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·In the years of good harvests life goes easily : rice
is plentiful and there is money to buy vegetable
seed. Sometimes there is even milk for the
children. Through all the seasons, the generous
and gentle Rukmani is content in her love and
admiration for her husband Nathan and their
playful children. Life in their little South Indian
village has no luxuries to offer, but they have
cever known them and do not understand people
who need them like the jewelled wives who
arrive with the officials ia the new tannery.
The coming of the tannery, seems to bring bad
long been notorious, is driven to more dangerous
devices. The tannery eats up land and the
landlords have to exact harsher terms. But
still there is love, and Rukmani's childreo grow
up clever and strong
lo that Land, however, where all depends on
rain and rice, life can become relentlessly hard :
fate has not yet finished with Rukmani and her
children. But the family's loyalty and spirit is
never broken, and still finds its owa rewards.
JAICO
BOOK.
INDIA'S OWN POCKET EC.

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·NECTAR
IN A SIEVE
Kamala Markandaya
AICO PUBLISHING HOUSE
125, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bombay 1

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NECTAR IN A SIEVE
COPYRIGHT 1955
This laico edition is published by arrangement with
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AICO Book Edition first published February 1956.
Second Edition. July 1957
S. J. S. Medeni Colleur, Jaipur,
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·Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot love.
-COLERIDGE

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·RAMALA MARKANDAYA 3 , husband and I. How well I remember the day, : sudden sickness that overcame me when the moment arture came! My mother in the doorway, no tears fres but her face bloated with their weight. My father { a little in front of her, waiting to see us safely way. My husband, seated already on the bullockth the tin trunk full of cooking vessels and my xt to him. Somehow I found myself also sitting art, in finery, with dostcast eyes Then the cart move, lurching as the bullocks got awkwardly into and I was sick Such a disgrace for me. "How ver live it down?' I remember thinking 'I shall rget.' I haven't forgotten, but the memory is not Ty husband soothed and calmed me. s a thing that might happen to anybody," he said. it fret. Come, dry your eyes and sit up here beside so I did, and after a while I felt better, the tears eyes and dried on my lashes. six hours we rode on and on along the dusty road, several vullages on the way to ours, which was i distance away Half way there we stopped and meal: boiled rice, dhal, vegetables and curds A coconut apiece too, in which my husband nicked with his scythe for me so that I might drink the nilk. Then he unyoked the bullocks and led them small pool of water near which we had stopped, them each a handful of hay Poor beasts, they glad of the water, for already their hides were dusty istened with sweat in the sunlight. ested a half-hour before resuming our journey The refreshed, began stepping jauntily again, tossing eads and janglong the bells that hung from their nted homs. The air was full of the sound of the nd of birds, sparrows and bulbuls mainly, and some the cry of an eagle, but when we passets green and leafy, I could hear minahs and very warm, and, unused to so long a :

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 5 Sometimes now I can see quite clearly the veil is rent id for a few seconds I see blue skies and tender trees, en it closes on me again and once more I am back in a prld of my own, which darkens a little with each passing iy. Yet not alone, for the faces of those I have loved, ings that have been -- shapes, forms, images - are always efore me; and sometimes they are so vivid that truly I innot say whether I see them or not, whether the veil is (ted to allow me the sight, or whether it is only my mind lat sees Today, for instance, I could see the brook that in near our paddy field so clearly that I felt I had but to oop to feel its water wet on my hands Yet that brook elongs to a part of my life that is finished I was a bride f only a week then I first followed it to look for a suitable lace for my washing. I walked for nearly an hour before found a wide stretch of water and a sandy beach, with oulders scattered about. I put my bundle down, untred and put the clothes in The water was clear but not wift running -- the linen did not float too far or too quickly way from my hands I tucked my sarı up above my nees and stood in the river, scrubbing the clothes against large flat stone and using just a little of the washing owder my mother had given me, good stuff, with a clean weet smell and much power in it when I had finished, carried the clothes beyond the beach and laid them on he grassy bank to dry in the sun Just then I saw Kali, wile of our neighbour, coming owards me, and with her mere two women I had not een before All carried bundles of washing on their heads, and two had children at their hips and the third was ex- Yecting They called out when they saw me, and I came lown, a little shy, since they seemed to know each other o well; but before long I came to know them well too, hese three women who lived nearest to us, and whose lives were so closely woven with mine Kalt, big and p pith ample hips and thrusting breasts, whose qorked the next field to ours; Janaki, married to the hopkceper, with her homely face and sagging

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 7 +1 He considered. “You are not a child any more," he said at last. “You have grown fast since the day we were married, and that not so long ago While the sun shines on you and the fields are green and beautıful to the eye, and your husband sees beauty in you which no one has seen before, and you have a good - store of grain lad away for hard times, a roof over you and a sweet stirring in your body, what more can a woman ask for? My heart sang and my feet were light as I went about my work, getting up at sunrise and going to sleep content Peace and quiet were ours. How well I recall it, how grateful I am that not all the clamour which invaded our lives later could subdue the memory or still the longing for it. Rather, it has strengthened it had there not been what has been, I might never have known how blessed we were True, my husband did not own the land he tilled, as my father had done ; yet the possibility was there that he might one day do so. We owned our own ploughing bullocks, we kept a milch goat From each harvest we saved, and had gunny-sacks full of the husked rice stored away in our small stone-lined granary. There was food in plenty for two people and we ate well : nice for morning and evening meals, dhal ; sometimes a coconut grated fine and cooked in milk and sugar sometimes a wheatcake, fried in butter and melting in the mouth Once or twice a week I would go to the village to buy sugar, ghee and vegetables, calling on the way home at Durgan the milkman's to get curds, for our goat was running dry and there was not always enough malk to make my own. I liked going to the village and meeting its people, for they were a friendly lot and most of them anxious to help if they could. I got to know them all very quickly : Old Granny, who lived on what she made by selling peanuts and guavas ; Hanuman, the general merchant : Perumal, husband of Janaki, who kept the only shop, and Biswas, the money. lender. Sometimes Janaki or Kali would come to see how I was getting on, but not often, for they were kept busy looking after husband and children As for Kunthi, very ·her provisions and to help her with the work in the hors Kunthi was different from the other women, quieter, 8 NECTAR IN A SIEVE - socn she was unable to do anything for herself, for yvas a thin, slight girl, and we had to go in turns to Teserved, and for all that we tried to be at ease prith there was a barrier which we could not sumount. F: cially high against me it stood, strange and forbidding & though why this should be I could not think, finally. it down to my imagination She had, everybody said, married beneath her. Perhap they said that of me too, but I was plain and she was prett so it didn't make sense in her case I married beneath me, for a finer man no one could hai For myself, I am gl had ; but possibly she was not so lucky. A man is indeed fortunate if he does not marry abo for if he does he gets a wife who is no help to h socver, only an ornament I know, for I was igr hant of the simplest things, and no omament esther. K and Janaki between them had to show me how to 'm: the goat, how to plant seed, how to churn butter frc milk, and how to hull rice What patience indeed r husband must have had to put up with me uncomplaining during those early days of our married lives! Not o cross word or impatient look, and praise for whatever tm. success I achieved. I had planted, in the flat patch ground behind the hut, a few pumpkin seeds. The si here was rich, never having yielded before, and loose that it did not require much digging. The seeds sprouts quickly, sending up delicate green shoots that I kept car fully watered, going several times to the well nearby fr the purpose. Soon they were not delicate but spras.lr. vigorously over the earth, and pumpkins began to fort which, fattening on soil and sun and water, spelled dan larger and larger and ripened to yellow and red, until a last they were ready to eat, and I cut one and took it ir When Nathan saw it he was full of admiration, and mad much of this one fruit - he who was used to harvesting: field at a time

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA
9
"One would have thought you had never seen a pumpkin
efore," I said, though pleased with him and myself, keeping
y eyes down,
"Not from our land," said Nathan." Therefore it is
recious, and you, Ruku, are indeed a clever woman"
I tried not to show my pride. I tried to be off-hand
put the pumpkin away. But pleasure was making my
ulse beat, the blood, unbidden, came hot and surging to
y face.
After that, ten times more zealous, I planted beans and
weet potatoes, brinjals and chillies, and they all grew well
nder my hand, so that we ate even better than we had
one before

·CHAPTER II INTHI'S child was bom a few months before mice , fine boy who nearly took his mother's life in or his own. Janaki was ill and could not come, vas away, therefore I had to do what I could. K Lusband went off to fetch the midwife, leaving me he sweating girl. When she saw who I was -- not at or she was half-dazed with pain Kunthi cried out the he did not want me. "You must go." she kept entreating "Why." I said. "Do you dislike me so much, then?" No, no, but please go I do not want you here." 1 cannot and will not Besides there is no one else." I shall be all right The midwife will be here soon." "And what will your husband say," I said, 2f I leave ou here alone?" and I took no more notice of her cries. When she saw I would not go, she grew still and lay ke a log, not a murmur from her, but the sweat forcing tself up in oily drops on her throat and temples. Kunthi was lying in an exhausted sleep, with her baby eside her, before I went home. It was a whole day since had left. Nathan was waiting for me and he said crossiy: "You look like a corpse. Whatever possessed you to stay o long?" "Blame the midwife," I said. "She could not be found. r blame Kunthi's son He took a long time." I was tired and my voice was on edge. "Well, so long as you don't forget you are pregnant le said shortly and turned away. It was the first time I Lad seen him angry. Tears came pricking at my eyeballs : sat down to stop my head from spinning, and after a while the pain went. He means well,' I thought. 'Ile S anxious only about our child. Better that he should vorry than that he should not ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 11 From then 'on, I began to take more care of myself, ving more and more of the work to Nathan. Sowing He was at hand and there was plenty to be done in the ds. dams of clay to be built to ensure proper irriga- 7 of the paddy terraces; the previous year's stubble to lifted; rushes and weeds to be destroyed; then the nsplanting. All this meant stooping, and Nathan would - hear of it With the leisure I now had I took up writing again. was my father who taught me to read and write. People d he did it because he wanted his children to be one above the rest. Perhaps so, but I am certain that he o knew that it would be a solace to me in affliction, a 7 amid tranquillity So he taught his six children, myf the youngest by ten years, with the patience he brought all things "Practise hard,' he would say, watching me sy with slate and pencil For who knows what dowry ore will be for you when you are ready!' And I, with y, the thistledown of childish care upon me, would listen Chtly and take up my pencil again 'What use,' my mother said, 'that a girl should be arned ! Much good will it do her when she has lusty ns and a husband to look after Look at me, am I any ose that I cannot spell my name, so long as I know it? not my house clean and sweet, are not my children well d and cared for?' My father laughed and said 'Indeed ey are,' and did not pursue the matter : nor did he give his teaching. When my child is ready,' I thought now, I will teach m too'; and I practised harder than ever lest my fingers ould lose their skill When Janaki, recovered from her ckness, came to see me, she marvelled that I could write; Kali, who had come too, was scornful of the strange mbols which had no meaning for her and dismissed foible of pregnancy. " You will forget all about such nonserise when' ild is bom," she said. “Besides, there will be

