Transcultural Awareness through Music in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day
Transcultural Awareness through Music in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day

Summary/Abstract: The paper investigates the role of music as a mechanism of transcultural understanding that appeases conflicts within an Indian family. The transcultural paradigm has been recently taken over as a framework for the analysis of migrant writings since it suggests the idea of dynamism, invoking phenomena of transport, transfer and translation. This particular outlook discards the definition of cultures as territorial, homogeneous entities, arguing that they actually provide incomplete ranges of values and practices. At the same time, this approach to culture stresses the importance of shared values in reaching agreement. Clear Light of Day locates the process of transcultural interactions at the family level, focusing on the tensed relationship between Tara, the sister who temporarily returns home from the USA, and Bim, the one who never leaves Old Delhi. The conflict between them reveals a clash between different visions of identity, since Tara promotes the idea of individual mobility, while Bim seems attached to the native space of Old Delhi. The present analysis focuses on Bim’s epiphany that occurs while she attends a concert of classical Indian music. This live performance awakens her ability to transgress the differences between herself and Tara, reconfiguring Bim’s rigid perspectives.

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