1

CHAPTER – 1

INTRODUCTION

Kamala Markandaya was born in 1924 in Chimakurti village in India and died in the

year 2004 in London, England. Her pseudonym was Kamala Purnaya. She was married to a man

Bertnard Taylor, so she got the married name as Kamala Taylor. She was an Indian novelist and

her works were concern the struggles of the contemporary Indians with conflicting the Eastern

and Western values.

A Brahman Markandaya did her studies in University of Madras and then she worked

as a Journalist. In 1948 she settled in England and she got married to the Englishman. Her first

novel Nectar in a Sieve was published in the year 1954. The second book Some Inner Fury was

published in the year 1955. The third book Silence of Desire was published in the year 1960. The

fourth book Possession was published in the year 1963. The fifth book A Handful of Rice was

published in the year 1966. The sixth book The Coffer Dams was published in the year 1969.

The seventh book The Nowhere Man was published in the year 1972. The eighth book Two

Virgins was published in the year 1973. The ninth book The Golden Honeycomb was published

in the year 1977. The tenth book Pleasure City was published in the year 1982 and also

published as Shalimar.

The novel Nectar in a Sieve set in a village in southern India shortly after India gained

independence. Nectar in a Sieve portrays through the lives of its characters Rukmani, Nathan

and their children. The hopes and aspirations of a young nation recently embarked on the path of

development, surmounting many obstacles along the way. Few novels ever published have

celebrated the human spirit, its sheer resilience with greater success.

The novel Nectar in a Sieve was originally published in the year 1954 to instant

acclaim. The novel Nectar in a Sieve became an international best seller and was translated into
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seventeen languages. ‘Nectar in a Sieve has a wonderful quiet authority’, the review given by

New York Times and the journal called Milwaukee Journal review this novel as ‘A novel to

retain in your heart’.

The novel Nectar in a Sieve was one of the master piece of Kamala Markandaya. This

novel was divided into two parts. The first part takes place in rural area and the second part takes

place in urban area. The protagonist of this novel was Rukmani. Rukmani, an old woman,

reflects on her life. The educated daughter of a village headman fallen on hard times, Rukmani is

married at the age of twelve to Nathan, a tenant farmer. Nathan treats her with kindness and

respect as she learns the chores her new life requires. Within a year they have a beautiful

daughter, Ira, and good rice harvests. During the next six years, Rukmani does not conceive.

Troubled that she cannot produce a son for Nathan, Rukmani visits her ill mother and there

meets Kenny, a foreign doctor. He treats her infertility without Nathan’s knowledge. In quick

succession, Rukmani bears five sons. With each birth, however, the family has a little less to eat.

When a tannery is built nearby, unpleasant changes come to village life. Rukmani’s two oldest

sons eventually go to work there. They help the family a great deal with their wages but are

eventually dismissed for being ringleaders in a labor strike.

The year they arrange a good marriage for Ira, monsoon rains destroy all their crops.

Rukmani sacrifices her savings to buy food for the family. Ira’s husband returns Ira to her

parents’ home because she is barren. Again Rukmani turns to Kenny without her husband’s

knowledge, this time to help Ira conceive. His treatments are too late, however, since Ira’s

husband has taken another woman. Rukmani becomes pregnant again and bears her last son,

Kutti. Caring for Kutti lifts Ira out of her depression and despair until the crops fail from drought

and the family once again goes hungry. They sell most of their possessions just to pay half of

what they owe the landowner for their lease. Reduced to foraging for roots and leaves, the family

begins to weaken and starve. Kenny secures a servant’s position in the city for Rukmani’s third
 3

son. Rukmani’s fourth son is killed stealing calfskin from the tannery. Kutti suffers the most

from hunger, and Ira prostitutes herself to feed him. Despite her efforts, he dies. A good rice

harvest arrives too late to save Rukmani’s sons.

Kenny returns from one of his long absences with money raised to build a hospital in

the village. He offers to train Rukmani’s remaining son, Selvam, as his assistant. Some villagers

speculate that Kenny is kind to Rukmani because they have an illicit relationship. Kunthi, a

neighborhood wife who became a prostitute, spreads this rumor out of spite. When they were

both young, Nathan fathered Kunthi’s two sons. Kunthi uses this as leverage over them until

Rukmani learns the truth and forgives Nathan. Now, as Nathan nears fifty, he has no sons left to

work the land. He suffers from rheumatism and debilitating fevers. Rukmani and Ira try to help,

but they are not strong enough. Ira has a baby to care for, an albino boy conceived in prostitution

but loved nonetheless. The family experiences its greatest loss when the land agent tells Nathan

and Rukmani their land has been sold to the despised tannery. No one else will lease land to a

man as old and ill as Nathan, and Rukmani and Nathan must leave their home of thirty years to

go to their son Murugan in the city. They leave Ira and their grandchild under Selvam’s care.

Their possessions reduced to the few bundles they carry, Nathan and Rukmani try to

find Murugan in the city. They took rest one night at a temple, where thieves steal their bundles

and all their money. A leprous street urchin named Puli helps them find the home of Kenny’s

doctor friend. They learn that Murugan has not worked there for the past two years and that he

left the position for better wages at the Collector’s house. At the Collector’s, Murugan’s wife

informs them that Murugan has deserted her. Her older boy, their grandson, is thin with hunger.

Her starving baby is too little to be Murugan’s son. Rukmani sees that she and Nathan cannot

impose upon their daughter-in-law. They return to the temple, where food is distributed each

night to the destitute.

Rukmani and Nathan dream of home but have no means to make the trip. Rukmani tries

to get work as a letter reader but earns only enough to buy rice cakes. Puli take them to a stone

quarry where there is better-paying work. He helps them learn to break stones, and they come to

rely on him. They entrust him with their earnings, and, as they save, they begin to hope. One

evening, Rukmani splurges on extra food and toys for Puli and her grandson. When she returns

to Nathan at the temple, she expects him to be angry, but instead he is violently ill. During a

week of monsoon rains, Nathan continues to work in the quarry despite his fevers and chills.

One evening, after she gets paid, Rukmani begins to plan for a cart to take them home. Hurrying

to catch up with Nathan, she finds him collapsed in the mud in the street. Kind strangers help

carry him to the temple, where he dies in her arms after reminding her of their happiness

together. After his death, Rukmani rashly promises Puli his health if he returns to the country

with her, a promise Kenny and Selvam will help her keep. She introduces Puli to Selvam and Ira

as the son she and Nathan adopted while they were away. Demonstrating both hope and

compassion, Ira hastens to prepare a meal for Puli, and Selvam promises his mother they will

manage.

A theoretical approach to analyzing the literature produced in countries that were once

colonies, especially of European powers such as Britain, France, and Spain. Postcolonial theory

also looks at the broader interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized

by dealing with issues such as identity (including gender, race, and class), language,

representation, and history. Because native languages and culture were replaced or superseded

by European traditions in colonial societies, part of the post colonialist project is reclamation.

