CC - III: Write the novel on the character of Mira Masi or Aunt Mira in Anita Desai's novel "Clear Light Of Day"

 

When the novel starts, Mira Masi or Aunt Mira  is already dead, but she is a very important Character in Anita Desai's novel "Clear Light Of Day". She comes into the Das household initially to look after the youngest Das child, Baba, who is autistic, but she eventually ends up looking after the other Das children as well as she becomes like a surrogate mother to them. Among her other tasks in the Das household are quite making, story telling, pickle making and knitting. Among the four Das children(Bim, Raja, Tara and Baba), Tara is the one who instantly  bonds with Mira Masi. She "could wrap herself up in (Mira Masi) as in an old soft shawl ... breathing in her aunt's smell, finding in it a deep, musty comfort ". (Baba is the other Das child on whom we see the influence of Mira Masi's affection-"... she stopped feeding him those milky sops from the tip of a silver spoon. Instead, she cut up small pieces of bread and let  them pick them up ad put them in his mouth himself...". The other two Das children, Bim and Raja, also gradually get used to Mira Masi. During the first summer of her stay at the Das home, it was she who nursed both Bim and Raja who were suffering from typhoid. In fact, the children neglected by their own parents need her "she was the tree that grew in the center of their lives and in whose shade they lived". Mira Masi, too, needed them. Abused by her relatives for being a widow she felt unwanted.

                                       In part III of the novel we get some details about Mira Masi's background. we come to know that she was barely "twelve years old when she was married and was a virgin when she was widowed ". Her husband who had gone for higher studies to England, had died for of a cold there. through this description Desai tells us about the status of women in India values are brought out subtly by the novelist through the treatment Mira Masi gets gets from her family. When the Das children ask their mother why Mira Masi always wore white, she explains, "that white was the widow's colour". 

                                              As early as part II of the novel, we come to know that Mira Mas is gradually becoming an alcoholic, she gets addicted to Brandi which was initially recommended to her for medicinal purposes. Her alcoholic condition marks he beginning of her death. Again, it was Mira Masi who suggested to Mrs. Das the notion of keeping a cow for fresh milk for the children. One day it drowned in the well. She felt guilty about it. She used to say "she would drown herself". The image of the drowning cow shows her lack of control over herself.

                               After Mira Masi's death, it is Bim and Raja who go to cremate her. but her sprit haunts Bim for a long time. The personalities of Bim and Tara are brought into sharper focus in relation to their treatment of Mira Masi; although Tara was more attached to her, it is Bim who nurtures her through her illness