On the first day, the setting sun, carelessly tossed a handful of vermilion onto the under-carriage of a truant cloud. The cumulo-nimbus obligingly wedded the first snowbound peak it bumped into in a glorious ritual of "sindoor daan". Amorphous snow, softened by the piety of a sincere, albeit recalcitrant lover, fell in hushed wonder on the demur mountaintops. After that there was no more beauty. The one word which should have come to his mind, and which his sister-in-law, with charac...