Significance of Mira-masi in Clear Light of Day

It can be said that Aunt Mira played a significant role in the lives of the children as she was like a mother figure to them. The children had not really experienced a maternal figure in their lives until Mira-masi came along. Upon her arrival Aunt Mira brought with her gifts for the children, this began a fruitful relationship between them, though, this also showed the children that they were the ones with the upper hand in the relationship. Aunt Mira would read to them, play with them and provide all the love and care that they did not receive from neither mother nor father. Aunt Mira took really good care of Baba. When the rest of the family had all but given up on him, convinced that he would never learn to do anything a normal boy could do, along came Aunt Mira. She taught him to do things for himself, though it was a slow process, while the children watched with amazement as these developments unfolded. Soon Baba could do most things a normal boy could do but he never learnt to talk. As the children grew, Aunt Mira became closest to Tara and Baba as they remained dependent upon her. Baba, as he was not fully developed and Tara, because Raja and Bimla were close and they often ridiculed her ideas about life and her aspirations, for these ridicules she would complain to Aunt Mira. The children provided Aunt Mira with the family she never had. They gave her the sense of responsibility that she would have felt, had she had her own family. She finally felt needed and appreciated, not like a slave or servant, as she was being treated in her former household. She was accepted for who she was by the children and not looked down upon because of her looks. I think the problem for Aunt Mira began with the death of her cousin, Mrs. Misra, which was shortly followed by the death of Mr. Misra. The drinking actually started when Mr. Misra died. Aunt Mira would sneak and drink small portions of the alcohol he had stashed in the cupboard in the room. From the time of the first death, things kept going downhill, Raja got sick with tuberculosis and then Tara wanting to go out with Bakul. I think it all took a toll on her and she probably felt like her world was crumbling and who used to depend on her no longer needed her or really paid her any mind. I think her main problem was neglect. Her drinking escalated when Tara, the person closest to her got married and just left and as in the analogy given in the book, as the children needed their milk, she got it for them and now it was her turn, she needed her substance. I guess drinking was her way of coping with her problems