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·KANALA MARKANDA YA 13- By eager gaze, my excitement would rise and mount ; ged, wondrous. You will get used to it," Nathan said. "After many 'ings and harvestings you will not notice these things." re have been many sowings and harvestings, but the der has not departed was tying the bean tendrils to the wire fence I had It when I saw a quiver in the leaves of the pumpkins. • fruit is ripening, I thought, the birds are already here Perhaps mice. Leaving the beans I went to look, stooping part the leaves with my hand Why did not the snake strike at once ? Was the cobra surprised into stillness that a human buld dare to touch it? My hands recoiled from the dness of serpent flesh, my nails clawed at my palms, leaves I had parted moved back to cover it for a Inent my legs remained stiffly planted beside the pump- 13, then the blood came racing to my limbs again, and an from the spot screeching with fear and not looking lind me. Nathan came rushing to me, almost knocking me over, ught and shook me "What is it, what is it?" he shouted roughly. A snake," I whispered, bereft of voice and breath. "A bra I touched it." He looked at me as if I were mad. "Go in and stay there," he said. I wanted only to fall his feet in my terror, to beg him not to leave me alone, at he was stanng at me unrelenting At last I went, sed, but with the waters of pania receding The enake had not stirred" Nathan said as he came ick. He had cut it to pieces with his scythe and buried e remains so that I should not be upset Yet you have lived long enough to learn to desregard em," he said "Are they not found everywhere - tree 'akes, water snakes and land snakes? You only need be careful and they pass you by." " True," I said, shamefaced yet rallying "But 64 ·در :

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 15 e baby had awakened and was crying loudly, so that had to yell I was so pleased to see her whole, I could : speak for relief. At last I told her, shakily, about the ra, and, rather ashamed by now of making such a fuss, xaggerated a little, making the snake enormous of its d, and the danger more deadly than it had been. Women can sometimes be more soothing than men : 50 ^ Kalı. "Poor thing." she said "No wonder you are nified. Anyone would be. But it is a pity your husband led the snake, since cobras are sacred" "She is a fool," Nathan said contemptuously when I d him. "What would she have me do-worship it while dug its fangs in my wife? Go now - forget it." I think I did, although once or twice when I saw the ickness of the pumpkin vines I wondered nervously what ight lie concealed there ; and then I would take up knife id shovel to clear away the tangle ; but when I drew near (d saw the broad glossy leaves and curling green tendris could not bring myself to do it; and now I am glad I d not, for that same vine yielded to me richly, pumpkin ter pumpkin of a size and colour that I never saw eisehere We called our daughter Irawaddy, after one of the great vers of Asia, for of all things water was most precious 49; but it was too long a name for the tiny little thing he was, and soon she became Ira Nathan at first paid ant attention to her: he had wanted a son to continue is line and walk beside him on the land, not a puling ifant who would take with her a dowry and leave nothing ut a memory behind ; but soon she stopped being a puling afant, and when at the age of ten months she called him Apa', which means father, he began to take a lively interest her. She was a fair chuld, lovely and dimpled with soft, gleamng hair I do not know where she got her looks : not rom me, nor from Nathan, but there it was, and not only: e but other people noticed and remarked on it. I id not know how I could have produced son ·16 child, and I was proud of her and glad, even when with ordinary parents who sometimes bore a child of my less brilliance, or with a devout couple who had bro Before long she was crawling all over the place, follo NECTAR IN A STEVE pretended to disbelieve that I could be her mother is a marvel indeed, they would say, and make rewards, and this was mine. "She is like you," Nathan would say to me as bes veyed her, but he was the only one who thought 50 work, and very soon she began to walk. " You must not allow it so early," Kalı said to me nously, or her legs will bend like hoops” And af I listened to her and whenever I saw Ira trying to up or walk, I would rush forward and pick her up soon there was no stopping her I should have be it the whole time otherwise, and I had other things 1 Sowing time was at hand, and I was out all day Nathan planting the paddy in the drained fields. had to be sown too, the land was ready My hư ploughed it, steadying the plough behind the two bu while I came behind, strewing the seed to either side sprinkling the earth over from the basket at my hip. When that was done, it was time for our hut to be ched. It had stood up well to sun and wind, but the monsoon rains several small patches showed wear it was as well to get things done in good time. Ni cut fronds from the coconut palm that grew by out and dried them for me, together we twisted the fibre bound the palms, shaping them to the roof and streng ing the whole with clay Ira was no trouble at all She would sit happily pla by herself in the sun, chuckling at the birds or at anyt else she could see, including her fond parents; or if it hot and she grew fretful I would hang a cloth branch and put her in it, and she would go to sleep out any further bother. My mother, especially, grew

·KANLALA MARKANDAYA
17
1 of her and came to see us often, although it meant
Yelling several hours in a bullock cart, which is very
3g when one is no longer young. Sometimes I would
to see my parents, but seldom, since there was so much
be done in my own home; and my mother, knowing this,
not reproach me for the long intervals between my
ts,

·i D in your face. They still say it, but the hos and I knew she was thinking of her own brood, Ke CHAPTER III ,' they said, "You will children. Janaki said, morosely, she wished it could to her : a child each year was no fun. Only Nathan not say it to me, for he was worried too, and knew by We did not talk about it, it was always with us : a fear that Ira was to be our only child My mother, whenever I paid her a visit, would me accompany her to a temple, and together we pray and pray before the deity, imploring for help we were giddy. But the Gods have other things to they cannot attend to the pleas of every suppliant dares to raise his cares to heaven And so the years 1 by and still we had only one child, and that a daught When Ira was nearing six, my mother was afflicted consumption, and was soon so feeble that she could rise from her bed Yet in the midst of her pain she still think of me, and one day she beckoned me near placed in my hand a small stone lingam, symbol of fert " Year it," she said. "You will yet beår many I see them, and what the dying see will come to pass be assured, this is no illusion" "Rest easy," I said. “You will recover." She did not -- no one expected she would but fingered for a long time. In her last months my fa sent for the new doctor who had settled in the vill Nobody knew where he came from or who paid him, there he was, and people spoke well of him, though he a foreigner. As for my father, he would have called the Devil himself to spare my mother any suffering, 13 ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 19 was in a house of sorrow that I first met Kennington, om people called Kenny. He was tall and gaunt, with pale skin and sunken eyes the colour of a kingfisher's ng, neither blue nor green. I had never seen a white in so close before, and so I looked my fill. *** When you have done with starung," he said coldly, verhaps you will take me to your mother." I started, for I had not realised I was goggling at him. artled, too, that he should have spoken in our tongue. "I will show you," I said, stumbling in my confusion. My mother knew no man could save her and she did not pect miracles. Between her and this man, young though was, lay mutual understanding and respect, one for the her. He told her no lies, and she trusted him. He came ten, sometimes even when he was not summoned ; and 's presence, as much as the powders and pills he made , take, gave my mother her ease. When she died it was the same way, without a struggle, so that although we 'leved for her our hearts were not torn by her suffering. Before I left for my village, I told hum that for what had done there could be no repayment. "Remember aly." I said, "that my home is yours, and all in it." • He thanked me gravely, and as I tumed to go he raised hand to stop me. "There is a look about you," he said. "It lies in your yes and the mark is on your face. What is it?" "Would you not grieve too," I said, "if the woman tho gave you birth was no more than a handful of dust?" "It is not that alone The hurt is of longer standing. Vhy do you lie ?" I looked up and his eyes were on me. Surely,' I thought, my mother has told him, for he knows'; but as if he ressed my thoughts he shook his head. "No, I do not faow, Tell me" ! I held back. He was a foreigner, and although I no unger stood in awe of him, still the secret has been long #ked up in my breast and would not come out easily.

