but ultimately, she wakes up in
the clear light of day to restore her relations with her
brother, Raja and time the destroyer is indeed time the
preserver. And it is present which has looked back and
seen its reflection; Bim, finally, rests upon a silent
gathering of insights undoubtedly and beautifully. She
incorporates the world of the past and present and she is
spiritually at ease at least for once in life:
“With her inner eye she saw how her
own house and its particular history
linked and contained her as well as
her whole family with all their
separate histories and experiences not
binding them within some dead and
airless cell but giving them the soil in
which to send down their roots and
food to make them grow and spread,
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