Acknowledging the effect of colonialism’s aftermath its language, discourse, and cultural

institutions—has led to an emphasis on hybridity, or the mingling of cultural signs and practices

between colonizer and colonized. The Palestinian American cultural critic Edward Said was a

major figure of postcolonial thought, and his book Orientalism is often credited as its founding
 5

text. Other important postcolonial critics include Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,

and Frantz Fanon.

This novel also portrays about the effects of post colonialism, because this novel clearly

portrays about the problems faced by the people in that village people due to post colonialism.

The person who plays as a post colonial figure was Dr Kennington and the thing that denotes the

post colonial figure was the tannery industry which means the skin industry. The effect of post

colonialism was takes place to Rukmani’s family, because her family only faced lots and lots of

problems due to post colonialism. Before the colonisation takes place in that village Rukmani

and her family lives a happy life with their own agricultural land but when the colonisation takes

place in that village the happy life of Rukmani’s family got disappeared. After the colonisation

Rukmani lead a painful tragic life. Her daughter Irawadi involves herself into prostitution.

Through prostitution she gave birth to the child called Sacrabani. Her son Raja was died due to

the tannery industry and another son Kutti was died due to the deficiency of vitamins. Her one of

the son Murugan moves to urban side and lives an awkward life. The tragic end of Rukmani’s

life was she lost her husband Nathan in urban side and she lived her life with her prostitute

daughter Irawadi and her son Sacrabani and her one of the son Selvam adapted child puli.
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CHAPTER – 2

THE POST COLONIAL ASPECTS IN KAMALA MARKANDAYA’S

NECTAR IN A SIEVE

The chapter studies Kamala Markandaya’s novels from a postcolonial perspective. The

post-1945 period of anti-colonial and usually nationalist upsurge produced the first literature

which invites the name postcolonial, in the words of Elleke Boehmer, “was a literature which

identified itself with the broad movement of resistance to, and transformation of colonial

societies.” In the post-colonial era, writers of the once colonized countries have expressed the

imperative need to help change the colonized world by rewriting their history, telling their own

stories, waging a battle of the mind with colonialism by re-educating readers. To a certain extent,

Markandaya has done her part in using India, Indian culture, beliefs, myths, and Indian values

for the foreign readers, and writing in a way she would like the non-Indian readers to perceive

India. Thus, incorporating indigenous cultural material, defiant of western authority, the post-

colonial quest seeks mastery not in the first instance over land or other people, but over history

and self.

Post-colonialism refers to a set of theories in philosophy and literature that grapple

with the legacy of colonial rule. As a literary theory, it deals with literature produced in countries

that were once colonies of other countries. It may also deal with literature written in or by

citizens of colonizing countries that take colonies or their people as their subject matter. Post-

colonialism may mean many issues for societies that have undergone colonialism: The dilemmas

of developing a national identity in the wake of colonial rule, the ways in which writers from

colonized countries attempt to articulate and reclaim them from the colonizers, the ways

knowledge of colonized people have served the interests of colonizers, and how knowledge of

subordinate people is produced and used, and the ways in which the literature of the colonial
 7

powers is used to justify colonialism through the perpetration of images of the colonized as

inferior. In this regards, Edward Said line from the introduction to Orientalism comes to mind:

“The relationship between Occident and orient is a relationship of power, of

domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony...”Creating a binary

oppositions structure, distinctions were made between the oriental and the westerner:

one being emotional, the other being rational This opposition was used to justify a

destiny to rule on behalf of the colonizer, or as is popularly known as ‘white man’s

burden.”

Postcolonial writing requires a comparative framework based on some common ground

shared by all postcolonial literature. This is provided by the concept of a ‘common colonial

experience’ that is held to be the determining force to shape postcolonial literature as such. The

term “postcolonial” according to Bill Ashcroft et al., “cover all cultures affected by the imperial

process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is because there is a continuity

of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial aggression.”

Thus post-colonial literature deals with the world as it exists during and after the period of

European imperial domination and the effects of this on contemporary culture and literatures.

These literatures have their own special and distinctive regional characteristics. Besides, another

feature of such literatures is that they emerged in their present form out of the experience of

colonization and asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power and

by emphasizing their differences from assumptions of the imperial centre. This also makes them

distinctively post-colonial. Literatures of former colonized countries like African countries,

Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Caribbean countries, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand,

Pakistan, Singapore, South Pacific Island countries and Sri Lanka are all post-colonial

literatures.

Though not all post-colonial writings are the same, there are some common features and

themes that are similar for most post-colonial writings. The dominance or control over language
 8

is an important and inevitable feature of imperial oppression. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and

Helen Tiffin in The Empire Writes Back writes, “The imperial education system installs a

‘standard’ version of the metropolitan language as the norm, and marginalizes all ‘variants’ as

impurities.” Colonized people responded to the colonial legacy by writing back to the centre.

This came about as indigenous people became educated and began to write their own histories,

their own legacy. They used the colonizer’s language for their own purposes. The language in

which the post-colonial writers write is either by a total abrogation or denial of the English

language or by appropriating the language. As language functions as a medium of power, post-

colonial writing defines itself by seizing the language of the centre and replacing it in a discourse

fully adapted to the colonized place.

Bill Ashcroft et. al describes two distinct process in which post-colonial writing does

this. “The first, the abrogation or denial of the privilege of ‘English’ involves a rejection of the

metropolitan power over the means of communication. The second, appropriation and

reconstitution of the language of the centre, the process of capturing and remolding the language

to new usages.” Almost all the writers from the former British colonies have accepted and

appropriated the English language according to their suited conditions and environment.

Markandaya wrote in the English language like most other Indian writers by appropriating the

language of the imperial centre to describe appropriately the culture and sensitivity of India and

Indians in most of her novels. Most of the post-colonial writers belong to the literate elite and

wrote in the language of the empire. But these writers need to undergo a thorough study of their

national traditions which become the first and most vital stage in the process of rejecting the

claims of the centre to exclusivity. They also try to give voice to formerly suppressed people.

One can also say that it is a literature of protest and resistance which in the beginning started as a

nationalist literature. It can be said that the major theme of literatures from post-colonial

countries can be taken as resistance to the former colonizer and that the writers who write back

to the centre represent the people of their society authentically.

Another concern is the development or recovery of an effective identifying relationship

between self and place giving rise to the special post-colonial crisis of identity. Markandaya’s

The Nowhere Man is a perfect example for this special post-colonial crisis of identity. Thematic

parallels are found across the different post-colonial literatures in English. For example, the

theme of the celebration of the struggle for independence emerges in novels as diverse as Raja

Rao’s Kanthapura, Ngugi’s A Grain o f Wheat, Reid’s New Day and Markandaya’s Some Inner

Fury and The Golden Honeycomb', the theme of the dominating influence of a foreign culture on

the life of contemporary post-colonial societies is present in Achebe’s No Longer at Ease,

Lamming’s In the Castle o f my Skin and in Markandaya’s Some Inner Fury, Possession and

Two Virgins.