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 21 $ As for Nathan, nothing would do but that the whole lage should know as if they didn't already on the th day from the birth he invited everybody to feast and oice with us in our good fortune Kali and Janakı both me to help me prepare the food, and even Kunthi's reserve umbled a little as she held up my son to show him to our titors. Between us we prepared mounds of rice, unting with saffron and frying it in butter, made hot curries dishes of jaggery er the fire , filled It plantain leaves 15 ready we spread leaves under the gaudy marriage pandal Nathan had rrowed for the occasion and ate and drank for long, Try hours. Afterwards Kunthi was persuaded to play us on her bulbul tara, which she did skilfully, plucking the strings with her slender fingers and singing in a low, ar voice which people strained to hear, so that it was very jet. The baby, who had slept through all the clamour, wokt og i now in the sudden hush and began squalling. Kunth: ipped her thrumming People crowded round me, tryin sempat the baby who had caused all this excitement - al. debugh he was no beauty, with puckered face and mouth ened wide to emit shriek after shriek. Such a furore," Kalı said "One would think the child a wings, at the very least." he Seven years we have waited," said Nathan, his eyes Anting," wings or no wings." The one person I had wanted most to see at our feast is not there. I had gone to seek him, but he was not be found. 'He goes and comes,' they told me "Nobody Ows where or why.' So I had to be content without him; contentment cannot be forced, and Nathan noticed my occupation What now?" he said. "Are you not happy? Would have the moon too, as Kali would have wings?" ; 16 2 1 Le ·"Indeed no," I said, "it is just that I would have ! for at the beginning I had not wished my husband to that I was putting myself in the hands of a foreigner I knew not what his reaction would be. I had conga myself that it would be time enough to tell him it ad was bom; and now I found I could not do it, because harm,' I thought, if he does not know, I have not lyd 22 NECTAR IN A SIEVE to see Kenny under our roof. He did so much for mother." And for us, I thought, but could not saya would surely ask why I had not told him before. him, there has just been this silence.' In our sort of family it is as well to be the first be what resources there are, have later to be shared on smaller and smaller portions Ira had been fed well milk and butter and rice ; Arjun too, for he was the boy. But for those who came after, there was less less. Four more sons I borne in as many years Tha Murugan, Raja and Selvam. It was as if all the pe desires of my childless days were now bearing frui was very fortunate for they were, without excep healthy; and in their infancy and childhood, my daug looked after them almost as much as I did. She wa great one for babies, handling them better than man grown woman while she was still a child. How quickly children grow ! They are infants ! look away a minute and in that time they have left 11 babyhood behind. Our little girl ran about in the bare and beautiful as she grew, with no clothes to hard her limbs or confine her movements. Then one day * she was five -- long before Arjun was born - Nathan power her out to me as she played in the fields. "Cover her," he said, "It is time." I wanted to cry out that she was a baby still, but course Nathan was right; she had left infancy for me And so I made a skırt for her, weaving bright colours , in the white cotton that she might like it, and so she di' a time, wearing it gladly, twirling it about her as she round and round; but when the novelty had worn of ·PART ONE CHAPTER I VIETIMES at night I think that my husband is with me again, coming gently through the mists, and we e tranquil together. Then morning comes, the wavering by turns to gold, there is a stirring within as the sleepers rake, and he softly departs One by one they come out into the early morning sunnine, my son, my daughter : Puli, the child I clung to ho was not mine, and he no longer a child Pult is with le because. I tempted him, out of my desperation I lured im away from his soil to mine. Yet I have no fears now pthat is done is done, there can be no repining Are Jou happy with me?' I said to him yesterday – being sure' the answer. He nodded, not hesitating, but a little inpatient. An old woman's foibles A need for comfort. But I am comforted most when I look at his hands. He has no fingers, only stubs, since what has been taken 'can never be given back, but they are clean and sound. Where the sores were, there is now pink puckered flesh, his limbs are untouched. Kenny and Selvam between them have kept my promise to him. In the distance when it is a fine day and my sight is not too dim, I can see the building where my son works. He and Kenny, the young and the old A large building, spruce and white; not only money has built it but men's hopes and pity, as I know who have seen it grow brick by brick and year by year. M. thong ·2 NECTAR IN A SIEVE tose-sciety. grands taking jewels and dowry with her ; but when it Thangam, only relations from our own village carte wedding and not from the surrounding districts a tot had done before, and the only jewel she had was a donne What for you, my mother would say, taking my in her hands, *my last-born, my baby > Four down too much for a man to bear, I shall have a ding.' I would say. when all else is a dream forgotten (I had heard this pas *Such that everybody will remer in a storyteller's tale). For is not my father head of village ? I knew this pleased my mother, for she at once laugh, and lose her look of worry. Once I repeated this, my eldest brother overheard me, and said sharply, 'Don't speak like a fool, the headman is Longer of consequence There is the Collector, who co o these villages once a year, and to him is the power, o those he appoints, not to the headman This was the first time I had ever heard that my fat vas of no consequence It was as if a prop on wł leaned had been roughly kicked away, and I felt fright d and refused to believe him. But of course he was rig ind by the time I came to womanhood even I had cknowledge that his prestige was much duninished. Perha hat was why they could not find me a rich husband, a married me to a tenant farmer who was poor in everythi rut in love and care for me, his wife, whom he took he age of twelve Our relatives, I know, murmured th the match was below me; my mother herself was ik happy, but I was without beauty and without dowry as it was the best she could do A poor match,' they sait and not always quietly. How little they knew, any of them A woman, they say, always remembers her wedding right Well, may be they do; but for me there are othe rights I prefer to remember, sweeter, fuller, when I gren to my husband matured in mind as well as in body, no as a pained and awkward child as I did on that first rugi! And when the religious ceremonies had been completed, "?

·KANALA MIARKANDAYA 23 de fractious and wanted to tear it from her. It was y a month before she resigned herself to it. th six children to feed we could no longer afford to all the vegetables we grew. Once a week I would ind pack our garden produce, selecting the best and ag the spoilt or bruised vegetables for ourselves, cover basket with leaves and set off for the village. Old ny was always glad to buy from me, and at first I d make straight for the corner of the street where she with her gunny-sack spread before her The old lady ld pick out the purple brinjals and yellow pumpkins, shiny green and red chillies, feeling them with her kled fingers and complimenting me on their size None like yours," she would say. "Such colour, such loom on them!” Perhaps she said it to everyone who le to her, but I would feel absurdly pleased and go y with my insides smiling Then one day Biswas, the zey-lender, stopped me in the street I would have sed after a brief salutation, for among us there is a disof the money-lending class, but he stood squarely in path. Ah, Rukmani," he said, "in a hurry as usual, I see." My children are not of an age to be left alone for long." II, speaking civilly 'Yet surely you have time for a little business with If you will tell me what business?" * Buying and selling," he said, cackling," which is your iness, as lending is mine." 'If you will make yourself clear," I said, "I will stay 1 hear; otherwise I must be on my way" Those vegetables," he said, " that Old Granny buys from What price does she pay you?” A fair price," I said, "and no haggling" "I will pay you four annas a dozen for brinjals, and : annas each for pumpkins, if they are large" He was ering almost double what Old Granny paid. I went away. The following week I sold almost 1

·I did not like selling to him, although he paid med
price. It was business and nothing else with him
a word of chaff or a smile or perhaps it was the
I missed and I would inuch rather haye had it the
24
NECTAR IN A STEVE
whole basket to him, keeping only a little for Old E
way, but there you are, you cannot choose.
To my surprise Old Granny made no comment bi
smiling reassuringly when I muttered guiltıly that 03
at home were growing
In the beginning she may not
known, but when I sold her, seek after week, one
pumpkin or half a dozen brinjals she must have
the truth. But she said nothing, nor did I, for me
knew she could not pay me more, and I could not
to sell for less As it was, we were going short of
things We no longer had milk in the house, exce
the youngest child; curds and butter tere beyond our
except on rare occasions But we never went huns
some of the families Acre doing We grew our on
tains and coconuts, the harvests were good and ther
always food in the house at least a bagful of
little dhal, if no more. Then when the rice terraces
drained, there was the fish, spawned among the paddy
what we could not eat, we dried and salted away.
every month I put away a rupee or two against the
Ira would be married So we still could not grumble

·CHAPTER IV HANCE I had known before, and it had been gradual. My father had been headman once, a person of conruence in our village : I had lived to see him relinquish is importance, but the alteration was so slow that we rdly knew when it came. I had seen both my parents ik into old age and death, and here too there was no blence But the change that now came into my life, o all our lives, blasting its way into our village, seemed ought in the twinkling of an eye Arjun came running to us with the news He had run the way from the village and we had to wait while he Iped in fresh air. "Hundreds of men," he gasped "They P nulling ang hanap nem and there is a J.- eyes popping ing back," he vas measuring new tannery ley are building,” he said. "I had heard rumours."** Arjun, torn between a desire to dash back and a craving > hear more from his father, teetered anxiously to and fro his heels; but Nathan said no more. He put the grain way carefully in the granary, then he rose "Come," he zid "We will see." All the families were out : the news had spread quickly kali and her husband, Kunthi and her boys, Janaki, urrounded by her numerous family, even Old Granny, had ome out to see. Children were everywhere, dodging in and ut of the crowd and crying out to each other in shrill xcited voices Startled pi-dogs added to the din. Tye ormed a circle about the first arrivals, some fifty men or 25 ·So, who were unloading bricks from the bullock-carts. have travelled more than a hundred miles to get In charge of the men was an overseer who looked spoke like the men, but who was dressed in a shut trousers, and he had a hat on his head such as I had 26 NECTAR IN A SIEVE spoke in our language, but with an intonation thub it difficult for us to understand them. Townspeople," Kalı whispered to me. She was prone to exaggerate, and also believed 113 was told her. "They sett seen Kenny wear before : a topee the colour of The others wore loin-cloths and turbans and a fer shirts ; but as the day wore on they doffed their shin by one, until all were as our men. The men worked well and quickly, with many a long glance at usthey seemed to enjoy having such a stır and lured such a big audience. As a overseer, he made much play of his authority, dit them with loud voice and many gestures but dos a stroke of work himself Still, it must have been hi him standing there waving his arms about, for the he wore was sticking to his back and now and the would lift his hat as if to allow the wind to cool his Until at last there was a commotion about the of the circle of which we were the inner ring. The was parting, and as the movement spread to us we tvay too, to let a tail white man through. He had white topee, and was accompanied by three or four dressed like him in shorts. The overseer now came ward, bowing and scraping, and the red-faced one 1 to him rapidly but so low that we could not hear sha! was saying. The overseer listened respectfully and i began telling us to go, not to disturb the men, altho for so long he had been glad of many watchers It! maidan, in our village he stood, telling us to go. "As if he owned us," muttered Kannan the chalkli. think that already he foresaw his livelihood being from him, for he salted and tanned his own skins, mak:

