Nectar in a Sieve [Library Binding]

Kamala Markandaya (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1956

In a small village in India, a simple peasant woman recalls her life as a child bride, a farmer's wife, and a devoted mother amidst fights to meet changing times, poverty, and disaster.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Rukmani, a peasant from a village in India, lives a life of constant struggle, yet she is a source of strength for many. At age twelve she marries a man she has never met and moves with him to his rented farmland. Over the years their marriage fills with love, mutual respect, and children: one daughter and many sons. A tannery built near their village forever alters Rukmani's life, for the tannery takes away farmland and silence, and while it provides jobs, they come with great costs. The changes in village life from an agricultural to an industrial community frighten Rukmani; her life becomes one of "Hope and fear. Twin forces that tugged at us first in one direction and then in another...Fear, constant companion of the peasant. Hunger, ever present to jog his elbow should he relax. Despair, ready to engulf him should he falter." Kenny, a white doctor in Rukmani's village, watches with a palpable foreboding his patients' daily struggle to survive. He leaves the village suddenly and often, and just as suddenly reappears, as if life there is too much for him yet he can't stay away. Rukmani and Kenny's conversations make apparent their individual and shared suffering, and while their experiences of the world are completely different, their friendship is based on respect and mutual reliance. Nectar In A Sieve is a powerful, depressing, but ultimately hopeful novel of a life lived with love, faith, and inner strength. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Library Binding
• Publisher: Turtleback Books (May 1956)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785758712
• ISBN-13: 978-0785758716
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (134 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,905,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written, affirming, and sad, July 8, 2003

By 

Matthew M. Yau "Voracious reader" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nectar in a Sieve (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

Set in some village in India, Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve is a gripping story of one indefatigable woman's survival of a checkered life, one that had no margin for misfortune. Neither does the book have surprises nor twist, but readers will find a determined, unrelinquished fighter in a woman who bears an unfailing faith and rams through impregnable clamor that invades her life.

Rukmani married Nathan, a tenant farmer whom she had never met, as a child bride. Even though Rukmani was ignorant of the simplest of tasks, Nathan never uttered a single cross word and gave an impatient look. He looked at her as if nobody had discovered her beauty. He never asserted his rights to forbid her reading and writing, a talent that placed Rukmani above her illiterate husband.

Misfortune seemed to have a tight foothold in Rukmani and Nathan. The monsoon inundated the rice paddies where Rukmani worked side by side with Nathan to wrest a living for a household of eight. No sooner had the monsoon tapered off than a drought ravaged the harvest. Hope and fear acted like twin forces that tugged at them in one direction and another.

Poverty-stricken Rukmani saw her daughter Ira become a prostitute, her 4-year-old son Kuti died from hunger, her teenage son Raja caught stealing and beaten to death, her oldest sons Thambi and Arjun set off to Ceylon to work in a tea plantation. The opening of a tannery, of which Rukmani was only skeptical, had spread like weeds and strangled whatever life grew in its way, changed the village beyond recognition.

And yet, Rukmani survived. The interminable poverty and impregnable fate of Rukmani and Nathan must evoke in readers' pity and sympathy. But at the same time, Rukmani, whom Nathan always appeased, might seem somewhat self-piteous, cynical, and complaisant (like Dr. Kennington said, she needed to cry out for help). Ira, who exchanged her body for Kuti's milk and food, had lost her reason and given up her sanity rather than faced the truth.

A recurring theme of the book is the significance of land that fostered life, spirits, happiness and family. Rukmani often found solace in the land on which her husband built a home for her with his own hands in the time he was waiting for her. She often reminisced the very home to which Nathan had brought her with pride. The land became her life:

"I looked about me at the land and it was life to my starving spirit. I felt the earth beneath my feet and wept for happiness." (188)

So much was the book about Rukmani. The one character that stood out to me was Selvam, one of her younger son who flinched and quailed at the firecracker and used the money intended for firecracker to buy a confection cane. As wealth lured all his elder brothers away, he stayed behind and took care of his family, shouldered the household responsibilities while assisting in the village hospital.