Themes with a powerful metonymic force are seen to emerge in postcolonial

literatures. For example, the construction or demolition of houses or buildings in post-colonial

locations is a recurring and evocative motif. The destruction of farmland and dwelling houses for

the construction of a tanning factory, destruction of native huts for construction of coffer dams,

the construction of pleasure complex or luxury hotels in place of the dwelling houses of the

fisher folks etc. are seen in Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve, The Coffer Dams and Pleasure City

respectively. Another theme is that of the journey of the European interloper through unfamiliar

landscape with a native guide. This is found in many post-colonial texts as wide ranging as

Wilson Harris’s Palace o f the Peacock, Patrick Whites’ Voss to name a few. One finds a similar

situation in Markandaya’s Coffer Dams where an English woman, Helen takes an Indian native,

Bashiam to guide her in a hunting expedition in one of the unfamiliar forest region of India. In

another novel Possession, the protagonist, Lady Caroline Bell takes an Indian, Anasuya to guide

her through the remote Indian villages.

Similarities across different post-colonial literatures do not end with thematic parallels;

they extend to certain features such as a distinctive use of allegory, irony, magic realism, and

discontinuous narratives. Another feature is that most post-colonial writers often move to
 10

England or North America. They may have been exiled, or because they find a more receptive

audience there, or simply in search of a more comfortable mode of living. As for Markandaya,

she left India for England at the age of 24, after her marriage to a fellow journalist, John Taylor.

The novels written in India or about India by the whites in colonial period deliver a

strong indictment of the moral character of the East India Company officers or their white

counterparts. Indians themselves are no more than massed shadowy figures in the background.

The Europeans represented the people who inhabited the lands they claimed as “the natives, the

colonized, and the subaltern.” While the Indians are protagonists occupying centre stage and the

whites lose their stature and esteem in Markandaya s novels. There are scenes of protests against

unequal distribution of power and wealth, and of mass independence movements in A Handful

of Rice, Some Inner Fury and The Golden Honeycomb of Kamala Markandaya as well as in Raja

Rao’s Kanthapura (1938) and Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie (1936). There is no distinction between

castes nor clan nor family when it comes to resisting the empirial government in these novels.

R.K Narayan on the other hand, writing in English like the others, ignored the British in his early

novels and thus keeping them marginal. Far removed is Frantz Fanon, the leading anti-colonial

thinker who radically invoked the self-determining powers of colonized peoples. In his major

work of revolutionary politics, The Wretched o f the Earth (1961), Fanon called for the entire

structure of colonial society to be changed from the bottom up, violently. For him, to decolonize

thoroughly meant that the indigenous be forcibly substituted for the alien, in literature as in life.

Indians writing in English practices a different approach of decolonizing. They have adopted the

language of the emperial centre inducting in different Indian words, phrases and idioms

according to their suitability and availability. Indianizing the English is what these writers have

done. They do not call for a radical change like Fanon. Instead they have even adopted and

accepted what is thought to be practical and rational in customs, dress and habits of the English

while insisting that Indian faith and ethics remain superior to Western rationality and reasoning.
 11

Post-colonialism and feminism have something in common. In postcolonial societies

the colonized are relegated or oppressed and marginalized just as women in many societies have

been relegated and oppressed. In a colonial society, if the strengthening of patriarchy within the

family became one way for colonized men to assert their otherwise eroded power, women’s

writings often testify to the confusion and pain that accompanied these enormous changes. Even

the nationalist male who wants to fashion his wife into new role including her education and

freedom from older orthodoxies also want to fashion her into a fresh subservience. The position

and function of women for a colonialist as well as nationalist is rightly expressed in Ania

Loomba’s words. She says:

“ Women are not just a symbolic space but real targets of

colonialist and nationalist discourses. Their subjection and the

appropriation of their work is crucial to the workings of the

colony or the nation. Thus, despite their other differences, and

despite their contests over native women, colonial and

indigenous patriarchies often collaborated to keep women in

their place.”

Millions of women took part in anti-colonial struggles. Most of them were not feminist,

nor did they necessarily perceive a tension between their own struggles and those of their

community at large. Women’s struggles for equality continue even after formal independence as

their position in pre colonial as well as post-colonial period remained more or less the same. It is

for this same reason that writings of women who worked alongside, within or in opposition to

the nationalist and anti-colonial movements have become increasingly available for feminist

scholars.

All over the world, especially in the Indian sub-continent, when a woman begins to

write, she is reversing the power balance and committing an act of transgression against the

conventional social codes. She has trespassed into the male intellectual bastion and thereby
 12

aroused a silent hostility. The act of writing for a woman is essentially an act of breaking her

silence because her repressive patriarchal/racial society has taught her to be culturally silent. The

feminine is essentially the marginalized consciousness that operates on the periphery of

patriarchal discourse. Post-colonial women’s writing speaking from seeming silence has not

been confined to studies from life alone. As Elleke Boehmer states that “In novels, short stories,

poems, plays, postcolonial women have for decades sought to overturn preconceptions of the

Third World women’s experience as uniformly degraded, passively oppressed, or lacking in

powers of self determination.”

Like many other schools of thought- Marxist, Gramscian, Faucauldian and various

feminist schools, Kamala Markandaya shows a determination to analyze unjust power

relationship in her novels. She too considers herself engaged and committed to some variety or

other of the liberation process. Her novels attempt to define relationships between the settler or

colonial invader races and groups and the first nation races and groups which articulated the

newly emergent voices of nationhood after colonialism. The desire of the colonizer for the

colony is transparent enough, but it is much more different to account for the inverse longing of

the colonized.

The Indian English novel has been more obsessed with cultural interaction between the

East and the West. The encounter examines, “the mutual contagion and subtle intimacies

between colonizer and colonized.” Some outstanding writers who have explored cultural

interactions between the East and the West and the transcultural dynamics of the colonial

encounter are Raja Rao, R.K. Narayan, Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai, Ruth Jhabvala and a

few more. The ever expanding European empire conquered and ruled over many countries of the

world. They were far superior in their knowledge about themselves and the rest of the world. It

was only natural that they considered the conquered or colonised people inferior to them. Seeing

them live in a less civilized and less human manner, they were considered to be wild savage

without a ray of civilization. The natives were perceived whether they had souls or minds, minds
 13

capable of adult growth. This mental state is found in the whites who appear in Markandaya’s

novels.