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 27 un into chaplis for those in the village who wore them. he stood his ground, glaring at the overseer and refusing move, as did a few others who resented the haughty ers that poured from the man's lips; but most of us at having our own concerns to mind very day for two months the line of bullock-carts came 'laden with bricks and stones and cement, sheets of tin I corrugated iron, coils of rope and hemp The kilns the neighbouring villages were kept busy firing the ks, but their output was insufficient, and the carts had go further afield, retuming dusty and brick-filled Day 1 night women twisted rope, since they could sell as much they made, and traders waxed prosperous selling their xds to the workmen They were very well paid, these 'n, some of them eaming two rupees in a single day, whereleven in good times we seldom earned as much, and they hight lavishly : rice and vegetables and dhal, sweetmeats fruit. Around the maidan they built their huts, for Te was no other place for them, and into these brought Wir war --- -1.1 Mest a load of tin sheeting to the roof. Then one day the building was completed. The workers parted, taking with them their goods and chattels, aving only the empty huts behind. There was a silence. the unwonted quiet we all wondered apprehensively what yuld happen next. A week went by and another. Losing ir awe we entered the building, poking into its holes and imers, looking into the great vats and drums that had en installed, then, curiosity slaked, we set about our old ks on the land and in our homes. There were some among the traders - those who had it up their prices and made their money — who regretted eir going. Not I. They had invaded out, village with itter and din, had taken from us the maidan, erem ·children played, and had made the bazaar prins tou “They will be back," said Nathan my husband And did you not bericht op their stay, selling your pumpkins and plantains for de "Ye3," said I for I had, “but what could I burn the morrey with prices so high everywhere? No such dhal or ghee have we tasted since they came, and the "Nevertheless," said Nathan, "they will be pack: you may be sure they did not take so much trouble 28 NECTAR IN A SIEVE for us. I was not sorry to see them go others will take their place prices than you did belore? have had none so long as they remained" to leave a shell in our midst Therefore it is as fol accept theso things." * Never, never," I cried "They may live in PUTE but I can never accept them, for they lay their hands us and we are all turned from tilling to barter, and our silver since we cannot spend it, and see our eni go without the food that their children gorge, and it is in the hope that one day things will be as they were we have done these things Now that they have gone us forget them and return to our ways" "Foolish woman," Nathan said. “There is no going' Bend like the grass that you do not break." Our children had not seen us so serious, so before. Three of my sons huddled together in a corner at us with wide eyes, the two youngest lay astecp, 07 Ira's arms, the other leaning heavily against her; and herself sagged against the wall with their neight as she there on the floor There was a look on her fora. face that nierced me. "Ah well." I said, dissembling. "perhaps I CRASSI If they return we shall have a fine davry for our dames and that is indeed a good thing" The lost look went from Ira's face. She was at still, despite the ripeness of her thirteen years, and to fancied a grand Wedding even as I had done. They came back. Not the same men who ·KAMALA MIARKANDAYA 29 vers, and not all at once but slowly. The red-faced ite man came back with a foreman, and took charge everything. He did not live in the village but came 1 went, whilst his men took over the huts that had lain ipty, the ones who came last settling beside the river, inging their wives and children with them, or dotting • maidan even more thickly with the huts they built • themselves and their families I went back to my home, thankful that a fair distance 11 lay between them and us, that although the smell their brews and liquors hung permanently in the sickencd , still their noise came to us from afar. "You are a apeer being," Kunthi said, her brows faring ray from helyes “Are you not glad that our village no longer a clump of huts but a small town? Soon ere will be shops and tea-stalls, and even a bioscope, such I have been to before I was married. You will see." **No doubt I will," I said, "It will not gladden me Tready my children hold their noses when they go by, id all is_shouting and disturbance and crowds wherever Even the birds have forgotten to sing, or else jeir calls are lost to us" ** You are a village girl," said Kunthi, and there were zadows of contempt moving behind her eyes. “You do ot understand." If I was a village girl, Kali and Janaki were too, and ad no taste for the intruders; but after awhile Janaki onfessed that at least she now knew what to do with er sons, for the land could not take them all; and as or Kali, well, she had always ben fond of an audience or her stories. So they were reconciled and threw the ast away with both hands that they might be the readier en the mungeni -. 'n pain, envying such _ Lodhe

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·CHAPTER Y N all the years of our tenancy we never saw the Zemındar who owned our land Sivaji acted for him, and being kindly,, humane man we counted ourselves lucky Unke some, he did not extract payment in kind to the last Tain; he allowed us to keep the gleanings, he did not emand from us bribes of food or money, nor did he claim by himself the dung from the fields which he might easily ave done, stipulating only that Kali and I should gather ur share on different days to avoid arguments This way je got fairly equal quantities and there was no bad blood Retween us One morning, so early that the dew still jewelled the Fass and the clamour of the tannery had not yet begun, went out on my errand It was as well to go out early. therwise you could never tell how much had already been aken by urchins, for dung was easy to sell and commanded good price Several times before, I had seen boys on the and and had chased them from it, but without succeeding n getting hold of their loot That morning there were a lot of pickings , 1 soon filled the small basket I had with me As I bent down for the last handful I became aware that someone was watching me. It was Kenny, thinner than when I had last seen him, but how could I ever forget him ? Leaving my basket, I ran to him, dirty hands and all, with a glad welcoming heart "My lord, my benefactor," I cried. "Many a ume ! have longed to see you. Now at last you 'come," and I bent down to kiss his feet, shod as they were in leather shocs. He withdrew them quickly and told me to get up “I am not a benefactor," he said, "nor a lord 'What als you?” "You me my benefactor," I said stoutly " Have I not five sons to prove it?" 31 ·32 NECTAR IN A SIETE "Am I to blame for your excesses," said he but his eyes were alight with laughter, no doubt at my fallen face. "Come with me," I said, recovering myself. "You! see them, excesses or not." "For a few minutes only, I am busy," he replet , as I picked up my basket he peered in. "I see you a dung and take it with you. Is it not for the land?" "Indeed no Dung is too useful in our homes given to the land, for it is fuel to us and protection as damp and heat and even ants and mice. Did you not kn "Too well," he answered shortly "I have seen women for ever making dung-cakes and burning them smearing their huts. Yet I thought you would know ! who live by the land yet think of taking from it wi giving," "What substitute then?" I said quietly He made no reply but came after me. All the ch were awake, waiting for their morning meal of ricc-v Nathan was working in the fields, and I sent one o boys to call him in. For Kenny I spread a mat an sat down while we grouped ourscives about him, t could see he was not accustomed to sitting cross-legge the floor, for his knees instead of resting on the mat sr. up aslant like the horns of a bull, and I was uncomfor for him, and distressed that I had nothing else to of Ira strained the rice-water into wooden bowls for 1 the rice itself we kept for our midday meal — but to bowl she added a handful of the cooked rice and a 1 salt, which we could not afford for ourselves, and this handed to Kenny, stooping low and keeping her eyes de "My daughter Irawaddy," I said, proud that she sht know her duties to a guest. Kenny took the bowl from her with a smile. "You are a good cook for one so young," he said, lay his hand for a moment on her head. She did not fi her eyes, but her face kindled, and I was pleased too tl he should notice my child. He spoke to each of the ·KAMALA ALARKANDAYA 33 n turn until Murugan, my third son, came bouncing m ading his father by the hand "You have heard me tell of Kenny often enough," I and “This is he, friend to my father's house." So much ! Said, and left the other unsaid, My husband made namaskar. ! "I have," he replied formally. " and I am happy that le should honour our poor household by his presence" "Yet not so poor," the other replied politely, "for the komen of your house do you credit, and you have begotten Ive healthy sons." My heart quailed at his words for fear he should betray ne, yet no betrayal, since how could he guess my husband id not know I had gone to him for treatment? Why pad I, stupidest of women, not told him? I waited, gnawing ny lip, but he said no more Kenny came often to our house thereafter Of himself pe did not speak, of wife or children or parents or home. held 'my tongue, for I felt to ask would be to offend him. Yet he had a love for children, mine were always eager to see him, making great fuss of him when he came, and he for his part would suffer them patiently, often bringing with him half a coconut or ladus made of nuts and rolled into balls with jaggery, which the children loved Once he came when I was suckling Selvam, my youngest son, who had turned three, and saw that my breasts were sore where the child's mouth had been, " The boy is long past weaning," he said frowning "Why do you force it?" "We had to sell our goat," I said. "I can no longer afford to buy milk, but while my son is young and needs it I will give it to him." Thereafter he brought me a little cow's milk when he could, or sent it with one of the children from the village, who were always glad to help him, for he had a way of attracting children; there was eyer a troop following him about.

·NECTAR IN A SIEVE
before, he came and went mysteriously. I knew
nd the fact that he worked among the people of
Ty, treating and healing their bodies during long
then going to his lone dwelling; but when he left
e, for days or years at a time, nobody knett when
or what he did, and when he returned be was
m than ever and none dared ask.

