The world of Anita Desai is a domestic world, an Indian world, a world inhabited by female characters invariably strong and resilient despite the many challenges they have to face.

The biggest of those challenges is the ingrained sexism of patriarchal Indian society, which rears its ugly head on numerous occasions throughout Desai's works. It is particularly prevalent in Fire on the Mountain, where all of the female characters are to some extent the victims of the society in which they live.

Nanda Kaul, the great-grandmother of Raka, has had a long but very unhappy life due to a loveless marriage. Right throughout her marriage, Nanda has deferred to the wishes of her husband, in accordance with the prevailing social norms. In return, he has treated her with a complete lack of affection, as if she were

some decorative yet useful mechanical appliance needed for the efficient running of his household.

For good measure, Nanda's husband treats her with contempt and disrespect by having an affair with a Christian woman.

Raka is herself a victim of the patriarchy. Her father is a hopeless drunk and is therefore incapable of giving her the love that she needs. Yet the values of Indian patriarchal society have been internalized to such an extent by so many women that Raka's grandmother blames her daughter for the problems in her marriage, even though she acknowledges that her husband does drink to excess.

Ila Das, Nanda's old friend, is perhaps the most obvious victim of patriarchal society. When her father died, the family fortune was shared among her three drunkard brothers. Ila, her sister, and her mother ended up with nothing.

Nevertheless, Ila, like the other women in the book, remains strong and resolute. Sadly, it is precisely these qualities that lead to her tragic demise. After she stands up to the patriarchal norms of society by openly opposing the marriage of a seven-year-old girl to a widower, she is raped and brutally murdered.