Discuss how desai attempts to compare the life in city with life in village

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.