·CHAPTER V PT Ira as long as I could, but when she was past fourteen her marriage could be delayed no longer, for is well known with what speed eligible young men are apped up; as it was, most girls of her age were already arried or at least betrothed The choice of go-between is not easy to make : Kali was the nearest to hand and nahi ight well consider them suitable husbands, which I certainly uld not, for they owned no land Old Granny, on the her hand, would be the ideal go between she was old d experienced, knew very well what to look for and never ked patience ; but for some years now I had not traded th her and she might with every justification refuse to it for me. But in the end it was to her I went {"A dowry of one hundred rupees," I said “A maiden ke a flower. Do your best for me and I shall be ever your debt. This I ask you," I said, looking straight at er, although Biswas takes my produce and for you there as been nothing" "I bear you no grudge, Rukmani," she replied "Times re hard and we must do what we can for ourselves and ſur children. I will do my best." Thereafter never a week went by but she brought news if this boy or that, and she and I and Nathan spent long hours trying to assess their relative merits At last we found one who seemed to fulfil our requirements : he was young and well favoured, the only son of his father from hom he would one day inherit a good portion of land. * They will espect à large dowry," I said regretfully. "One hundred rupees will not win such a husband, we have no more" ·36 NECTAR IN A SIEVE “She is endowed with beauty," Old Granny sad will make up for a small dowry in this case." She was right. Within a month the preliminaries F completed, the day was fixed. Ira accepted our choice her usual docility, if she fretted at the thought of la us and her brothers she showed no sign. Only once asked a little wistfully how frequently I would be abb visit her, and, although I knew such trips would havet very rare since her future home lay some ten villages a I assured her not a year would pass without my gou see her two or three times. "Besides, you will not want me so often," I said home, your brothers, are all you have known so far when you have your own home and your own childrer will not miss these. .. She nodded slightly, making no comment, yet I how bruised she must be by the imminent parting. spirit ached with pity for her, I longed to be able to fort her, to convince her that in a few months' time new home would be the most significant part of her the rest only a preparation .. but before this joy come the stress of parting, the loneliness of beginnu new life among strangers, the strain of the early day marriage, and because I knew this the words would come.. Wedding day Women from the village came to a! Janaki, Kali, many I hardly knew We went with to the river and, when she was freshly bathed, put on the red sari I had worn at my own wedding its heavy folds made her look more slender than she was, her look a child I darkened her eyes with kohl and years fell away more, she was so pitifully young I hardly believe she was to be married, today. The bridegroom arrived ; his parents, his relatists, friends, the priests. The drummer arrived and squattedo side awaiting permission to begin ; the fiddler joined hi There should have been other musicians - a flutist, a bi monium player, but we could not afford these..

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 37 shown ld have nothing we could not pay for. No debts, hu ted, no debts. But I grudged Ira nothing : had I not d from the day of her birth so that she should marry ? Now I brought out the stores I had put by month month — rice and dhal and ghee, jars of oil, betel areca nuts, chewing tobacco and copra I didn't know you had so much," said Nathan in amaze- And if you had there would be little enough," I said I a wink at the women, "for men are like chudren and t grab what they see" did not wait for his retort, hearing only the laughter greeted his sally, but went out to speak to the drum Arjun, my eldest son, was sitting next to the man, iously tapping the drum with three fingers as he had There is plenty of food inside," I said to him. “Go and while there is still some left” I can eat no more," he replied “I have been feasting day." levertheless he had made provision for the morrow iw in his lap a bundle buiging with food sugar-syrup butter had soaked through the cloth patchily. Join your brothers," I said, hoisting him up mmer is going to be busy." le ran off, clinging tightly to his bundle. The wedding ac began. Bride and groom were sitting uneasily side side, Ira stiff in the heavy embroidered sari, white flowers her hair, very pale. They did not look at each other. ut them were packed some fourteen or fifteen people hut could hold no more. The remainder sat outside on n leaves the boys had collected. What a good match,' everybody said Such a fine such a beautiful girl, too good to be true. It was xed. Old Granny went about beaming : it was • brought the two parties together; her T. 'chmaker would be higher than ever. We ld look into the future. 1 ·Now that it was time to go, Ira looked scared, she has 38 NECTAR IN A SIETE So they were married. As the light faded two yet lowered at at the entrance to the hut for them to step appeared bearing a palanquin for the newly married couple a little before entering : but already a dozen village had bited her in. The crowd, full of good feeling. Pa with food and drunk with the music, vicariously pressed round, eagerly thrusting over their heads a after garland of flowers, the earth was spattered with In the midst of the crush Nathan and 1, Nathan holding his hands to Ira in blessing, she with dark head bent to receive it. Then the palanquin was lifted up, the bearers closed in, the musicians took their places followed on foot behind, relatives, friends, well-wishers hangers-on. Several children had added themselves to company; the came after, jigging about in high glee, I and excited : a long, ragged tail-end to the procession Past the fields, through the winding streets of the vi we went, the bobbing palanquin ahead of us Until came at last to where, at a decorous distance, the bull Fart waited to take them away. Then it was all over, the bustle, the laughter, the r The wedding guests departed, The throng melted. A a while we walked back together to our hut. Our sons, to but, were humped together asleep, the youngest clutch & sugary confection in one sticky fist. Bits of food lay err here, I swept the floor clean and strewed it with tear The walls showed cracks, and clods of mud had fali where people had bumped against them, but these I for patching in the moming The used plantain leaves tacked in one heap- they should do for the bullocks. T! stars were pale in the greying night before I lay down beste ny husband. Not to sleep but to think For the first to since her birth, Ira no longer slept under our roof.

·HATTER VII ATURE is like a wild animal that you have trained to work for you. So long as you are vigilant and walk ily with thought and care, so long will it give you its ; but look away for an instant, be heedless or forgetful, it has you by the throat -ra had been given in marriage in the month of June, uch is the propitious season for weddings, and what with • preparing for it, and the listlessness that took hold of in the first days after her departure, nothing was done make our hut weatherproof or to secure the land from oding That year the monsoon broke early with an evil ensity such as none could remember before It rated so hard, so long and so incessantly that the Yught of a period of no rain provoked a mild wonder. Awas as if nothing had ever been but rain, and the water filessly found every hole in the thatched roof to come in, ripping on to the already damp floor If we had not uilt on high ground the very walls would have melted that moisture I brought out as many pots and pans $ I had and we laid them about to catch the drips, but son there were more leaks than we had vessels Forfiately, I had laid in a stock of firewood for Ira s wedding. nd the few sticks that remained served at least to cook ur rice, and while the fire burnt, hissing at the water in e wood, we huddled round trying to get dry. At first he children were cheerful enough -- they had not known such things before, and the lakes and rivulets that formed Sutside gave them endless delight , but Nathan and I watched vith heavy hearts while the waters rose and rose and the lender green of the paddy field sank under and was lost. * It is a bad season," Nathan said sornbrely. The rains bave destroyed much of our work, there will" eating done this year.'

·40 NECTAR IN A SIEVE At his words, Arjun broke into doleful sobs and big broda Thambi, followed suit. They were old enough to underte but the others, who weren't, burst into tears too, for tre they were cramped and out of humour with situng credit on the damp floor; and hungry since there was little 12 for most of the food had gone to make the wedding & and the new season's harvesting lay outside ungathered rotting. I hushed them as best I could, throwing a tepla ful glance at my husband for his careless words, bus was unnoticing, sunk in hatred and helplessness. As night came on -- the eighth night of the monson the winds increased, whining and howling around our as of seeking to pluck it from the earth. Indoors it dark-- the wick, buming in its shallow saucer of oil, only a dim wavering light but outside the land glimm sometimes pale and sometimes vivid, in the flicker of 1 ning. Towards midnight the storm was at its worst. L ning kept clawing at the sky almost continuously, thu hook the earth. I shivered as I looked for I could sleep, and even a prayer came with difficulty, "It cannot last," Nathan said. "The storm will abat he morning" Even as he spoke a streak of lightning threw itsell d it the earth, there was a tremendous clap of thunder, when I uncovered my shrinking eyes I saw that our o aut palm had been struck That, too, the storm had caur or its owT. In the morning everything was calm. Even the rain 1 topped. After the fury of the night before, an tillness lay on the land I went out to see if anyth: ould be saved of the vegetables, but the shoots and vi vere battered and broken, torn from their supports sruised; they did not show much sign of surviving 1 orn field was lost Our paddy field lay beneath a plac ake on which the children were already sailing bits! rood. Many of our neighbours fared much worse than me 134 leveral were homeless, and of a group of men who ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 41 16 íthered stump der a tree when the storm began six had been killed by ,htaing. Kali's hut had been completely destroyed in the last final ry of the storm. The roof had been blown away bodily, - mud walls had crumbled At least it stood until the worst was over," said Kali and by God's grace we were all spared" She oked worn out, in the many years I had known her I id never seen her so deflated She had come to ask for me palm leaves to thatch the new hut her husband was 11lding; but I could only point to the blackened tree, head bitten off and hanging by a few fibres from the * We must thatch our roof before the night," I said The rains may come again. We need rice too" Nathan nadded “We may be able to buy palm leaves the village -- also rice." He went to the granary in a comer of which the smalı oth bundle of our savings lay buried. It had been heavy Fice, when we were newly married. now the faded rag in fhich it was tied was too big and the ends flapped loosely per the knot. Nathan untied it and counted out twelve upees. "One will be enough," I said. “Let us 50 "I will take two We can always put it back". In the village the storm had left disaster and desolation worse than on our own doorstep. Uprooted trees sprawled their branches in ghastly fashion over streets and houses, flattening them and the bodies of men and women 'indiscriminately, Sticks and stones lay scattered wildly in angry confusion. The tannery stood, its bricks and cement had held it together despite the faging winds, but the workers' huts, of more flimsy construction, had been demo- The thatch had been ripsied from some, where others stood there was now only a heap of mud with their owners' possessions studding them in a kind of pitiless deco- The corrugated iron shacks in which some of the men lived were no more: here and there we could see the lished, ·a iron sheets in unexpected places -- suspended from a or blown and embedded on to the walls of houses stul standing. There was water everywhere, the overflowing into the streets. Dead dogs, cats and 2 cluttered the roadside, or floated starkly on the waters ry blown distended bellies. People were moving about amid this destruction, post out a rag here, a bundle there, hugging those things they thought to be theirs, moving halungly and with a 4 of despair about them. People we knew came and to us in Jow voices, gesturing hopelessly. "Let us go," I said " It is no good, we will on back later," We turned back, the two rupees unspent Our child? came runrting out to meet us, their faces bright with ho, "The shops are closed or destroyed," I said "Go insi I will get you some gruel presently" Their faces faded, the two younger ones began cryi stlessly from hunger and disappointment I had no tros comfort them At dusk the drums of calamity began, their bra! hrobbing rhythm came clearly through the night, throuz out the night, each beat, each tattoo, echoing the migh mpotence of our human endeavour. I listened. I cou ot sleep In the sound of the drums I understood a va servading doom, but in the expectant silences betstea ny own disaster loomed larger, more consequent, and mor urtful We ventured out again when the waters had subsichey little, taking with us as before two rupees This tim hings were somewhat better, the streets were clear, hut rere going up everywhere. My spirits rose "To Hanuman first for nice," said Nathan, excited "The ruel we have been swallowing has been almost plain water bese last few days." I quickened my steps : my stomach began hcaying at the hought of food.

