Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Kamala Markandaya is a pseudonym of Kamala Purnaiya, an Indian-British novelist and journalist who took birth on June 23, 1924, and died on 16^th May 2004. She belonged to an upper-caste Brahmin family in Mysore, Karnataka, and completed her graduation from Madras University. After independence, she moved to Britain and married there. She wrote many short stories and a good number of novels in English. Some of her finest works include Nectar in a Sieve, Possession, Some Inner Fury, A Handful of Rice, The Nowhere Man, and others. She was an Indian Expatriate novelist who extensively wrote Diasporic literature.

Diasporic Literature or Expatriate Literature is a wide concept and an umbrella term which associates with all those literary works written by authors who are away from their native country whereas these works are connected with native culture and background. Being an Indian Diasporic author, Kamala Markandaya kept her relationship strongly with the ancestral land. There is

a search for connectivity and ‘ancestral impulse’ in her stories and novels, it is an effort to look for her roots. Her writings are ever symbolized boldness, identity, individuality, freedom, and against marginality.

Nectar in a Sieve was published in the year 1954 in which Kamala Markandaya depicted the fictional story of Rukmani, the youngest daughter of a village headman, and Nathan, a tenant farmer. The title of the novel was taken from the 1825 poem "Work Without Hope", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Kamala Markanday also added a couplet from the poem as the epigraph of the novel.

“Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And hope without an object cannot live.”

Characters of Nectar in a Sieve:

 Rukmani is the protagonist of the novel. She got married to Nathan, a poor tenant farmer at an age of 12. Nathan is her husband who is a kind, gentle and hardworking farmer.  Nathan is a surprisingly patient and caring husband who takes care of his newlywed wife who is still a child at the time of their marriage. He continues to respect and love Rukmani throughout his life though he commits infidelity with one of their neighbors. Irawwadi or Ira eldest child and only daughter of Nathan and Rukmani. When Irrawaddy is born, Rukmani is disappointed because Nathan needs sons who can help him work the land. Rukamni struggles to become a mother again but she gets help from a British doctor Kenny who lives and works in the village. Rukmani first meets Kenny at her dying mother’s bedside, and she seeks treatment from him for infertility. Kenny is a good and kind doctor who helps Kenny without letting her husband know. He further helps Rukmani when her daughter Ira also fails to conceive after many years of her marriage and is thrown out of her home by her husband for being barren. Kunthi is one of the neighbors of Rukmani she is arrogant because she belongs to a rich family and she is strikingly beautiful. However, she is jealous of Rukmani mainly because she has an illicit relationship with Nathan. Kunthi is always rude and insolent to Rukmani. Arjun is Rukmani’s eldest son and Thambi is her second son. Nathan hopes that his wons will help him in farming but they reject the idea and start working for the new tannery established in the village.  Arjun decides to leave home to work on a tea plantation in Ceylon. Murugan is Rukmani’s third son. Murugan moves to a large city to work as a servant and eventually marries a woman named Ammu who also works there. Selvam is Rukmani’s fourth son, his fifth child. He starts helping Doctor Kenny at his hospital which trains him in medical practice. Kuti is Rukmani’s youngest son who dies at an early age. Puli is a street child whom Rukmani and Nathan meet in the city. Puli is homeless and his fingers have rotten away because of leprosy. Rukami adopts him and takes care of him. Janaki and Kali are two other neighbors of Rukmani who have a cordial relationship with her.

Summary of Nectar in Sieve:

 The novel is presented in first person narrative style from the point of view of Rukmani who is the protagonist. The novel begins as Rukami is sitting beside her adopted son Puli as they see the hospital building where her son Selan works as a medical assistant. Rukamni then remembers her past. She still misses her dead husband whom she loved dearly. Rukmani was the youngest daughter of a village headman who was the strongest man in her village. However, as the British colonialists controlled all the systems, his father lost all the power and money and by the time of her marriage, he was a poor man. She was married at the early age of 12 to a hard-working farmer named Nathan. Nathan was a kind and compassionate man who respected Rukmani and treated her well. Soon she settled into her married life and gave birth to a daughter whom they named Irawwdy or Ira. Ira was a beautiful child and her birth also heralds a bumper crop of rice. Thus, she becomes dear to Nathan. However, Rukmani wished to have a son who could help Nathan in the field. Thus, she tried to conceive again but failed for many years. After six years of the birth of Ira, Rukmani visits her village to see her bedridden ill mother where he meets Doctor Kenny. She asks for his help in getting rid of her infertility and without informing her husband Nathan about it, she starts Doctor Kenny’s medication. Soon she becomes pregnant and delivers five sons in a short period. However, more mouths require more food and resources. Nathan used to work as a tenant farmer who hoped to have his own land one day in the future. But the increasing spending and burden of six children don’t allow him to save enough money to buy his own land. Soon the family finds it difficult to earn enough to make ends meet. Shortly after the birth of their third and fourth son, a tannery is established in the village that further deteriorates the farming lands and fills the atmosphere with a noxious odor. Nathan fails to earn enough through farming and soon his two eldest sons Arjun and Thambi decide to start working in the tannery to earn enough. Nathan is very sad about their decision because he hoped his sons to help him in farming so that they could buy their own land. However, he realizes that the earnings of Arjun and Thambi from the tannery are improving the financial conditions of their home.