In the novels of Markandaya, we find the Westerner put in a whole series of possible

relationships with the Indians without ever losing him the relative upper hand. The English who

are more educated and well equipped with knowledge of the world at large though small in

number, ruled over the ignorant Indians. Edward Said has rightly said, “To have such knowledge

of such a thing is to dominate it, to have authority over it.” An account of Cromer mentions what

Sir Alfred Lyall once said to him: “Accuracy is abhorrent to the Oriental mind. Every Anglo-

Indian should remember that maxim.” This lack of accuracy and reasoning may be due to lack of

knowledge which in turn may be due to lack of education and backwardness. The Orient’s lack

of knowledge about the world and about themselves served as a fitting condition for the all

powerful and learned conquerors who had come to exploit the weaker race. The relation

developed between the oriental-European naturally could never be on equal terms. The colonist

exercised their superiority over the colonised. Theirs is a relation opposite to one another. When

one is the master, the other is the slave or when one is rational and wise, the other is irrational

and stupid. These are the elements Markandaya ingrains in her characters, the whites and the

Indians and shows the different facets of their love-hate, master-slave relationships in her ten

novels which will be studied one after the other.

Markandaya’s first novel Nectar in a Sieve captures the dichotomy between the

fatalism, spiritualism and idealism of the East and the pragmatism, materialism, and

individualism of the West. It is a conflict between the tradition and change, the rural and the

urban, the agrarian and the industrial. While Rukmani and Nathan, the landless, poor tenant

farmers represents the poor, passive, submissive and patient East, Dr. Kennington the English

doctor, stands for the rational, enlightened, active, and dominant West. Markandaya’s close

contact and intimate relationship with both oriental and occidental values of life give her a rare

advantage as the presence of two cultures in one mind. This forms a wider and therefore a saner
 14

basis with which to originate the quest for identity, and that the discordance between these

cultures can be creative as well as merely confusing.

In Nectar in a Sieve, the quiet and serene life of the village is disturbed and everything

in it changes with the construction of a tannery. Like a mythical demon the whole village is

devoured by the tannery that turns it into a spiritual wasteland. The change from a peaceful

serene village

life to the chaos of a developing township is clear from the picture shown in the line: “Now it is

all noise and crowds everywhere, and rude young hooligans idling in the street and dirty bazaari

and uncouth behavior, and no man thinks of another but schemes only for his money.” (NIS: 46)

Nathan is left homeless being uprooted from the land while the inexorable laws of

necessity and destitution forced his daughter, Ira into prostitution. The tannery has given jobs to

many but it has also left many homeless. The poor villagers are exploited with no adequate

wages and the time-honored peasant code is destroyed with no substitute.

The younger generations are not as submissive and fatalistic as the older has been. The

two elder sons of Nathan and Rukmani - Arjun and Thambi want more from life. They do not

want to suffer meekly as their parents did. Their work and pay at the tannery do not satisfy them

anymore. They leave for Ceylon to work in the tea plantations there, for they are offered more

money. This is much to the displeasure of the parents for Rukmani knows very well that she will

not see them anymore. Nathan realizes they have made their decision and will not listen to his

pleading. They argue: “There is nothing for us here, for we have neither the means to buy land

nor to rent it. Would you have us wasting our youth chafing against things we cannot change?”

(NIS: 68) And in a way, this is true for they have nothing at all. Nathan’s younger son, Selvam’s

eyes smolders with anger and hatred when he comes to know that his father has been evicted

from the land and so he asks: “you have accepted it? But Nathan’s concept is totally different,

his simple reply is: “what options have I, my son"(NIS: 68). The sympathetic Western doctor

Kenny is also affected by India’s grinding poverty though it is the West that is in many ways
 15

responsible for it. He too “has no patience with the passivity of the starving and suffering

villages for the amelioration of whose miseries he works indefatigably.” Kenny tells Rukmani:

“You must cry out if you want help. It is no use whatsoever to suffer in silence. Who will succor

the drowning man if he does not clamor for his life?” (NIS: 113)

He is moved by the suffering Indians and very often exhorts them to agitate for better

conditions of life. Rukmani’s meek acceptance of fate and every misfortune without a word of

protest and her hope that times will be better angers Kenny and leaves him disgusted for his face

grew grim and long and shouts at her

“Times are better, times are better.... Times will not be better

for many months. Meanwhile you will suffer and die, you

meek suffering fools. Why do you keep this ghastly silence?

Why do you not demand - cry out for help - do something?

There is nothing in this country, oh God, there is nothing!” (NIS: 44)

Dr. Kennington belongs to the privileged class of the whites but he has sacrificed his

life for the poor Indians. He is sympathetic and kind and at the same time, cannot bear to see the

meek acceptance of fate. His better learning and status in life enables him to offer his ideas and

knowledge especially to Rukmani with whom he shares a close affinity. As always, when the

East meets the West, there is always a difference in opinion and points of view. This may be

because of their difference in knowledge and upbringing. Family ties matter a lot for Rukmani

and marriage is a sacrament which cannot be easily abandoned. She could even forgive Nathan,

her husband who has fathered the two older sons of Kunthi. On the other hand, marriage seems

only a contract for when asked, Dr. Kenny tells Rukmani: “My wife has left me, my sons have

been taught to forget me.” The East leans on its spirituality, cultural strength and strong

family ties though the West may be more developed or practical or materially wealthy.

The novelist has made Rukmani, the protagonist, narrate the tale, in order to show the

subtle intensities of the moving fabric. She has made a woman the central character because she
 16

knows that woman is at the centre of the socio-economic structure of the Indian peasant families.

Rukmani is a symbol of an Indian rural woman.

Rukmani’s views are reflections of typical socio-cultural ethos which is designed to

make an Indian woman accommodative, obedient, inoffensive and easily happy with her lot. The

story takes place in one of the small south Indian villages of India. Rukmani, the youngest of the

four daughters of a once wealthy village headman is married to a tenant farmer, Nathan, who is

poor in all respects. By the time Rukmani is married, the heydays of her father had come to an

end resulting in her marriage to a poor peasant. Rukmani becomes the victim of the dowry

system as her father is unable to pay her dowry. The fourteen year old Rukmani comes to her

new home, the sight of which sends a chill down her spine. “This mud hut, nothing but mud and

thatch was my home.” She could not adjust herself to such a poor family condition and

surroundings. But when she comes to know that the hut has been built by her husband with his

own hands, her fear and humiliation turn into pride. The Indian dowry system throws her in

poverty and the Indian value system makes her to accept it as her fate.

