The Village Beach and Environs
Desai describes in great detail the sea and the shore of Thul, creating an image that is peaceful, verdant, beautiful, and comforting. She calls the morning light "soft" and describes how "dew still lay on the rough grass and made the spider webs glitter." There are butterflies and "singing and calling and whistling" birds, roaring waves and wind, and colorful flowers. The beach is where Lila feels at home, and the place Hari dreams of when he is away. Desai makes her readers aware of why this is such a special place and why it would be so tragic if it changed too much.
Medicine Man
At their wits' end, the girls decide they have to have the medicine man help Mother. Desai describes the man thusly: "He was a sharp-looking man...[he had] the air of a magician, of witchcraft." He has "sharp, bright eyes" and "watched [the girls] critically." He has a "little dwarf cow" and is preceded by "long eerie blasts on the trumpet." This image gives the impression of either power or chicanery, and as the interaction with the man proceeds, it becomes clear that he is indeed a charlatan.
Bombay
As peaceful and lovely as Desai's description of the sea is, Bombay is a whirlwind of an image. She paints the city as overwhelming to Hari, starkly contrasting with his former life and environs. The city is "looming over their boats," people are in a tremendous hurry, and "added to the chaos were the smells of the city mingling with the familiar smells of the sea and fish and turning them into something strange." The "noises of the city" are also new and discombobulating, as is the traffic: "as if all the traffic in the world had met on the streets of Bombay."
Transformation
On the way from Bombay to Thul, Hari is in a liminal space. He is traveling from the hub of industry and crowds and urban life to his calm, natural seaside village and he sees the middle ground between the two outside his window: "There were a few signs of the beginnings of such a transformation: the highway was being widened, a railway bridge under construction, old large trees cut down and bulldozers and steamrollers at work, but the rice still stood golden and ripe in the fields, the low hills beyond them were violent and bronze, the sky clear and blue." Change is coming for Thul, but it hasn't quite arrived yet.