Arjun and Thambi observe very difficult working conditions at the tannery and they organize a strike of workers for which they get terminated from their jobs which further pushes Rukmani’s family into financial trouble. Rukmani’s eldest daughter Ira is now a young beautiful girl of marrying age but Nathan and Rukmani don’t have enough money for her marriage. Somehow, they arrange her marriage to a farmer in a nearby village. Nathan continues to work as a farmer while Arjun decides to leave home to work on a tea plantation in Ceylon. Rukmani’s fourth son Selvan was still a kid when the monsoon season came early and brought heavy floods that destroyed the crops of Nathan. The family’s troubles further increased when Ira’s husband returned Ira to her parent's home and blamed her for being barren and infertile. Rukami again reaches Doctor Kenny to help her daughter out and Kenny starts treating Ira but before she could be treated, her husband decides to remarry another woman. To increase the troubles more, Rukmani herself becomes pregnant again and soon gives birth to Kuti, her sixth child, and fifth son. The birth of Kuti helps Ira as she engages herself as a surrogate mother. She loves Kuti as her own child and starts feeling hope and joy toward life again.

Famine strikes their village once again and it becomes very difficult for Rukmani’s family to survive.To make things worse, the owner of their farmland asks for the rent urgency or to leave his farm. Nathan and Rukmani decide to sell all their belonging to pay the loans and rent of the landowner but they fail to pay all the loans back. However, this turns them totally destitute, relegated to scavenging for herbs and edible plants slowly starving to death. Rukmani once again goes to Doctor Kenny to ask for help who arranges for a job for Rukmani’s fourth son Murugan in the city. Murugan goes away and starts working in the city as a servant and soon he marries a girl named Ammu there without taking permission from his parents. Meanwhile, Rukmani and Nathan continue to face financial troubles. Kuti gets ill as he is malnourished. Ira gets too worried about Kuti and she decides to turn into a prostitute to get enough money to save Kuti’s life. However, despite her turning towards the ill profession of prostitution, Ira and Rukmani fail to save Kuti who dies. Thambi is still jobless and frustrated. One day, he decides to steal some catskin from the tannery and start his own work but he gets caught and is killed by the guards. Nathan succeeds in getting a bumper rice crop that year but it is too late as Rukmani has already lost two of her sons. While Rukmani is still mourning the loss of her sons, Doctor Kenny reappears in her village with a good amount of funds to establish a new hospital in Rukmani’s village. He again proves to be a vital help as he engages Selvan, Rukmani’s youngest son as a medical assistant in his hospital and starts training him. Meanwhile, Kunthi is jealous of Rukmani. Kunthi is a beautiful woman who lives in the neighborhood. Nathan had an illicit relationship with her even before his marriage and since Rukmani was still a child when he married her, he continued to sleep with Kunthi. Kunthi, being jealous of Rukmani starts spreading rumors about the illicit relationship between Rukmani and Doctor Kenny. Her other neighbors Janaki and Kali also help her with this. However, Nathan rejects these rumors, rather he confesses to Rukmani and Ira that he used to have an illicit relationship with Kunthi and he fathered two of her sons. Rukmani chooses to forgive Nathan rather than hold a grudge. Nathan is fifty years old now but he still has to work hard in fields that are not even his own. One day, he is informed that he has to leave his farm and home because the landowner has sold the farm to the tannery owner. The situation gets worse as they come to know that Ira is pregnant as a result of her working as a prostitute. Ira soon gives birth to an albino child. Nathan and Rukmani decide to go to the city to take the help of Murugan while Ira, her child stays in the village with Selvan who is working in Doctor Kenny’s hospital.

In the city, Rukmani and Nathan fail to find the home where Murugan is working as a servant. At last, they take refuge at a temple but soon find that all their belongings and money have been stolen by miscreants. While Nathan is very desperate, a child named Puli helps Rukmani and Nathan to locate the address of Murugan. Rukmani pitties Puli because he is a homeless child suffering from Leprosy. She decides to take Puli with her and help him in getting proper treatment. When Nathan and Rukmani visit the house where Murugan is supposedly working as a servant, they find Ammu, the girl whom Murugan married. Ammu is with a newly born child. She informs Rukmani that Murugan left the job and her too many months ago. Rukmani realizes that if Murugan has left Ammu so many months ago, then her child could not be Murugan’s child. They decide to return to the temple. Nathan starts working as a laborer in a nearby stone quarry to gather enough money to return to the village. However, Nathan gets ill and one day, he suffers heartache while working in the stone quarry. He is soon taken to the temple where he dies in the arms of Rukmani. After performing his last rites, Rukmani decides to return to the village but she wishes to take Puli with her. She promises a better life and treatment of Puli as she believes that Doctor Kenny and Selvam will treat Puli well. Puli agrees to come with Rukmani. When they reach the village, Selvan and Ira greet them well. The siblings openly accept Puli and Ira hurries away to prepare dinner for their mother and a new brother.  Selvam reassures his mother that they will survive. Puli is happy as he observes Ira’s albino child. He is hopeful and optimistic as he finds nectar in a sieve.

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