The first six years of married life are spent without much complexity. However with the

birth of every child they are thrown into deeper levels of poverty. Rukmani says, “‘we no longer

had milk in the house except for the youngest child; curds and butter were beyond our means

apart from on rare occasions” (NIS 24). Till the birth of the sixth child their economic condition

worsens to such an extent that they have to remain half fed, though not starving, till they started

growing vegetables in their own field. The rise in prices of the essential commodities compels

them to sell the cattle. When Irrawaddy, her only daughter turns fourteen she is married to a

landless laborer. The family spent all their savings on her marriage. Unfortunately the flood

destroys their crops in the same year and they have no other way but to survive on roots, leaves

and plantain till the next harvest. To make the matters worse, four years after her marriage, Ira

returns to her parents as her husband abandons her for not giving him an heir.
 17

Arjun and Thambi, Rukmani’s two sons, start working in a tannery and improve their

economic condition. But soon they lose their jobs and go to Ceylon in search of daily bread. The

rains fail that year. As a tenant, Nathan, husband of Rukmani, is compelled to pay the tenant

rental in order to continue to keep the tenant-farming land. For this they sell their household

materials and bullocks. Rukmani’s third son Raja dies of brutal beating by the tannery

watchmen. The condition of the youngest child Kutti becomes more and more critical. Ira

becomes a prostitute to save her brother; her sacrifice, however, fails to save Kutti. Old Granny,

a well wisher of Rukmani’s family, also dies of hunger in the street.vThe novel appears circular

in structure as the story ends where it begins. Bhagwat Goyal in his book Culture and

Commitment rightly says that it indicates the endless cycle of misery and deficiency in which

India’s rural and urban poor are eternally trapped.

All the members of Nathan and Rukmani’s family contribute to the realistic depiction

of the poor and suffering in India. So the novel, rightly described as ‘a novel of rural India’ is an

authentic picture of the Indian rural society, in which most people lived in continuous poverty

and hunger and often died of hunger. However, M. K. Naik in A History of Indian English

Literature says that “Rukmani’s village exists only in the expatriate’s imagination of her

creator” This position is not valid. Those who have been part of the period depicted in the novel

(and there are thousands of people of that period still alive), do remember the horrid conditions

of landless tenant farmers. Their suffering is well-recorded in realistic fiction in various Indian

languages. Modern Tamil fiction in the hands of progressive writers such as Jayakanthan depicts

the miserable lives of the landless workers, coolies and others.

The novel deals with a number of themes such as beggary, prostitution, lack of family

planning, zamindari system, dowry system, superstitions, low status of women and evils of

marriage system. Parvati Misra in her Class Consciousness in the Novels of Kamala

Markandaya observes: Nectar in a Sieve is a vivid record of the hungry rural peasantry whose
 18

life is afflicted by the existing social institutions and rituals such as child marriage, widowhood,

and negligence of female child, slavery, landlessness, casteism and illiteracy.”(Misra 2)

An old woman, Rukmani, who had lost her husband and five of her six sons, who live

in her mud thatched hut, narrates her tremendously tender life’s story which fills us with deep

sorrow. Being a daughter of this soil, she knows what it means to be poor. She considers it as the

‘sixth great sin’. Poverty breeds hunger. Anil Kumar Bhatnagar in his Kamala Markandaya: A

Thematic Study says, “she makes her readers understand the true meaning of hunger and

starvation. True one cannot judge the impact of hunger and starvation without passing through

the terrible ordeal of being hungry. Markandaya lived in South-Indian villages and shared the

sufferings of villagers as independent observer.” (Bhatnagar 21) She shows her minute

observation of the effects of hunger on the human body and the human mind. Rukmani says, for

hunger is a inquisitive thing: at first it is with you all the time, walking and sleeping and in your

dreams, and your belly cries out insistently and there is a gnawing and a pain as if your very

vitals were being devour, and you must stop it at any cost, and you buy a moment’s respite even

while you know and fear the sequel. Then the pain is no longer sharp but dull and this too is with

you always, so that you think of food many times a day and each time a terrible sickness assails

you, and because you know this, you try to avoid the thought, but you cannot, it is with you.

Then that too is gone, all pain all desire only a great emptiness is left, like the sky, like a

well in draught and it is now that the strength drains from your limbs and you try to rise and find

you cannot, or to swallow water and your throat is powerless and both the swallow and the effort

of retaining the liquid, tax you to the uttermost(NIS 87 – 88 ). Markandaya gives a thorough

account of the efforts of farmers and landless labor to make their two ends meet till the next

harvest.

The youngest Kutti could not digest the things brought by the elders to eat. Being a

weak child he suffers. Rukmani says, at first he asked for rice-water and cried because there was

none. But later he gave up asking and merely cried. Even in his sleep he whimpered, twisting
 19

andturning endlessly, permitting no one to rest (NIS 88). All of them become so weak that on the

death of Raja, her son, Rukmani does not cry and does not allow her daughter to cry. She says,

“What are you crying for? ... you have little enough strength, without dissolving it in tears” (NIS

89)

It is hunger which provokes Kunthi to blackmail Rukmani. But through some characters

like Irawaddy, Markandaya wants to project that not all choose the immoral path to overcome

their poverty. Ira’s choice of prostitution is not due to her hunger but to save her brother’s life.

Even in the direst poverty, Rukmani does not lose her morality. She shows her willingness to

share her meals with her neighbour Kunthi. She even adopts a poor orphan child. Markandaya

tries to show that lack of family planning is one of the reasons of poverty in rural India. When

Rukmani gets married, they have enough to eat and store. But with the growing number of

children poverty also grows.

Markandaya also succeeds to portray the feudal exploitation, an important characteristic

of rural India. Nathan is compelled to pay the land taxes of the Zamindar, even after the failure

of the harvest. After nature’s wrath, human assault comes as a wild shock. The landlord orders

Nathan to vacate the land within two weeks. The tenant who has been tilling the land for more

than thirty years is asked to vacate it within two weeks, without any compensation or any

provision for his future. The land is sold to the tannery owner without the consent of the tenant.

Nathan mutely succumbs to the exploitation.

Nathan symbolizes the plight of the Indian peasants when Rukmani says, “to those who

live by the land there must always come time of hardship of fear and of hunger, even as there are

years of plenty. This is one of the truths of our existence as those who live by the land know:

that sometimes we eat and sometimes we starve. We live by our labors from one harvest to the

next, there is no certain telling whether we shall be able to feed ourselves and our children and if

bad times are prolonged we know we must see the weak surrender their lives and this fact, too, is

within our experience. In our life there is no margin for misfortune (NIS 134 – 135 ).
 20

Rukmani’s son, the representative of the younger generation, expresses his anger over

the exploitation but keeps mum when Nathan expresses his helplessness for not having any law

against it. He says, “We may grieve, but there is no redress” (NIS 136). Rukmani blames the

tannery for their exploitation. The tannery becomes the symbol of economic or industrial

exploitation. Shiv K. Kumar in his essay “Tradition and Change in novels of Kamala

Markandaya” compares it with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. He says, Rukmani, “the

devoted wife of a tenant farmer, living in the soul of quietude of her little village, suddenly finds

within this garden of Eden a serpent in the form of a tannery that begins to rear its ugly head,

devouring green open spaces, pollute the clean, wholesome atmosphere and tempting simple

gullible peasants into greed, ambitions and immorality” (Kumar 205).

