Growing Up
The novel focuses on how fast Hari and Lila are forced to grow up before their time and how they adapt to their new living conditions. Both children realize that since their parents can’t take care of them, they must take care of themselves and their younger siblings. They both mature very quickly and assume the roles their mother and father were supposed to fill. Despite their young age, they learn how to take care of the house, how to manage their resources, and how to handle money. This is not depicted as an easy or pleasant task, of course, and even though the novel hews closely to their perspectives, Desai manages to critique adults and society at large for failing the younger generations.
City vs. Nature
Thul is by no means a paradise, but Desai does contrast it with Bombay and Thul comes out looking better than the city. The sea is seen as vivifying, beautiful, and sustaining. Yes, it can be harsh, but living within the natural environment is often better for the soul than living in the city of Bombay with its crowds, its whirling pace, its squalor, its pollution, its anonymity, and its indifference. Furthermore, Desai paints the encroachment of the factory and its concomitant markers of modernity and industry—housing, roads, bridges, pollution, more factories—as a negative force that will be difficult for people to embrace. There is no way these changes can be all bad, of course, and Hari's understanding that change and growth are necessary is wise and useful.
Change and Adaptation
The wheel of time keeps turning regardless of whether or not people want it to. Factories will be built. Jobs will be gained and lost. Former modes of working and living will fade away and others will take their places. Change and adaptation are not easily done, especially by older generations, but they are often what is necessary to keep going. Whereas someone like Sayyid Ali deplores change, Mr. Panwallah embraces it. Hari respects both of these men but ultimately adopts Mr. Panwallah's perspective because it is what he has to do to survive, and what he has to do to find meaning in life and respect for himself.
Freedom
Birds are used frequently in the text to symbolize the freedom that is coveted by characters who feel as if they are tied to something they'd rather not be. Freedom means something both similar and different to the main characters of Hari and Lila. Both wish to be free of their constrained circumstances, of being forced to be adults rather than children, of their father's debt, of anxiety and sadness and confusion. However, Hari wishes to be free to make his own life choices, though it is a scary prospect; Lila wishes to be free to dream and find meaning in her life. Freedom is not easily attained or retained, but Desai ends the novel on an optimistic note with both children seeing an easing of the restraints that once bound them so tightly.
Family
Family is a powerful theme with different permutations and meanings in the text. Firstly, family is extremely important for providing comfort, succor, and support. Hari and Lila work together to take care of their parents and their siblings, and Hari's being away from them all for so long wears on him heavily. However, family can also be tough if certain members aren't doing their part. Father becomes a burden and a disgrace to the family because of his bad choices, and Mother, while completely innocent of wrongdoing or blame, is still a burden in the sense that she cannot do anything that a parent should do. Finally, Desai suggests that family does not simply have to be the people who share your DNA; rather, Mr. Panwallah (and Jagu to a lesser extent) functions as a family member to Hari and gives the boy what he needs to survive and thrive.
Kindness of Strangers
Desai accurately paints a picture of how lonely, confusing, and destabilizing the city can be, especially to a young boy from the rural seaside. He knows no one would be able to survive if it were not for the kindness of Hira Lal, Jagu, and Mr. Panwallah. These individuals have no obligation to Hari but see in him a struggling child who needs guidance. Through them he gains a job, money, a place to stay, and, thanks to Mr. Panwallah, an actual future and the kind of confidence that will help bring that future about.
Economic Growth and its Discontents
Though a children's novel, Desai does not shy away from showing the deleterious consequences of economic growth. Through the voices of the factory man, Adarkar, Sayyid Ali, and even Hari himself, we see how the imminent factories will upend life as the people know it in the Alibagh districts (and Alibagh can obviously represent other places throughout India and even other developing nations as well). Population growth, pollution, destruction of natural resources, loss of jobs, displacement to the city, and more are on the horizon for the characters. Though Desai's message is that one must adapt because the wheel of time always keeps turning, it is clear she finds these changes problematic and discombobulating.