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 43 ley." 'le doorway of his shop. He “ You have come for rice," rice. I have none to sell, enough tor my wife and children." And yet you are a merchant who deals in rice?" And what if so? Are you not growers of it? Why do you come to me? If I have rice I do not choose ell it now; but I have told you, I have none" We ask for only a little We will pay for what we :-see, here is the money" No, no rice, but – wat .. they say Biswas is selling .. Bistas - We come for nice Look, here is our Two rupees? How much do you think you can buy two rupees?" We thought " Never mind what you thought' Is this not a time of city? Can you buy rice anywhere else? Am I not tled to charge more for that. Two ollocks I will let have and that is charity." It is very little for two rupees" Take it or leave it I can get double that sum from tanners, but because I know you --" le take it, we give up the silver coins. Now there is ing left for the thatching, unless we use a rupee or two a the ten that remain in the granary put the rice in my sari, tuck the precious load securely at the waist. We tum back. On the outskirts of the ge there is Kenny. His face is grim and long, his eyes burning in his pallid face. He sees us and comes up. You too are starving, I suppose" tap the roll at my waist the grains give at my touch. We have a little rice -- it will last us until times are er," Times are better, times are better," he shouts Times not be better for many month, Meanwhile. er and die, you meek suffering fools it ·44 NECTAR IN A SIEVE keep this ghastly silence? Why do you not demandout for help- do something? There is nothing is country, oh God, there is nothing !" te shrink from his violence. What can te docan he mean? The man is raving. We go on OUT 13 The paddy was completely destroyed; there werele no rice until the nest harvesting. Neans hile, te lave what remained of our salted fish, roots and leares, the of the prickly pear, and on the plantains from our At last the time came for the rice terraces to be dra and got ready for the next sowing Nathan told me with cheer in his voice and I told the children, pleasus for the fields were full of fish that would feed us for! a day. Then we waited, spirits lifting, eyes sparl bellies painful with anticipation At last the day. Nathan event to break the dams I with him and with me our children, sunken-eyed, as they had not been for many days at the thought o feast, carrying nets and baskets. First one holc, another, no bigger than a finger's width, until they eroded the sides and the outlets grew large enough two fists to go through. Against them me held our fcet firm and braced in the mud while the water ru away, and the fish came tumbling into them When water was all gone, there they frere caught in the me and among the paddy, shoals of them leaping madly, and silver and good to look upon We gathered them flying fingers and greedy hearts and bore them away triumph, with a glas at least as bright as the sun on th shining scales. Then we came and gathered up that mained of the paddy and took it away to thresh e winnos. Late that night me mere still at work, cleaning the hulling the rice, separating the grain from the husk. 173 we had done, the rice yield was meage --no more two measures -- all that was left of the scar's harts: * the year's labour.

·KAMIALA MARKANDAYA 45 Ne ate, finding it difficult to believe we did so The d food lay rich, if uneasy, in our starved bellies. Aldy the children were looking better, and at the sight their faces, still pinched but content, a great weight ed from me. Today we would eat and tomorrow, and for ny weeks while the grain lasted. Then there was the 1, cleaned, dried and salted away, and before that was le we should earn some more money; I would plant Te vegetables .such dreams, delightful, orderly, satisag, but of the stuff of dreams, wraithlike And sleep. :h sleep.. deep and sweet and sound as I had not known many nights; it claimed me even as I sat amid the rice sks and fish scales and drying salt.

·Does it not do CHAPTER VIII KUNTHI'S two eldest sons were among the first in the se to start work at the tannery, and between them! brought home more than a man's wages "You see," said Kunthi. "The tannery is a bool Us, Have I not said so since it began? We are no k a village either, but a growing town good just to think of it?" "Indeed no," said I." for it is even as I said, and money buys Jess and less As for living in 3 tonn town this is why, there is nothing I would fly from 1 if I could go back to the sweet quet of village life it is all noise and crowds everywhere, and rude y Dooligans idling in the street and dirty bazaars and und behaviour, and no man thinks of another but nes for his money "Words and words," said Kunthi. "Stupid words wonder they call us senseless peasant women, but I am. and never will be There is no carth in my breeding. "If there were you would be the better for it," sa wrathfully," for then your values would be true," Kunthi only shrugged her delicate shoulders and left She spent a lot of fier time making unnecessary joun into the town where, s3th her good looks and provoca body, she could be sure of admiration, and more, the young men At first the women said it and the said they were jealous, then men too began to notice temark on it and wonder why her husband did notte * Now if I were in his place,' they said.. but they ordinary wives, not a woman with fire and beauty in and the skill to use them besides which, he was a con dull man. "Let her be," said Janaki "She is a trollop, and anxious only that there should be a sppply of ten 46 ·KAMIALA MARKANDAYA 47 Her voice held both anger and a bitter hopelessness : f a long time now her husband's shop had been doing diy. He was unable to compete with the other bigger bopkeepers whom the easy money to be had from the nners had drawn to the new town A few days after our conversation the shop finally closed own Nobody asked Where do you go from here?* hoy did not say, 'What is to become of us ?' We waited, id one day they came to bid us farewell, carrying their sessions, with their children trading behind, all but the dest, whom the tannery had claimed Then they were one, and the shopkeepers were glad that there was less ompetition, and the worker who moved into their hut es pleased to have a roof over his head, and we remembered em for a while and then took up our lives again It was a great sprawling growth, this tannery It grew hd flourished and spread Not a month went by but some. dy's land was swallowed up, another building appeared ght and day the tanning went on A never-ending line carts brought the raw material in thousands of skins, Pat, calf, lizard and snake skins -- and took them away gain tanned, dyed and finished It seemed impossible that parkets could be found for such quantities or that so any animals existed - but so it was, incredibly The officials of the tannery had increased as well Apart rom the white man we had first seen -- who owned the annery and lived by himself - there were some nine or en Muslims under him They formed a little colony of heir own, living midway between the town and open country 2 brick cottages with whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs. The men worked hard, some of them until late at night, he women -- Well, they were a queer lot, and their way of ife was quite different from ours. What they did in their buses I do not know, for they employed servants to do the fork; but they stayed mostly indoors or if they went out t all they went veiled in bourkas It was their religion, was told: they would not appear before any man but heir husband Somntimemhon muht sight of a figure ·NECTAR IN A SIEVE in voluminous draperies swishing through the strects a blazing sun, or of a face peering through a Frandom shutter, i felt desperately sorry for them, deprived of a ordinary pleasures of knowing warm sun and cold bute upon their flesh, of walking out light and free, or of the with men and working beside them. “They have their compensations," Kali said drils. is an easy life, with no worry for the next meal and på always at hand. I would gladly wear a bourka and veiled for the rest of my hfe if I, too, could be sure such things" "For a year perhaps," I said, "not for ever Who o endure such a filtering of sunlight and fresh air as do?" "You chatter like a pair of monkeys," said Kali's band, wil S$ sense. What use to talk of excha and so forth? Their life is theirs and yours is yours, ne hange nor exchange is possible." Once, and once only, I actually saw one of those wor :lose. I was taking a few vegetables to market whe aw her beckoning me to come indoors. I did so, anc oon as the door was closed the woman threw off her he better to select what she wanted. Her face was ale, the bones small and fine. Her eyes were pale 1 curious light brown matching her silky hair She t hat she wanted and paid me. Her fingers, fair and slend ere laden with jewelled rings, any one of which would hi d us for a year she smiled at me as I went out, th zickly lowered the veil again about her face. I never we rere again. There was something about those closed do ad shuttered windows that struck coldly at me, used as as to open fields and the sky and the unlettered sight old in.

