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Dr. Biswas
Brij, Manu, and Mulk Misra are the Das family’s next-door neighbors (along with their sisters Jaya and Sarla). As children, they are close with Raja, and as adults, they are good-for-nothing businessmen whose projects all fail while they waste their family’s money on whiskey. Mulk is also a singer, and his performance at his guru’s birthday party provides the occasion for the novel’s closing scene.
Misra Brothers (Brij, Manu, and Mulk) Quotes in Clear Light of Day
The Clear Light of Day quotes below are all either spoken by Misra Brothers (Brij, Manu, and Mulk) or refer to Misra Brothers (Brij, Manu, and Mulk). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 4 Quotes
They had come like mosquitoes—Tara and Bakul, and behind them the Misras, and somewhere in the distance Raja and Benazir—only to torment her and, mosquito-like, sip her blood. All of them fed on her blood, at some time or the other had fed—it must have been good blood, sweet and nourishing. Now, when they were full, they rose in swarms, humming away, turning their backs on her.
All these years she had felt herself to be the centre—she had watched them all circling in the air, then returning, landing like birds, folding up their wings and letting down their legs till they touched solid ground. Solid ground. That was what the house had been—the lawn, the rose walk, the guava trees, the veranda: Bim’s domain.
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With her inner eye she saw how her own house and its particular history linked and contained her as well as her whole family with all their separate histories and experiences—not binding them within some dead and airless cell but giving them the soil in which to send down their roots, and food to make them grow and spread, reach out to new experiences and new lives, but always drawing from the same soil, the same secret darkness. That soil contained all time, past and future, in it. It was dark with time, rich with time. It was where her deepest self lived, and the deepest selves of her sister and brothers and all those who shared that time with her.
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Misra Brothers (Brij, Manu, and Mulk) Character Timeline in Clear Light of Day
The timeline below shows where the character Misra Brothers (Brij, Manu, and Mulk) appears in Clear Light of Day. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1
...Bakul. While the Misra sisters teach dance classes inside, Tara and Bakul join the Misra brothers, who are lounging on the porch. Bim goes to the veranda to chat with the...
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...and the Misra father comments that she overworks herself—like his own daughters. Meanwhile, his useless sons just sit around, drink, and launch failed business ventures. Worrying about the Misra family’s future,...
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...that the cook is bringing the Misra father’s food. Down in the garden, the Misra brothers ask Bakul how he explains India’s political situation to foreign reporters, and Bakul replies that...
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The Misra brothers ask about the price of scotch in Washington, and the Misra sisters say it’s time...
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Part 2
...visit Hyder Ali’s house or play with his siblings. But he eventually befriended the Misra brothers, who went to the same college. He took a liking to English poetry, which he...
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Part 3
...not anger. They go to a picnic in the Lodi Gardens with the Misra sisters, brothers, and two quiet boys who are supposed to be the sisters’ suitors. After sitting around...
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Part 4
...at the crowd—a little girl points out Bim’s cigarette to her mother, and the Misra brothers sway to the music and yell out “Vah! Vah!” in approval.
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...out tea, and then a small old man—the guru—goes up to sing. While the younger Misra brother Mulk’s voice is “full and ripe,” the guru’s is rough and full of “sadness and...
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