Clear Light of Day, Anita Desai’s ninth novel, is about a sibling relationship set against the backdrop of the change that the Indian society witnessed during the turbulent period around the country’s Independence. The novel is divided into four untitled sections suggesting the four dimensions of time and recording the changes that take place in a family and the country. While the first section of the novel is in the late 1970s, the second one transports the reader back to 1947. Part three goes back even further in time and shows how children’s perception of the world around them has lifelong consequences. The fourth part revolves around two sisters, Bim and Tara, but focusing mainly on Bim. The novel is, as Desai says, “about time as a destroyer, as a preserver and about what the bondage of time does to people” (Sethy 142).