Clear Light of Day

by Anita Desai

While their parents went to parties at Delhi’s Roshanara Club, the children of the Das family brought themselves up, reading Byron, listening to the gramophone, and watching over sad, alcoholic Mira masi. Many years later, the youngest, Tara—now a mother of two—has returned from America to the scene of her unusual, lonesome childhood. Here, as always, is her sister Bim, doggedly single college-lecturer and caretaker of all. In her presence, Tara sinks into the blissful torpor of home, at once he...