Through the character of Nathan, Markandaya shows the picture of Indian peasant at

the advent of Industrialization. Industrialization makes peasants landless. Peasants know no

other skills but for tilling the land. Industrialization makes them rush to the towns and cities. But

due to their illiteracy and lack of any other skill they either turn beggars or die. When Nathan

becomes landless he goes to the town. He loves his land more than anything else. Knowing no

other skills, he becomes helpless when he is compelled to live in the town. He dies on the very

day they plan to return. His fight against poverty and hunger comes to an end only with his

unfortunate death. Markandaya thus succeeds in proving through this novel that it is the

socioeconomic state that is answerable for various kinds of social evils.

The author’s closeness to the central character makes Nectar in a Sieve ‘a veritable saga

of successful womanhood.’ Most women in fiction and in real life have to struggle with

conflicting situations. The Indian woman is caught in the flux of tradition and modernity - the

burden of the past and the aspirations of the future. The novel shows that the Indian woman -

passive or aggressive, traditional or modern serves to reflect the author’s quest for psychological

insight and awareness. The figure of the Indian woman represented by Rukmani, with her inner

power and honesty, paving her own resolute way through an exploiting, biased world, serves as
 21

an inspiring light of hope. Kamala Markandaya has a message for the new generation. Woman is

not an island; she is the main land, the heart land of the human race.

Kamala Markandaya Novels deal with the theme of Tradition and Modernity. The term

tradition signifies certain customs, habits, tastes, beliefs and opinions which have been prevalent

in the countries for a long time, which consequently acquires a contextual value. A society is

considered to be traditional if its behavior is governed by customs and traditions. On the other

hand Modernity implies a gradual change in the attitudes, ideas, and beliefs of the people

generated by the Urbanization, Science and Technology advancement in India. Modernization in

India is basically an offshoot of Industrialization and westernization introduces a new society.

The external distinctive characteristic of modernity is felt in the hysterical process of

industrialization. The growth of industrialization means in the Indian context, the peasants being

uprooted from their land and their surroundings, the oppression of common workers and the

vulgarization of their traditional life and their ancient culture. People who have so far adhered to

deep rooted cultural habits are caught unawares by the sudden intrusion of modernization and its

evil impact. The remarkable quality that distinguishes Kamala Markandaya from her

contemporary writers is her sharp awareness of the shift in values that has been taking place in

the post – colonial India.

The conflict between Tradition and Modernity forms a main thematic concern in the

novels of Kamala Markandaya. She is aware of the tensions and conflicts caused by the

technological invasion and urbanization on the traditional agrarian community. The Novel

reflects the authors concern with the evil effects of Industrialization on the agrarian Indian

society and the resultant social, economic and political subversion. She voices her genuine

concern in her novels over the degradation in human values in the wake of industrialization.

Modernity always appears in her novels as the worst epidemic in Modern India. She

censures ruthlessly the very process of modernization which is devoid of concern for human

values. Nectar in a Sieve (1954) portrays the picture of the peasant’s life, their toil, their
 22

sufferings, and their agonies of industrialization, which ruins the age-old village structure. The

Novel depicts the life of Indian villages standing at the periphery of urban civilization. It depicts

the sufferings of a peasant family Rukmani and Nathan. Rukmani is a daughter of village

headman is married to a tenant farmer Nathan, who is poor but an affectionate husband.

Rukmani makes a heaven out of the ordinary surroundings. She spends her day by

watching the serene atmosphere of village. The change came blasting in their lives, in the form

of the Tannery, a symbol of industrialization. The peaceful life of them was first and foremost

affected with the advent of industrialization. The Tannery brings greater hardships and adversity

in the life of villagers. The Tannery is a symbol of mechanical power destroys the traditional

village. Hunger raises its ugly head and it envelops the peace and joy of their life.

Industry is the first gift of the Western Knowledge and Culture. Though it is necessary

for the development of a nation yet it was the first assault on the innocence of Indian Life.

Rukmani is not prepared to accept the tannery because the tannery disturbs the tranquil

atmosphere of the countryside with its noise, foul smell and crowds. It will jeopardize the

blissful and the harmonious life of the village. The tannery not only disrupts the ecology, but

also the economy of village. The entire business of village collapses due to the establishment of

the tannery. The businessmen of the village raise their prices in order to exploit the situation. To

Rukmani the tannery exemplifies city, modernization, exploitation of the poor laborers and

finally the complete destruction of the village community.

The tannery is the main cause of the absolute disintegration of Rukmani’s family. When

the family is on the verge of starvation Rukmani’s two sons joined the tannery despite their

mothers’ strong opposition. The Tannery is totally responsible for their turning away from their

traditional job of cultivation of the land. It has also inculcated a craving for money in villages.

Those who have belonged to the earth, so far begins to have a sense of belonging to the machine.

The Tannery is quite responsible for the debasement of Ira, the daughter of Rukmani and

Nathan; she is forced to take prostitution in order to save her younger brother, Kutti from
 23

starvation. Rukmani laments; “Ira had ruined herself at the hands of the throngs that the tannery

attracted .None but these would have laid hands on her, even at her bidding” (NIS: 136).

The tannery not only ruins the family of Rukmani and Nathan but also it brings

destruction to other families also. Unable to compete with other business people, the villagers

quit the village in order to earn their livelihood somewhere else. Murugan, the son of Rukmani

and Nathan also leave the village for the city in search of a job, there he gets married without

permission of his parents, and since his marriage is not traditional he deserts his wife and

children and begins to live with another woman. Finally the establishment of tannery has led to

the complete disintegration of the family of Nathan and Rukmani. The land which they have

been cultivating for nearly three decades has been purchased by the tannery owners at a high

price from the landlords. They suffer a lot when they are asked to move out of the land. Though

Nathan is a tenant farmer, he is very much attached to the land, he feels desperate when the land.

is being taken away from him. Nathan sadly articulates "Where are we to go? What shall we do?

