What is the novel's message about gender and gender roles in India?

Both Lila and Hari are hardworking, smart, thoughtful, and caring, but Hari is a boy and thus is afforded different responsibilities and roles in his society. He is supposed to provide for his sister's dowry and bring money to the family; he gets to travel and protest. Lila by contrast does women's work, but also by virtue of the situation the family is in, has to step into more masculine positions by working, providing, etc. Hari thinks of his sister in a traditional way but has these assumptions upended when he sees a women's protest in Bombay. Upon his return home, he tells Lila, "'I've brought money back with me, too. I want to discuss that with you—and with Mother when I go and see her.' He did not mention their father—he knew that would be useless" (225). Desai's characters thus occupy a traditionally gendered society that is grudgingly shifting a bit due to necessity, but through her characterization of Hari and Lila, Desai suggests that girls are just as capable and valuable as boys, and that better things happen when the genders work together.