Anita Desai's Fire on the Mountain

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Anita Desai's Fire on the Mountain

Welcome, in this Newsletter,  we are turning our attention to a cornerstone of modern Indian English fiction: Anita Desai's haunting and lyrical 1977 novel, Fire on the Mountain. Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award, this novel is a masterful exploration of isolation, female identity, and the silent reverberations of a life unfulfilled. This newsletter Anita Desai's

Fire on the Mountain will break down the novel for both new readers and those conducting deeper critical analysis.

Summary: 

Fire on the Mountain is a quiet yet powerful novel that prioritises psychological depth over a fast-paced plot. It follows the lives of three women in the remote hill station of Kasauli.

• Nanda Kaul: An elderly widow who has retreated to her isolated home, Carignano, seeking solitude and escape from a demanding past life as the wife of a university Vice-Chancellor. She desires nothing more than to be left alone with her thoughts and the barren landscape.
• Raka: Nanda's great-granddaughter, a sickly and emotionally withdrawn child sent to Kasauli to recuperate from typhoid. She is a product of a violent, dysfunctional home and prefers the company of nature—especially its more destructive elements—to people.
• Ila Das: Nanda's childhood friend, a social worker who struggles against poverty and social ridicule due to her physical appearance and shrill voice. She represents a failed attempt to engage with the world and its cruelties.

The narrative unfolds as these three lives intersect. Nanda’s desired peace is disrupted by Raka’s arrival, though the two exist in a parallel silence rather than a traditional, loving relationship. Ila Das occasionally intrudes with her chatter, a stark contrast to the quiet of Carignano. The novel’s tension builds slowly towards its devastating climax: Ila Das is brutally raped and murdered after confronting a villager, Preet Singh, about child marriage. Upon hearing this news, Nanda Kaul suffers a fatal shock, confronting the painful lies of her own life. Simultaneously, Raka sets the forest ablaze, an act of symbolic rebellion against a world she finds cruel and intolerable.

Anita Desai

Anita Desai (b. 1937) is a preeminent Indian novelist and Emeritus Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is a key figure in post-colonial literature.

1. Her Background: Born to a German mother and a Bengali father, she grew up speaking German at home and Hindi with friends, but wrote in English, her literary language since childhood. This multilingual, multicultural background deeply influences her writing.
2. Her Style & Themes: Desai is often credited with introducing psychological realism and a deep interiority to Indian English fiction. Her novels are less concerned with social sagas and more with the inner lives, existential anxieties, and emotional turmoil of her characters, particularly women trapped in patriarchal structures.
3. Her Legacy: She is the mother of author Kiran Desai (Booker Prize winner for The Inheritance of Loss). Anita Desai herself has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times.

Character Sketch: 

Character	Key Traits	Motivations & Symbolism
Nanda Kaul	Proud, withdrawn, emotionally barren, graceful, stoic.	Seeks peace and absolute solitude to escape a past of emotional neglect and marital betrayal. She symbolizes retreat and the constructed façade of a perfect life.
Raka	Feral, silent, observant, independent, drawn to decay.	Seeks refuge in nature to escape the trauma of her parents' violent relationship. She is not just a child but a symbol of primal rebellion and a new, untamed form of femininity.
Ila Das	Garrulous, impoverished, well-intentioned, socially ostracised.	Struggles to maintain dignity and do good in a world that rejects her based on her appearance and voice. She symbolizes the futility of engagement in a cruel society and the vulnerable body of the outsider.

Major Themes in Fire on the Mountain

1. Alienation and Withdrawal: This is the central theme. All three protagonists are profoundly alienated—from society, from their families, and from themselves. Nanda’s withdrawal is a conscious choice (or so she believes), Raka’s is instinctual, and Ila’s is forced upon her by society.
2. Feminism and Patriarchy: The novel critiques the traditional roles imposed on women—the dutiful wife, the nurturing mother, the graceful hostess. Nanda’s entire life was performance for her husband’s career. Ila Das is punished for stepping outside conventional femininity. Raka represents a complete rejection of these roles.
3. Identity and Self-Deception: Nanda constructs a fantasy past of a perfect family life to tell Raka. The novel’s tragic climax is the shattering of this self-deception, forcing her to confront the truth of her husband’s infidelity and her children’s emotional distance.
4. Nature vs. Civilization: The barren, arid hills of Kasauli are not a romanticised paradise but a mirror reflecting the characters’ inner desolation. Civilization, represented by the violent Pasteur Institute and the cruel village society, is shown as destructive and corrupt. Raka finds more honesty in the raw, potentially destructive power of nature (the fire) than in human society.
5. Silence and Communication: The lack of meaningful communication is stark. Nanda and Raka coexist in silence; Ila Das’s attempts to communicate are met with ridicule or violence. The novel suggests that some truths are too painful for words and can only be expressed through acts (like Raka’s fire) or internal realisation.

