At first she mistook them for sheets of pink crêpe paper that someone had crumpled and carelessly flung down the hillside, perhaps after another astonishing party at the club. A moment later she remembered her great-grandmother’s words and saw that they were hosts of wild pink zephyranthes that had come up in the night after the first fall of rain. At breakfast they met over a big milk-jug that Ram Lal had filled with these lilies and set on the table. They were still slick with rain and brought in with them a sharp odour of moist earth. Vividly pink, their heads stood stiffly on the crimson stalks crammed into the milk-jug’s neck. Saffron pollen sprinkled the white tablecloth. A child might have drawn them, with pink and yellow wax crayons. Nibbling toast, Raka asked ‘Did my mother often come here when she was little?’ ‘No,’ answered Nanda Kaul, slowly. ‘Not often. Your grandmother took her mostly to Simla or Mussoorie – livelier places, you see.’ ‘Didn’t she like it here?’ ‘Your mother?
What do You think about Fire On The Mountain (1976)?
