Arjie as Bride
Arjie is a boy, yet he loves to dress up as the bride in the mock wedding game he puts on with his female cousins. The image of him adorning the sari and makeup and veil to become a "more brilliant, more beautiful self" (5) suggests from the outset Arjie's queer identity.
Rain
After Daryl leaves, Arjie describes the scene: "The rain was falling in sheets of water and the living room, usually so bright and cheerful, appeared gloomy in the gray light, the colors of the upholstered chairs faded" (115). This image suggests that for Amma, Daryl's absence meant a gloomy world, one dampened in color and spirit and meaning.
The Victoria Academy
Arjie contemplates his school, thinking, "the light was changing over the Victoria Academy as well. The whole building was illuminated in a coral pink that swiftly deepened as the sun set. How peaceful and stately it looked" (267). But he admits to himself that the impressive and idyllic image was misleading, for this was a place characterized by punitive, arbitrary decisions and a repressive culture. Arjie warns himself not to be fooled by this image.
The House
At the end of the novel, the family's house is burned down, and when Arjie returns to look at it one more time before going to Canada, he is in for a surprise: "I stared at our house in shock. Everything that was not burnt had been stolen. Whatever had remained intact, furniture, uncharred beams, doors, windows, even the hinges and rain pipes, had been taken. How naked the house appeared without its doors and windows, how hollow and barren with only scraps of paper and other debris in its rooms" (305). This image reveals how hated the Tamil people were, for every part of their existence was exterminated.
