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Part 2, Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fire on the Mountain, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Nature of Freedom
Honesty and Self-Reflection
Trauma and Suffering
Class and Privilege
Female Oppression
Summary
Analysis
On a windy afternoon, Raka sits on the top of the knoll watching ring-nosed parakeets cracking into pinecones. When she joins Nanda Kaul on the verandah for tea, Nanda Kaul remarks on how unusual it is for a storm to come in from the north at this time of year. The storm falls before they finish tea, sending Nanda Kaul and Raka inside to the drawing room, where Raka notices a small bronze statue of the Buddha. Nanda Kaul explains that her father, Raka’s great-great-grandfather, brought it back from Tibet. One year he headed east over the mountains from Kashmir to the Tibetan wilds.
Nanda Kaul and Raka start this chapter alone and would likely remain separate were it not for the rainstorm that drives them indoors. Nanda Kaul does a better job capitalizing on this opportunity than she did on the walk to Monkey Point, trading her superficial tour guide patter for an interesting and romantic story about her father’s adventures in the wilderness—a story designed to capture and hold the attention of a child and of Raka specifically.
Themes
Nanda Kaul explains that her father was absent for years, during which he traveled all over Tibet, sleeping in tiger-infested forests, learning how to ride and shoot a bow and arrow, and hunting for musk deer. He met magicians who could turn day into night or conjure storms out of nowhere. And he collected many treasures. Raka wonders if he wrote about his adventures, but Nanda Kaul says he didn’t. He was an explorer and a collector, not a writer.
This is the first readers hear about Nanda Kaul’s family, so there is no way to judge the veracity of stories about conjurers and treasures. But alert readers might remember that in the previous chapter, the book specifically mentioned her reading about the adventures of 13th-century explorer Marco Polo, who traveled from Italy all the way to Japan, opening previously undiscovered trade routes. It’s possible that Nanda Kaul is exaggerating or making things up in her desperation to connect with Raka.
Themes