Literary Techniques & Style 

Desai’s prose is rich and evocative. Here are some key techniques she uses:

1. Psychological Realism: A writing technique that prioritises the accurate portrayal of characters' internal thoughts, feelings, and motivations over external plot. The entire novel is focused on what goes on inside Nanda’s and Raka’s minds.

2. Symbolism: Using an object, person, or event to represent a larger idea.

• Carignano (The House): Symbolises Nanda’s desired isolation and her final, fragile claim to a space of her own.
• The Fire: A hugely potent symbol. It represents destruction, purification, rage, and rebellion. It is the "fire" of traumatic memory in Nanda and the literal fire set by Raka.
• The Barren Landscape: Symbolises emotional sterility, emptiness, and the characters’ retreat from the lushness of life and relationship.

3. Imagery: Vivid descriptive language that appeals to the senses. Desai uses extensive visual and auditory imagery to create the atmosphere of Kasauli—the scorching heat, the sound of cicadas, the sight of pine trees and ravines.

4. Flashback: A scene set in a time earlier than the main story. Although much of the past is revealed through Nanda’s memories and thoughts rather than formal flashbacks, we learn about her life as the Vice-Chancellor's wife through these recollections.

5. Stream of Consciousness: A narrative mode that attempts to capture the multifaceted and continuous flow of a character's thoughts and feelings. While not used exclusively, the novel often dips into Nanda’s and Raka’s fragmented thought processes.

6. Lyrical Prose: Poetic, highly expressive, and rhythmic language. Desai’s writing is celebrated for its beauty and its ability to evoke mood and atmosphere.

A Famous Excerpt 

The Excerpt (The novel's closing lines):

"Raka stood at the edge of the ridge and watched the fire.
She called ‘Nani – look – Nani, look!’ She cried ‘I have set the forest on fire. Look, Nani – look – the forest is on fire!’"

Analysis:
These final lines are among the most powerful in Indian literature. Raka’s act is not one of mere childish mischief. It is a definitive, symbolic statement.

• "I have set the forest on fire" is her only true moment of communication in the novel. It is an announcement of her agency and her rebellion.
• The fire is a cleansing force, burning away the hypocrisy, pain, and silence that have defined the world of the adults around her (Nanda’s pretended past, Ila Das’s brutal victimhood).
• It is also an act of identification. The "forest on the mountain" mirrors the internal fire of Nanda’s suppressed anguish. Raka externalises this collective pain and sets it ablaze for all to see.
• The repetition of "Look, Nani – look!" is a desperate plea for acknowledgment, a demand that her grandmother finally see the reality of the world, just as Nanda is herself finally seeing the reality of her own life.

Critical Appreciation:

Fire on the Mountain is a landmark novel for its unflinching look at the inner lives of women. Unlike the social realism of many of her contemporaries, Desai delves into the psychological cost of conforming to societal expectations.

• Strength: Its greatest strength is its profound psychological depth and its beautiful, controlled prose. The symbolism is integrated seamlessly into the narrative, and the characterisation is subtle and powerful.
• Legacy: It is a key text in Feminist and Psychoanalytic literary criticism. Critics explore the ways Desai critiques patriarchy and portrays the female psyche. It is also studied through an Ecocritical lens for its complex portrayal of the relationship between environment and character.
• Modern Relevance: The themes of alienation, the search for identity, and the rejection of traditional roles continue to resonate deeply with modern readers. It remains a vital text for understanding the complexities of post-colonial Indian identity, particularly from a female perspective.

Important Keywords

1. Existentialism: A philosophy concerned with finding meaning and purpose in an indifferent universe. Nanda’s withdrawal and search for a "room of her own" is an existential act.
2. Feminist Critique: An analysis of how literature portrays gender roles and power dynamics. This novel is ripe for a feminist reading of Nanda’s, Raka’s, and Ila Das’s struggles.
3. Psychoanalytic Theory: A critical approach using ideas from Freud and Lacan, focusing on the unconscious mind, dreams, and repressed desires. Analysing Nanda’s repressed memories and Raka’s trauma fits this theory.
4. Eco-Criticism: The study of literature and the environment. Analysing how the setting of Kasauli is not just a backdrop but an active force that mirrors the characters' states of mind.
5. Symbolism of Fire: A central motif. Research its meanings across cultures: purification, destruction, rebirth, passion, and knowledge.
6. Alienation in Modern Literature: A common theme in 20th-century literature, reflecting the breakdown of traditional communities and the individual’s sense of isolation. Nanda is a classic alienated figure.
7. Interiority in the Novel: How a novel portrays a character's inner life. Desai is a master of this.
8. Postcolonial Literature: Literature from countries that were once colonised. This novel, while not directly about politics, deals with the legacy of colonialism in the social structures and class dynamics of modern India (e.g., the Pasteur Institute).
9. Anita Desai Writing Style: Lyrical, psychological, introspective, symbolic.
10. Nanda Kaul Character Analysis: Withdrawn, proud, self-deceptive, ultimately tragic.
11. Raka Fire on the Mountain Meaning: The symbolic significance of Raka’s final act.