Clear Light of Day

The story returns to the present, with Bim and Tara still in the family garden. It opens from the perspective of Tara, who has begun to realize how much the family’s house and finances have degenerated. She worries that Bim, who is only five years older, has begun to get old and may not be capable of taking care of herself and the household. Despite the painful way Bim often treated her when they were children, Tara cannot free herself from the guilt of the bee incident—when a hive of bees attacked Bim in the Lodi Gardens and Tara, as she remembers it, ran away and left her sister alone with the bees. Bim barely remembers the incident, but for Tara it marks an important moment in her relationship with her sister—an abandonment that stands in her imagination for larger abandonments to come. Bim deflects Tara’s guilt—in her memory, Tara ran for help, not to escape. They discuss the upcoming wedding, and Bim tells Tara she is “bored of Raja” and that “rich, fat and successful people are boring” (145). Bim becomes angry and defensive because of Tara’s talk of Raja’s opulent life.