·CHAPTER IX Ne morning I was pounding some red chillies into - powder. Cho-chup! went the pestle into the mortar, ishing the brittle chillies and the seeds in them. Each Ese it fell, a fine, red dust rose up, spreading a rich, rid smell in the air. A pleasant smell, hot and pungent, Such made my nostrils water and squirted the tears into 1 eyes, so that every few minutes I had to stop to wipe mm. It was a fine, peaceful morning, not a sound from tannery, which for one blessed day in the week closed wn completely Each time I paused I could hear sparrows Ittering, and the thin, clear note of a minah. Into view on the horizon came two figures, moving very fwly. I went on with my pounding The figures grew Iger every time I looked up, and then when they were l a fair distance away I recognised my daughter. I had en her only once since her marriage, and since then over year had passed Excited, I gathered up the chilli powder jd put it away, rinsed my eyes, washed my face and came =ít. On the doorstep I traced out a colam, a pattern in hite nice flour to welcome them They approached slowly, as if their feet were somehow Eeighted, not with the lightness which should have brought Elem quickly to my side. Something is wrong.' I thought. Young people should not walk thus. And when I saw heir faces the words of welcome I had ready died unittered. In silence Ira knelt at my feet I raised her up quietly. pith hammering heart. “Let us go in," I said. "You Just be tired." Ira entered obediently. Her husband stood stuffy outside. *Come," I said again," sit and rest for a while. You have travelled a long way" 19 ·50 NECTAR IN A SLEYE "Mother-in-law," he said, "I intend no discounter this is no ordinary visit. You gave me your daugt marriage. I have brought her back to you She is a woman. "You have not been married long," I said with dry! "She may be as I was, she may yet conceive" "I have waited five years," he replied. "She has bome in her first blooming, who can say she will sok! Tater? I need sons" 1 summoned Nathan from the fields. The tale * peated, our son-in-law departed. "I do not blame him," Nathan said. "He is just for a man needs children. He has been patient "Not patient enough," I said. "Not patient like beloved.” Ira was sitting with her face in her arms. She k up as her father and I came in and her mouth n a little, loosely, as if she had no control over her lips tas lovely still, but strain and hopelessness had shad her eyes and lined her forehead She secmed almo! back away as I went to her. "leave me alone, Mother. I have seen this common a long time The reality is much casier to bear than imaginings. At least now there is no more fear, no i necessity for hes and concealment" “There should never have been," I said your parents? Did you think he would blame you for is not your fault?" “There are others," she replied "Neighbours, wo ...and I a failure, a noman who cannot even bear a chi All this I had gone through the torment, the anxi Now the whole dreadful story was repeating itself, ans was my daughter this time "Hush," I said "We are all in God's hands, and is merciful." My thoughts went to Kenny. can help, I though surely he can do something. My crushed spirit revidd Tittle "Are we MA ·KAMALA ALARKANDAYA 5L About this time Arjun was in his early teens. He was U for his age and older than his years I had taught In the little I knew of reading and writing; now he could ve taught me and most other people in the town. I do t know how he did it, for we could not afford to send' im to school or to buy him books. Yet he always had s book or two by him, about which he grew vague if I asked ciestions, and spent many hours writing on scraps of paper collected, or even, when he had none, on the bare earth macretly I was glad, for I saw my father in him, although metimes my husband worried that he showed no inclinay on for the land ; but when one day he told me he was ping to work in the tannery I was acutely dismayed. It Iemed it was going to be neither the one thing nor the her, neither land nor letters, which was to claim him. " You are young," I attempted to dissuade him. "Bees, you are not of the caste of tanners. What will our on I do not know," he said. “I do not care. The imprtant thing is to eat." How heartless are the young' One would have thought Tom his words we had purposely starved him, when in on act of what there was he always got the biggest share after may husband. "So," I said, "we do not do enough for you. These They do not make good lations say?" dulc int le said " It is not enough. ired of seeing my brothers especially since Ira came to live with us " "You would grudge your own sister a mouthful,” I cried, who eats half what I give her so that you boys can have fthe more !" **The more reason for me to earn,” rejoined Arjun. "I do not grudge food to her or to you. I am only concerned that there is so little." c 1 ·+ "Over men 52 NECTAR IN Å SIESE He was right of course. The harvests had been vers. shop prices were higher than ever. "Well," I said. "Go if you must. You speak man although you are a child still. But I do not whether you can obtain work at the tannery. People they have all the labour they want" Kunthi's son will help me," he replied "He has mised." I did not want to be indebted to Kunthi, or to by She was so different from us, sly and secretive, with a f contemptuous air about her which in her son svast almost to insolence. He had inherited her looks too, ar knowledge of it lay in his bold eyes. A handsome, sw24 youth, not for my son. “There is no need to go through him," I said determination "I will ask Kenny to help you. Whit zave power. "Indeed they have," he said bitterly vents and especially dyes women “What do you mean " I said to him "Srcak lain tongue or not at all" He looked at me obliquely with darkening eyes, but 3y no more. A felv days later he began working at the tannery, efore long Thambi, my second son, had joined him ro of them had been very close to each other from arliest years, and it was not strange that Thambi sh blow his brother Nathan and I both tried to diss: im, but without avail My husband especially had i xoking forward to the day when they would join hin orking on the land, but Thambi only shook his heat "If it weré your land, or mine," he said, "I would * aith you gladly. But what profit to labour for another : et so little in return? Far better to turn away from njustice." Nathan said not a word There was a crushed look 23 im which spoke of the deep hurt he had suffered han any words could have done He had always wa ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 53 own his own land, through the years there had been the lype, growing fainter with each year, each child, that one he would be able to call a small portion of land his m. Now even his sons knew it would never be. Like 's brother before him, Thambi had found the cruellest Yrds of any Yet they were good sons, considerate of us, patient with hers, always giving us a fair share of their earnings. ith their money we began once again to live well In e granary, unused for so long, I stored away half a bag nice, two measures of dhal and nearly a pound of chillies. itherto, almost all we grew had been sold to pay the rent the land ; now we were enabled to keep some of our own oduce I was especially pleased that I had not been rced to sell all the chillies, for these are useful to us : len the tongue rebels against plain boiled rice, desiring ee and salt and spices which one cannot afford, the sharp e of a chillie renders even plain rice palatable. I was le at last to thatch our hut again, substantially, with 6.0 or three bindings of leaves For the first time in years bought clothes for the older children, a sari for myself, Hd although he protested I bought for my husband a dhoti pich he badly needed, since the other was in rags and Irely covered his loins Both he and I had the garments e had worn at our daughter's marriage, but these we never Rought of wearing. whatever hardships our day-to-day fring might have, we were determined not to disgrace our ing on the day of their weddings.

·CHAPTER X DEEPAVALI, the Festival of Lights, approached. I festival mainly for the children, but of course extent one who can takes part I twisted cotton into rul soaked them in oil and placed them in mud saucers from to be lit at night. To the children I handed out to a apiece, to be spent on fireworks I had never been ask do so before in previous ycars we had contented ourse with watching other people's fireworks, or with going d to the bonfire in the village, and even now I felt qua about wasting money on such quickly spent pleasures: their rapturous faces overcame my misgivings It is oncc,' I thought, a memory' As it grew dark we it the tapers and sicks and circled our dwelling with light A feathery brocze stirring, setting the flames leaping and dancing, their flections on the black gustening oil cavorting to in town and in the houses nearby, hundreds of small beat were beginning to flash, now and then a rockct would I into the sky, break and pour out its riches like preci jewels into the darkness As the night went on the crac and spit of exploding firem orks increased The children bought boxes of coloured matches and strings of patt+ and a few pice worth of crackers, like small nuts, o split in two with a loud bang and a shower of sparks mit IL The last were the most popular -- the boy's prang round shrieking with laughter and throwing the cracky about everywhere, yet they ucre nimble enough to skip of harm's way. All except Selvam, the youngest. He sto a safe distance away, legs apart and obviously reads. run, holding a stick of sugarcane nearly as tall as hima which he had bought instead of fireworks. "Go and play," I said to him "Deepavali comes 54 ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 55 ice a year and this is the first time we have bought fireorks. Do not lose the opportunity." "I am afraid," he said frankly, his small face serious After we had eaten, and rather rell, and there were I crackers left, and the oil in the saucers had run dry, ! walked to the town. Selvam refused to come He was stubbom child; I knew it was useless to try and periade him Ira stayed behind too, saying she preferred stay with him I think she was glad of the excuse he onded, for since her return she had not cared to be en about, and of course there would be a large crowd the town Villagers from all round, like us, were con- Fring towards the bonfire to be lit there, already smoke isps were curling towards the clouds, torches were benning to flare The smell of oil was everywhere, heavy id pungent, exciting the senses Our steps quickened bicker and quicker, greedy, wanting to encompass everyang, to miss not one iota of pleasure Then as happens en in the brightest moment, I remembered Janaki Last far she had come with us, she and her children This ar who knew --or cared? The black thought momenirily doused the glow within me, then, angered and indig. ant, I thrust the intruder away, chasing it, banishing it. red of gloom, reaching desperately for perfection of delight, hich can surely never be There was a great noise everywhere Men, women and hildren from the tannery and the fields had come out, any of them in new clothes such as we too had donned, le girls and women with flowers in their hair and glass angles at their wrists and silver rings on their toes, and lose who could afford it wore silver golsu clasped round deir ankles and studded belts around their waists In the centre of the town the bonfire was beginning to moulder. For many weeks the children had been collecting rewood, rags, leaves and brushwood, and the result was huge pile like an enormous ant-hill, into which the flames te fiercely, hissing and crackling and rearing up as ·56 NECTAR IN A SIETE on the bits of camphor and oil-soaked rags that he threw in. In the throng I lost Nathan and the boy's, of they lost me - at any rate we got separated 1: my way through the crush, this way and that, sa giving an inch, in my efforts to find them; and in the I had to give up Before long, in the heat and excite I forgot them. Drums had begun to beat, the fire blazing fiercely, great long orange tongues consutrum fuel and thrusting upwards and sometimes outsarda to engulf the watchers. As each searching Name round, the crowd leaned away from its grasp, straight as the wind and the flames changed direction; so that was a constant swaying movement like the waving cl grasses. The heat was intense--faces gleamed ruddy firelight, one or two women had drawn their saris : their eyes Leaping, roaring to chmar, then the strength from fury, a quieterung. Slowly, one by one, the il gave up their colour and dropped, until at last there none left -- only a glosing heap, ashen-edged. The d beats died to a murmur The scent of jasmine fic mingled with the furnes of camphor and oil, and a smell, that of toddy, which several of the men had drinking --- many to excess, for they were lurching a loud-mouthed and more than ordinanly merry. I lox about for my family and at last saw my husband. seemed to have gone mad. He had one son seated on shoulders and one son at each hip, and was bounding ab on the fringes of the crowd to the peni of my childrce : the amusement of the people I fought my way to ** Have you taken leave of your senses?" I cried out 25 the din. "No; only of my cares," he shouted gaily, capering abc with the children clinging delightedly to him. “Do you feel joy in the air?" He sounded so tight of heart I could not help smini ·KANALA MARKANDAYA 57 'I feel nothing." I said, going up to him. "Perhaps is the toddy that makes the feeling." *Not a drop," he said, coming up to me. "Smell!" You are too tall -- I cannot," I replied Lift her up," somebody yelled, and a dozen voices reated the cry : "Lift her up, lift her up!" Miy husband looked at me solemnly. "I will," he said, 8.dropping his sons he seized me and swung me high in front of all those people Several of the women were ghing at him indulgently, the children were twittering with Jasure. * Whatever will they say," I said, my face burning as let me down again "At our age too! You ought to ashamed !" That I am not," he said, winking, to the vast delight the onlookers "I am happy because life is good and children are good, and you are the best of all." What more could I say after that? Nathan sang loudly all the way back He was in high Irits. The children, tired out, clumped along in silence, youngest with frequent pleas to be carried ; and when took no notice he began snuffling It was a very hot night -- Selvam and Ira were sleeping fit in the open, in the small square in front of our hut hich I had swept and washed with dung that morning. the others stretched themselves out and were asleep aløst as they lay down Nathan had lost none of his good amour. He seemed very wide awake 1 stretched myself it beside him, close to him in the darkness, and as we uched he turned abruptly towards me. Words died away. Le listening air was very still, the black night waited. In 1e straining darkness I felt his body moving with desire, is hands on me were trembling, and I felt my senses opening e a flower to his urgency. I closed my eyes and waited, aited in the darkness while my being filled with a wild, cstatic fluttering, waited for him to come to me.