(NIS: 133) No doubt the breakdown of such well-established family affects the lives of the

villagers. The powerful words of Rukmani in connection with the evils of industrialization

deserve to be mentioned here:

“Somehow I had always felt the tannery would eventually be our undoing. I

had known it since the day carts had come with their loads of bricks and noisy

dusty men.... It had changed the face of our village beyond our recognition

and altered the lives of its inhabitants in myriad ways.... My sons had left

because it frowned on them. One of them had been destroyed by its

ruthlessness. And there were others its touch had scathed. Janaki and her

family, the hapless Kannan, Kunthi even”. (NIS: 63)

Rukmani becomes pathetic when her land is forcibly taken from her. While feeling

extremely sorry for her desperate condition. She says, "This hut with all its memories was to be

taken from us, for it stood on land that belonged to another. And the land itself by which we
 24

lived. It is a cruel thing I thought.” (NIS: 132) After eviction from the land, Rukmani and Nathan

are forced to migrate to the urban society where their son lives, but owing to their futile attempt

at finding out their son, they both enter the occupation of breaking stones in quarry. Unable to

cope with the work Nathan dies and Rukmani returns to the village. Kamala Markandaya makes

it very clear that Rukmani and Nathan happen to be the desperate victims of Nature,

Industrialization and Zamindari system. Though the peasants who earn their livelihood by the

soil cannot be sure of a rich harvest every year, yet they can be hopeful of harvest because for

them the land symbolizes hope. But as a victim of Modern technology is assaulted by agents of

implacable & unrelenting factors

While excoriating the evils of industrialization Kamala Markandaya does not fail to

strike both at nature and at landlordism in rural India. Pointing out the disastrous vagaries of

nature on a peasant’s life. Rukmani says:

“Nature is like a wild animal that you have trained to work for you. So long as

you are vigilant and walk warily with thought and care, so long will it give

you its aid; but look away for an instant, be heedless or forgetful, and it has

you by the throat." (NIS: 43)

Thus through Rukmani, Kamala Markandaya presents a powerful criticism of

Industrialization and its intrusion on a traditional village which is a symbolic/symbol of Rural

India. The novel clearly depicts the inevitable changes brought by the modernization. Many

critics of the Novel see it as the presentation of the conflict between tradition life and modern

Industrialization. They consider that Rukmani, devoted wife of Nathan living a simple,

harmonious life suddenly finds herself in troubles in the form of a tannery that begins to occupy

green open spaces, polluting the environment and tempting the simple peasants into greed.

In the novel the west is represented by the Dr.Kennington (Kenny), an English medical

Missionary called as Kenny by the villagers affectionately. He is a philanthropist. He is a great

humanitarian, out of love and pity for the poor and suffering people of India he has sacrificed all
 25

his pleasures of home. He renders service to the rural folk and helps them to overcome their

miseries. He also cures Rukmani and her daughter Ira of their bareness with his medical

treatment. In order to serve the people better he builds a modern hospital. His services are very

much rewarded and he is very much admired and adored by the villagers.

Kamala Markandaya understands the complexities of present life. She is fully aware of

the inescapable demands of modernization. She feels that change is inevitable and the entire

world is running behind the technology, every society ought to wake up from its slumbering

state and try to enter the stream of modern life.

In Nectar in a Sieve Rukmani cannot understand the sudden tangible force of

industrialization and therefore she derogates the technological invasion. Though Kamala

Markandaya uses Rukmani to attack the intrusion of modern technology, she makes use of

another character, namely, Dr.Kenny to build a hospital with modern facilities to cure the

diseases of villagers. If Rukmani happens to be the symbol of modernity, Dr.Kenny is a symbol

of Modernity in positive aspects. If the tannery stands for destruction, the hospital built by

Dr.Kenny stands for the preservation of life. What Kamala Markandaya tries to say in her novel

is aptly summed up by Hari Jai Singh in his book, ‘India Between Dream and Reality’. He

remarks, "A rich tradition can well be an integral part of modernity. Both can co- exist and

supplement each other. It is a matter of adjustment Modernization can be adapted to an extent

desirable, depending on the need & receptivity of a society".

The imbalanced deforestation by the colonizer mildly impacts the economic interest of

those categories of society, who are basically the women and tribal groups, the livelihood of

whom completely depends on the balanced ecosystem. Their continual effort to survive

considerably developed a natural instinct among them to protect the environment. Especially,

soil and water stabilization, and the provision of food, fodder, fuel, and fertilizer are the most

valuable assets for those groups of people. Moreover, in the present world, numerous obstacles

encountering third world women are the consecutive fate of colonial mergers between the first
 26

and third worlds. Colonization is considered as accountable not only for subjecting third world

women but also demolishing and scrounging the natural resources which are divine and

earnestly preserved by the third world native community. Rukmani, after her marriage, happily

learns the chores of peasants and passionately embraces the life and works as a peasant woman.

Usually the rural people manage their food and expenditure from tilling; most of the

families in Nectar in a Sieve are also involved with this occupation. But they start encountering

the natural disasters and losing their land gradually due to the impact of utmost industrialization.

The principles of village trade are influenced by the neo colonial rule. The landowners seize the

crops or money from foodless indigent farmers who cannot even manage their everyday meals.

The young boys start working in the factory for prosperity leaving their patriarchal profession of

tilling. After being abounded by the tannery Rukmani’s two sons cannot get back to their land,

they leave village for working in the tea garden, which create another scope of being exploited

by the neo-colonial concept of development.

CHAPTER – 3

CONCLUSION

An attempt is made here to highlight the insides received from this study of the use of

ironic vision in Markandayas novels by way of conclusion. The first section of the conclusion

recapitulates the observations made in the course of the present analysis regarding the use of

ironic vision in the novels of Kamala Markandaya. It will also reiterate the definition of irony

and elaborates different types of irony. Kamala Markandaya is not only the earliest Indian

woman novelist of significance; in fact, William Walsh calls her "the most gifted" of them. But

also one of the most distinguished writers on the literary scene today. Meenakshi Mukharjee

considers Markandaya as one of the prominent novelists from the commonwealth literary world.

Her fiction elaborates socio-cultural relations of the two countries because of her prolonged

residence in India as first home and England the second, which enabled her to bridge the gap.

She is aware of her indianness and the differences between acquired and inherited value system.

In her works she deals with various social problems.

Among her contemporary women writers she occupies an eminent place. Dr. A. V.

Krishna Rao considers Kamala Markandaya as the reflective writer who attempted to bring forth

the image of changing Indian society. As such, Markandaya merits special mention both by

virtue of the variety and complexity of her achievement. In her novels, she not only displays flair

for virtuosity that orders and patterns her feelings and ideas, resulting in the production of a truly

enjoyable work of art, but also more important, she projects the national image on many levels

of aesthetic awareness. The national consciousness of variety of forms with feminine sensibility

of modern woman is fully reflected in her novels.

Markandaya operates within the framework of the traditional novelist. A strong

narrative pattern, respect for chronology, distinct story element, sociological background and

linear development of plot are the distinguishing elements of her novels. She has used no

innovative technique in the construction of her plots. In 'Nectar in a Sieve, The Nowhere Man
 28

and Some Inner Fury, we observe a traditional pattern of plot. Her first novel, 'Nectar in a Sieve'

is well-structured though the structuring is done on a conventional pattern. Structure of the novel

is very definite as Rukmani's retrospection impresses a kind of pattern on it. She recounts her

past which, though dead, is still fresh in her troubled memory. The novelist has tried to establish

the coherence between the opening and the end of the novel. Rukmani looks at her life after her

husband's death. Thus the novel begins with nostalgic recollection of her husband and then her

entire past rolls before her eyes. In other novels the novelist uses organic plot and we notice a

causal link between events and characters.