Nectar in a Sieve is a book that will make you lump in the throat. The writing is painfully eloquent, taut, and cut-to-the-root. The living conditions, life struggles, poverty, fragility and abasement of life depicted are beyond imaginations to those who live in the first world and have never stretch a single meal portion to three meals. Everyday was a life-and-death situation. 4.2 stars.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Down here with the rest of us, June 7, 2005

By 

Christopher Nelson (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nectar in a Sieve (Signet) (Paperback)

Read Nectar in a Sieve and understand what life is like at the bottom of the heap, with the "have nots" struggling for a handful of rice to get through another day. Struggling to raise children and grow crops on land they don't own, in a community whose traditions and character are on the brink of extermination by big-business. Read this book and take up the fight for social justice, job creation, and land reform. If anything, read to understand and feel how lesser fortunate people in this world of ours have lived, and continue to live.

Though Necatar in a Sieve takes place in India and is about a rural family there, its themes are universally applicable, especially in these modern days of globalization and gentrification. Kamala Markandaya died in May of 2004 and it seems that the American press mostly ignored her passing, which is a shame because she is definitely a pioneer of a burgeoning Indo-European line of authors. Nectar in a Sieve has been on the reading list of many a high-school & college for decades now, and thus highly influential for thousands of American & European students past and present. And that's how I first came upon this little gem, in a college course on Eastern Religions, just before I visited India for myself. Though written/published in the early 1950's, I thought this book well crafted and insightful. I was better prepared for my own experiences of Southern India, feeling just a little wiser about life and the people I met there. Markandaya tells this story of the peasants Rukmani and her husband Nathan in a heart-felt, straight-forward manner with many picturesque passages creating an aura of beauty amidst hardship. Her love of the land is reflected in Rukmani & Nathan's joys growing rice and vegetables, raising children, and in their interactions with colorful characters from nearby villages. There are also vivid depictions of hunger, misfortune, anger, loss and sadness, which underly the harsh realities of this "fictional" novel.

Although Kamala Markandaya was from India's Brahmin/upper-class and became an ex-pat in London, she certainly spent time around India's agrarian peoples and was obviously affected by their plight (she has written nine other novels dealing with similar subjects). As a novel, Nectar in a Sieve has a lyrical, romantic quality to it, which may account for its initial popularity here in the States, however, reading it in the 1990's and again more recently, I find it poignant and interesting. If there's any passage which sums up this novel, it may be the following:

". . . We have no money. My husband can till and sow and reap with skill, but here there is no land. I can weave and spin, or plait matting, but there is no money for spindle, cotton or fibre. For where shall a man turn who has no money? Where can he go? Wide, wide world, but as narrow as the coins in your hand. Like a tethered goat, so far and not farther. Only money can make the rope stretch, only money." - Ch. XXVII

And anyone who chastizes the author for emphasizing "money" here, probably has their head in the clouds (not to mention, a full stomach, and some property to boot) and is missing the point. This novel is about hope, and the hope that is necessary for people to strive for a better, more secure life, ONLY achieved through gainful employment and a stable income in a capitalist world. Where these opportunities don't exist, or barely exist, you will have thousands of Rukmanis, Nathans, Selvams, Pulis, etc. begging in your towns and cities. And thankfully, there will be other "Kamala Markandayas" to document their stories for those who are willing to open their eyes to the world around them.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A story of India., June 21, 1999

By 

R. D. Allison ([e-mail]) (Gainesville, Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nectar in a Sieve (Signet) (Paperback)

This is the first novel of Ms. Markandaya, an Indian author living in England (she has written at least nine other novels). This novel, written in the first person, presents the life of a peasant woman living in a remote Hindu village in India. Since the village is never named nor is a year ever mentioned in the book, a number of commenters have suggested that the book represents the story of India herself, arising out of feudalism and through industrialization. One of the characters is an English physician, Kennington (called Kenny by the narrator), who often appears to exhibit compassion for the people yet continues to fail to understand them or their culture (nor does he ever appear to make a serious effort to learn). This is a criticism many have given toward the British rule of India. The book begins with the narrator, Rukmani, at an old age and near death. She begins her story with her wedding. She was the third daughter of a village head and, at the age of twelve, is married off to a tenant rice farmer named Nathan. Through births, deaths, prosperous times, and devastating times (such as times of famine and when they lose their farm and are forced to travel to the city with nothing to call their own), she and Nathan remain close and truly bonded together. Even at the time of her own death approaching, she still sees him (her husband had passed away earlier); he has never left her. The book also illustrates the importance of family and the support one should always get from family. It is an uplifting history of a poor, but intelligent, honest, and noble Indian woman.