Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Aruna scolded him, ‘Don't you ever get the house painted, Papa? Look how the walls are peeling. It's just falling down' and, ‘What happened to the driver's uniform? He used to wear one, where is it?' If MamaPapa had once had qualms about her marrying into a family she could not keep up with they need not have worried – every trace of her provincial roots was obliterated and overlaid by the bright sheen of the metropolis. It was they who could not keep up. The only thing that made them tolerate her behaviour was the evidence that she directed it not only towards them but even at her husband Arvind, who came to deposit his family there and would collect them later. Mama was astonished at the way Aruna scolded him continuously. 'Oh, you have again spilt tea in your saucer. Now it will drip all over you, she would cry, or pull at his shirt and say, ‘But this shirt does not go with those trousers. Why didn't you ask me first?' Clearly Aruna had a vision of a perfect world in which all of them – her own family as well as Arvind's were flaws she was constantly uncovering and correcting in her quest for perfection. It made for a very uncomfortable household but it was, in a way, touching. Seeing Aruna vexed to the point of tears because the cook's pudding had sunk and spread instead of remaining upright and solid, or because Arvind had come to dinner in his bedroom slippers, or Papa was wearing a t-shirt with a hole under one arm, Uma felt pity for her: was this the realm of ease and comfort for which Aruna had always pined and that some might say she had attained? Certainly it brought her no pleasure: there was always a crease of discontent between her eyebrows and an agitation that made her eyelids flutter, disturbing Uma who noticed it. Once even Mama asked if she had something in her eye to make her blink so, and when Aruna angrily denied this, Mama told her about the optician's suggestion that Uma have her eyes examined by a specialist in Bombay. 'A specialist – in Bombay!' Aruna gave a shriek. ‘Do you know what that would cost?' She seemed so horrified by the idea that Uma felt bound to reassure her and say she was sure Dr Tandon was really quite good enough. 'Of course he is!' Aruna exclaimed. All that Uma enjoyed of that visit was the trip on the river in the big flat-bottomed boat they hired to hold all the guests who had come to take the ritual bath. Uma was excited – Mama had never permitted her family this dangerous rite; she saw no reason why one should place one's life in danger to prove one's religious belief which could surely be taken for granted. The boatman poled the boat slowly to where two rivers met, throwing up a sandbar where the water ran shallow in the very centre of the great green depths. He steadied the boat by plunging the pole deep into the rippled sand and advised them to bathe at this point, cautioning them against stepping off the bar and against currents. Everyone was in a state of high excitement, all the women in light cotton saris worn specially for the occasion, now clambering over the side, screaming when the boat rocked and clutching each other in a pleasurable panic. Uma, thrilled by this license, simply sprang off the prow and plunged in without hesitation, as if this were what she had been preparing to do all her life. Immediately she disappeared into the water, having leapt not onto the sandbar where the others stood splashing but into the deep dark river itself. She went down like a stone while the women screamed, ‘Uma, Uma! Where is she?' Someone caught at the end of her sari as it floated by, a scrap of white muslin, then the arm that it enfolded, and the shoulder, and hauled her out onto the sandbar. She knelt there, in the shallows, water pouring from her mouth and hair. She rose, gasping for breath, struggling, flailing her arms and choking like a big, wounded water bird. Aruna's voice called out in warning, 'Uma, don't! Don't you dare, Uma –' and Uma shook herself and wrapped her arms about her and blinked the water out of her eyes and stared back at her. No, she was not going to have a fit, she assured Aruna with a pleading, pacifying look; this was not a fit, she promised. What it was was that when she had plunged into the dark water and let it close quickly and tightly over her, the flow of the river, the current, drew her along, clasping her and dragging her with it. It was not fear she felt, or danger. Or, rather, these were only what edged something much darker, wilder, more thrilling, a kind of exultation – it was exactly what she had always wanted, I realised. Then they had saved her. The saving was what made her shudder and cry, there on the sandbar, soaking wet, while the morning sun leapt up in the hazy, sand-coloured sky and struck the boat, the brass pots that the women held, and their white drifting garments in the water. How does Desai make this visit by Aruna such a memorable and significant part of the novel?

1. Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Aruna scolded him, ‘Don't you ever get the house painted, Papa? Look how the walls are peeling. It's just falling down' and, ‘What happened to the driver's uniform? He used to wear one, where is it?' If MamaPapa had once had qualms about her marrying into a family she could not keep up with they need not have worried – every trace of her provincial roots was obliterated and overlaid by the bright sheen of the metropolis. It was they who could not keep up. The only thing that made them tolerate her behaviour was the evidence that she directed it not only towards them but even at her husband Arvind, who came to deposit his family there and would collect them later. Mama was astonished at the way Aruna scolded him continuously. 'Oh, you have again spilt tea in your saucer. Now it will drip all over you, she would cry, or pull at his shirt and say, ‘But this shirt does not go with those trousers. Why didn't you ask me first?' Clearly Aruna had a vision of a perfect world in which all of them – her own family as well as Arvind's were flaws she was constantly uncovering and correcting in her quest for perfection. It made for a very uncomfortable household but it was, in a way, touching. Seeing Aruna vexed to the point of tears because the cook's pudding had sunk and spread instead of remaining upright and solid, or because Arvind had come to dinner in his bedroom slippers, or Papa was wearing a t-shirt with a hole under one arm, Uma felt pity for her: was this the realm of ease and comfort for which Aruna had always pined and that some might say she had attained? Certainly it brought her no pleasure: there was always a crease of discontent between her eyebrows and an agitation that made her eyelids flutter, disturbing Uma who noticed it. Once even Mama asked if she had something in her eye to make her blink so, and when Aruna angrily denied this, Mama told her about the optician's suggestion that Uma have her eyes examined by a specialist in Bombay. 'A specialist – in Bombay!' Aruna gave a shriek. ‘Do you know what that would cost?' She seemed so horrified by the idea that Uma felt bound to reassure her and say she was sure Dr Tandon was really quite good enough. 'Of course he is!' Aruna exclaimed. All that Uma enjoyed of that visit was the trip on the river in the big flat-bottomed boat they hired to hold all the guests who had come to take the ritual bath. Uma was excited – Mama had never permitted her family this dangerous rite; she saw no reason why one should place one's life in danger to prove one's religious belief which could surely be taken for granted. The boatman poled the boat slowly to where two rivers met, throwing up a sandbar where the water ran shallow in the very centre of the great green depths. He steadied the boat by plunging the pole deep into the rippled sand and advised them to bathe at this point, cautioning them against stepping off the bar and against currents. Everyone was in a state of high excitement, all the women in light cotton saris worn specially for the occasion, now clambering over the side, screaming when the boat rocked and clutching each other in a pleasurable panic. Uma, thrilled by this license, simply sprang off the prow and plunged in without hesitation, as if this were what she had been preparing to do all her life. Immediately she disappeared into the water, having leapt not onto the sandbar where the others stood splashing but into the deep dark river itself. She went down like a stone while the women screamed, ‘Uma, Uma! Where is she?' Someone caught at the end of her sari as it floated by, a scrap of white muslin, then the arm that it enfolded, and the shoulder, and hauled her out onto the sandbar. She knelt there, in the shallows, water pouring from her mouth and hair. She rose, gasping for breath, struggling, flailing her arms and choking like a big, wounded water bird. Aruna's voice called out in warning, 'Uma, don't! Don't you dare, Uma –' and Uma shook herself and wrapped her arms about her and blinked the water out of her eyes and stared back at her. No, she was not going to have a fit, she assured Aruna with a pleading, pacifying look; this was not a fit, she promised. What it was was that when she had plunged into the dark water and let it close quickly and tightly over her, the flow of the river, the current, drew her along, clasping her and dragging her with it. It was not fear she felt, or danger. Or, rather, these were only what edged something much darker, wilder, more thrilling, a kind of exultation – it was exactly what she had always wanted, I realised. Then they had saved her. The saving was what made her shudder and cry, there on the sandbar, soaking wet, while the morning sun leapt up in the hazy, sand-coloured sky and struck the boat, the brass pots that the women held, and their white drifting garments in the water. How does Desai make this visit by Aruna such a memorable and significant part of the novel?[25]