One of the distinguished writers, Nayantara Sahgal has good words of praise for

Markandaya’s art of portraying characters. She states “Kamala Markandaya develops her

characters very well, more so than men writers, I am not saying that because I am a woman but

her characters seem to be made of flesh and blood." Though she does produce a variety of

characters in her novels, she picks up her characters from every class of society.

In ‘‘Nectar in a Sieve’’ Rukmani deals with the peasants' life while Possession throws

light on the aristocratic ways of rich people. In A Handful of Rice she observes the character of a

criminal like Damodar, In the Nowhere Man she highlights the ideal character of Srinivas who

believes in non-violence. Indeed, she does not choose any particular class for her

characterization. She sympathizes with the poor on the one hand but she does not ignore the

problems of the rich on the other. The Golden Honeycomb describes the problems of both the

classes. Thus she tries to draw her characters from every class of society. But one thing is quite

clear about her characterization. It is that her women characters are more powerful than her male

characters. Rukmani, Ira, Mira, Sarojini, Caroline, Jaya, Nalini, and Saroja are some of the

immortal women characters in Indo-English fiction. Shashi Iyer points out in this connection,

"The women novelists have made a definite contribution in their intuitive and clear perception of

woman's role in the present society. lhabwala gives a penetrating analysis of domestic fiction.
 29

Kamala Markandaya in her A Silence of Desire presents a subtle study of the husband-

wife relationship. Her most recent novel, Two Virgins (1973) sensitive portrayal of a girl's

growing awareness of the adult and the irrevocable loss of childhood world. As literature is the

mirror of life irony plays a very important role in it. Irony has become a strong medium to create

tragic effect. Kamala Markandaya, like the Greek tragedians, puts the responsibility of man's

misery on 'fate' that will not allow mortals to exercise free will successfully. Her characters are

the victims of the irony of life; of 'fate ' what happens to them is quite contrary to their wishes

and expectations. Since their happenings are not desired and unexpected they face sorrow and

sufferings.

The lives of Rukmani and Nathan become a tale of unexpected problems and

undesirable situations. Both of them are good at hearts; yet have to face the irony of fate. They

seem to become, plaything in the hands of cruel destiny. Rukmini, whose father was rich man,

thinks that she would be married like her three sisters. However she is forced to marry a poor

tenant farmer, Nathan. After the marriage, both Rukmani and Nathan lead a peaceful married life

though they are poor. Rukmani gives birth to a daughter, Irawady, while Nathan expects a son.

After the birth of Ira, Rukmini gives birth to Arjun, Thambi, Murugan Raja, Selvam and Kutti

Rukmini faces a number of difficulties in feeding her children.

This shows how nature has pivotal part in peasants’ life. Nathan and Rukmani are

usually crushed by the natural happenings. Sometimes it is heavy rain that ruins their fate and

another time draught becomes the case of their decline. After the marriage of Ira it rains so hard

that everywhere there is water. Both of them lose their peace of mind. Thus heavy rain ruins

them completely. Next year farmers have to face draught. Markandaya’s observation appears to

be realistic and factual while expressing views on Indians and the poverty in which they live.

The draught continues until the farmer’s conditions become more pathetic. One day it

rains but it is too late to support the farmers. Irrawaddy’s fate is the best example of irony of

fate. Since she is a barren lady, her husband rejects her and she comes back to her parents. After
 30

some days there is a draught and all the peasants are bound to starve. Ira loves her brother .so

much that she sells her body at the hands of tannery workers .in order to feed her younger

brothers. Irony of fate reaches its heights when that barren Ira becomes pregnant and gives birth

to an albino child. Nathan also becomes the instrument of irony of fate. He and his family face

the hard times caused by heavy rains or a severe draught, bony face starvation, live on grass and

will plant, sell their goods in order to pay off the dues of the landlords and saves their lands.

They are happy at the prospect of a good crop, the unexpected again happens. Their

land is swallowed by the tannery. The landlord sells it to the tannery at a very good price. The

undesired constantly happens. Nathan & Rukmani go to the city to seek shelter with their son.

However, Murugan has already left the city. Tired and exhausted, they seek shelter in a temple,

their money & belonging are stolen during the night .It is with the help of Puli and Birla. They

reach the house of Murugan but find that he has deserted his wife and children.

Destiny thus has played a joke on them. Once again they seek shelter in the temple, live

on charity like beggars for some time and then Rukamini tries to earn some thing by letter-

writing, and then take to stone-breaking. They get good wages, save little from day to day, and

continue to live and work in the hope that soon they would be able to go back to their village.

Rukmani buys some 'rice- cakes' a delicacy which they had not tasted for long-and a dumdum

cart for Puli and one for her grandson Sacrabani. Again the unexpected and undesired has

happened, Nathan dies, and all hopes are shattered. Nathan and Rukmani are the tragic victims

of the irony of life. Their life-story illustrates that man is but a plaything in the hands of cruel

destiny which takes pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering on him.

The novelist shows how the Zamindar's system of rural India has created a kind of

social unrest in the lives of innocent peasant. In rural India the peasant is a sufferer in many

ways. He is buffeted by man and nature- Nature victimizes the peasant, through flood one year

or draught the next, but the result is famine, starvation and sometimes death." The bitter truth is

that the peasants have to face troublesome life full of uncertainty and starvation. Heavy rain or
 31

draught can turn them into beggars, and even when they have plenty of fields, they become

helpless. "Nectar in a Sieve," in many ways follows a conventional pattern in its tragic

delineation of the effect of poverty natural disaster and unwelcome modernization upon a

peasant's family.

Similarly in A Handful of Rice the novelist presents the problem of beggars surviving

under the pressure of hunger and poverty. The characters have to leave their native villages in

search of food and they meet a tragic end. In Handful of Rice, Ravi has to leave his house

because he had to live with dire poverty. Novelist also presents a realistic picture of the crowd of

unemployed graduates through the eyes of Ravi. A Handful of rice is the best example of inner

conflict of a young person.

Thus Markandaya deals with the everyday problems of the rural community and

presents peasants as the truly human characteristics of self–delusion, pride, self distortion,

meanness and mind with optimism, endurance and magnanimity. The tension between tradition

and modernity that stands for industrialization is presented in her works. Nectar in a sieve

presents the drastic assault of Industrialization on the rural society. While, A Handful of Rice is

a fine portrayal of the problem of conscience, it is a tragic commentary on the conflict.

WORKS CITED

Bhatnagar, Anil Kumar. Kamala Markandaya: A Thematic study. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons,

1995. Print.

Bhagwat S. Goyal. Culture and Commitment: Aspect of Indian Literature in English. Meerut:

Shalabh Book House, 1984.

Shiv K. Kumar. ‘Tradition and Change in the novels of Kamala Markandaya’ Katatiyal Journal

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