Reports about Clear Light of Day Background

Anita Desai is an Indian novelist and short story writer, who often writes about deep and sensitive topics about inner life amongst female characters, also tension that may arise on a daily basis between family members.Anita Desai was born June 24, 1937 in India to a German mother and an Indian father. She now resides in South Hadley, Massachusetts, teaching and writing at Mount Holyoke College, she is a vibrant member of the Advisory Board for English in New Delhi. Anita has various novels with one of the leading being 'Clear Light of Day' , where she wrote the history of a Hindu middle class family. The central character is Bim (short for Bimla), who helps in uncovering to the reader the history of her siblings Tara and Roger and the passing of both parents. Desai seeks to convey to her reader her own perceptions of an Indian lifestyle and the various occurrences she witnesses within her novel.The

The Partition of India

The partition of Indian aroused in 1947, following World War II is perhaps the most tragic of all political events to affect India in its long political history. The partition divided Hindus and Muslims who had lived together for hundreds of years. It led to endless boundary disputes, three wars between the two neighbors, a nuclear powered arms race, and state sponsored terrorism. The agony and horrors of partition also gave rise to a new genre of moving art and literature of India.

Reasons For This Partition

• • The British who had followed "Divide and Conquer" principle to rule India, had to yield to the "Divide and Relinquish" demands of Muslims -- especially the charismatic Mohamed Ali Jinnah.

• The British overestimated the popularity of Muslim League that pressed for creation of Pakistan, and didn't understand the fact that there were Muslims living in every village of India, and possibly couldn't be relocated to Pakistan.

• Some Congress leaders would rather have an early freedom for India rather than convoluted delays in settlement by not agreeing to divide India.

  • The Difference between Muslims and Hindus

  Islam	Hinduism
  In Islam, belief in One God is the most important belief. Allah in arabic refers to the One God. It is a known fact that every language has one or more terms that are used in reference to God and sometimes to lesser deities. This is not the case with Allah. Allah is the personal name of the One true God. Nothing else can be called Allah. The term has no plural or gender. This shows its uniqueness when compared with the word god which can be made plural, gods, or feminine, goddess. It is interesting to notice that Allah is the personal name of God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and a sister language of Arabic. The One true God is a reflection of the unique concept that Islam associates with God. To a Muslim, Allah is the Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to Him. (monotheism) Islam exhorts man to consider himself and his surroundings as examples of Divine Creation rather than as divinity itself. Muslims therefore believe that everything is God’s i.e. the word ‘God’ with an apostrophe ‘s’. In other words the Muslims believe that everything belongs to God. The trees belong to God, the sun belongs to God, the moon belongs to God, the monkey belongs to God, the snake belongs to God, the human beings belong to God and everything in this universe belongs to God. Thus the major difference between the Hindu and the Muslim beliefs is the difference of the apostrophe ‘s’. The Hindu says everything is God. The Muslim says everything is God’s.	Common Concept of God in Hinduism: Hinduism is commonly perceived as a polytheistic religion. Indeed, most Hindus would attest to this, by professing belief in multiple Gods. While some Hindus believe in the existence of three gods, some believe in thousands of gods, and some others in thirty three crore i.e. 330 million Gods. However, learned Hindus, who are well versed in their scriptures, insist that a Hindu should believe in and worship only one God. The major difference between the Hindu and the Muslim perception of God is the common Hindus’ belief in the philosophy of Pantheism. Pantheism considers everything, living and non-living, to be Divine and Sacred. The common Hindu, therefore, considers everything as God. He considers the trees as God, the sun as God, the moon as God, the monkey as God, the snake as God and even human beings as manifestations of God!