The Das sisters, like the nation of India, are on the cusp of great change and great possibility. In the first chapter, the tension between Bim and her younger sister Tara reads as a straightforward reflection of the tensions within a nation poised between tradition and modernity—with Bim clinging on in the “backwaters” of Old Delhi, getting “duller and grayer” and caring for Baba, who remains intellectually static even as his body ages, while Tara lives with her diplomat husband in a sleek, modern apartment in Washington, DC. As the narrative moves back in time to explore the personal histories underlying these choices, the dichotomy between the sisters becomes more complex. Tara’s modern, globetrotting life is not as free as it first appears, and Bim’s stationary and circumscribed existence offers a freedom and independence all its own. Though the sisters define freedom in very different ways, they are more similar than they initially appear. Each has achieved a hard-won sense of self-determination within a patriarchal world that imposes limits on their choices at every turn.

On the surface, Bim is an independent and rebellious young woman who refuses to rely on a husband for her upkeep.