·wile or his daughter going to a white man, a forest CHAPTER XI O NE of my husband's male relatives had died az? the opportunity of going to see Kenny. I had not $ so before because I was sure Nathan would not be My father had been different --but Nathan, I felt i not approve. And if he did not, the one chance Ira! would be lost, and this made it the more important he should not know I explained this to Ira caution and she nodded listlessly and said yes, it was a neces precaution, but she did not look at me and she sho no enthusiasm I was getting more and more worried a! her : she moped about, dull of hair and eye, as if the sa ness of life had departed as indeed it has for a v who is abandoned by her husband. Kenny was working in the small bulding they had up near the tannery. I could see him whenever the opened to let someone out. There was a long line of 1 waiting : I squatted some distance away The day on. The sun had set, the glow of twilight was foud with darkness, before he came out He looked gri trred, his eyes were burning, there was an air of such i personal cruelty about him that despite myself I shivered No more tonight," he said briefly to the assembled route and stepping down from the verandah he strode away waited til the crowd dispersed, then I follored. He walking quickly with long strdes, I had to run to catch He stopped at last shen he heard my footsteps and was or me to come up, frowning so that I began to feel at "I said no more tonight Did you not hear mee? ou think I am made of iron?" "I wasted all day," I gasped must see you ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 59 7) lis frown deepened. He said coldly, "You people will or learn. It is pitiful to see your foolishness It is for my daughter I come,” I said. “She cannot *; she is as I was." You will be a mother even before she is," he replied a glimmer of a smile, " for it seems you have no culty." It is so," I said. "I would it were otherwise and she ay condition, for she is much afflicted since her husband no use for her." Why did she not come then," he said, "since it is her 1? It would have been more sensible.” here was an edge to his voice, and his mouth twisted in exasperation Forgive me," I whispered, quaking, "I was not sure-" o my surprise, he put both hands on my shoulders, ing me to look at him, and I saw he was laughing. I am sorry I frightened you," he said "You should act like a timid calf at your age As for your daughter, fall do what I can but remember, no promises." de turned and was gone I sat down to think, and to ect my wits. Wher at last I rose to go, a full moon shining, golden and enormous, very low in the sky. to the narrow footwalking swiftly and hemant alling my name from itting out wildly at · Vieast, and then I saw it was Kunthi, standing where . path forked with the moonlight streaming full down her. "You startled me," I said, “I did not expect " " That I can see," she said coolly, coming towards me. You keep late hours, Rukmani." No later than yours," I replied, not liking her tone I have my reasons." "Of course," she said softly, derision in her yoice. " We I have reasons." - ·60 NECTAR IN A STEVE "Mine are not the same as yours," I said with surveying her. She came very close, so close that I the rose petals in her hair, saw the paint on her "Meaning?" ** That we live differently. It is chantable to say wt Let me pass." She stood squarely in my path. "I would not thought it," she said slowly, "had I not seen for “Thought what," I said "Seen what? That you have so much passion in your body." said insolently, "that you seek assuagement thus husband would give much to know where you have tonight." r saty her mouth forming these words, her eyes hooded and mocking, then I saw her face suddenly to mine and did not realise I had thrown myself a intil I felt her body in my grip An overwhelming bossessed me, I kept shaking her furiously, I coul top. Her slender body was no match for mine. 1 er head lal back, the thin sari she wore slipped fror houlders Then I saw that it was not tied at the ut below the navel, like a strumpet's, and that she aked below Sandalwood paste smeared her selling Inder her breasts were dark painted shadows which Ieyri sensuous depth, the nipples were tipped with red I released her. She stood there before me pantang.! T hair shaken loose and coiling about her shoulders "Guard your tongue," I said, " or it will be the # If you." She said nothing for a moment, while she rearranged urments, recovering herselt a little, then once again Laddening, insulung hall-smile curved her lips. And for you," she said, with knives in her voice, of your precious husband" With that she was gone. I went alone to summon my daughter's husband. "Take her back," I said "There is nothing er now, she will bear you many sons yet." 1 ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 61 37 ly eyes I would," he replied, with a hint of sorrow in his eyes, r she was a good wife to me, and a comely one, but I e waited long and now I have taken another woman" went away. Ira was waiting, eagemess shining from You must not blame hum," I said "He has taken ther woman' he said not a word. I repeated what I had said, for seemed not to understand, but she only looked at me with hereafter her ways became even more strange She spent hours out in the country by herself, spoke little, withcompletely into herself and went about her tasks with hill hopelessness that daunted me. No one could see Jer now the warm lovely creature she had been except etimes when Selvam came to her, perching on her lap 7 coaxing a smile from her, for she always had a specia! for him. As my pregnancy advanced she turned commely away from me. Sometimes I saw her looking at with brooding, resentful eyes, and despite myself 1 ld not help wondering if hatred lay behind her glance. Then at last my child was bom, a nicely formed boy. aller than the others had been, but of course I was er now. We nicknamed him Kuti, which means tiny, being a happy, untroublesome baby everybody took asure in his arrwal. None more so than Ira the transmation in her was astonishing as it was inexplicable. I feared she might dislike the child, but now it was if he were her own. She lost her dreary air, her face ame animated, the bloom of youth came back to her. Our daughter is herself again," said Nathan to me. "I ve heard her carolling like a bird.” She is happy with the child," I replied, " but I do not ow what is to become of her in the future” Always worrying," he chided. "Is it not a mercy that e is young again, should one not be grateful?" He was a man and did not understand. How could I p worrying? We had no money to leave her. Who is 1 ·--- her . would look after her when the were gone and it was perhaps possible she might marry agzity ra No one had been more upset about the outcome of the match, and though failing in health she thouskt 62 NECTAR IN A SIEVE were married with families of their own? With * it no man would look at her, no longer a virgin and barren. marriage than Old Granny. It was she who had duty to come to me. She had aged considerably slike last time I had seen her. She walked slowly Eefore each step to gather strength for the next : kept up a slight, shuddering morement like the futter of a bee on a flower. "No fault of yours, or the girl's or her husband told her. "It is Fate. Nevertheless, I do not like to of the future “Why feas?" said the old lady. " Asy not do I not manage ?” I thought of her sitting in the street all day long the gunny-sacking in front of her piled with a few worth of nuts and vegetables ; and I thought of Ira the same thing, and I was silent "It is not unbearable," said she, watching me with shrewd eyes. "One gets used to st" It is true, one gets used to anything. I had got to the noise and the smell of the tannery, they no affected me I had seen the slow, calm beauty of village wilt in the blast from the town, and I grieved more; so now I accepted the future and Ira's lot in it, thrust it from me: only sometimes when I was cake in sleep while my will lay dormant, I found mysell bellious, protesting, rejecting, and no longer calm. 31 ·CHAPTER XII NE day in each week, when the tannery stopped work, Arjun and Thambi would help their father on • land, and this gave Nathan great pleasure. He ed to see his sons beside him, to teach them the ways the earth : how to sow; to transplant; to reap; to know 2 Wholesome from the rotten, the unwelcome reed from e paddy; and how to irrigate or drain the terraces In I these matters he had no master, and I think it helped m to know he could impart knowledge to his sons, more illed though they were in other things, and able to read id write better than any in the town. The rest of the week they worked at the tannery, going dere soon after daybreak and not coming back until it as dark. By the time they had entered their late teens ey were earning good wages : a rupee for each day's work. id without fail they would hand me their earnings, eping nothing back for gaming or whoring as many of le lads did. Each morning I cooked rice for them, somemes dhal or vegetables as well, which they took with them eat at midday; and when they came home I gave them ce-water and dried fish, sometimes a little buttermilk or erhaps even a few plantains I had kept from selling. But rom what they gave me I had also to buy clothes for lem, for they were expected to put on shirts over their in-cloths, and red turbans on their heads, so that although Me had full bellies and were well clothed there was not ruch left over, and the hope I secretly cherished of putting y some money for Ira soon withered ; and when it finally led I recovered my peace of mind and was happy enough. If there was nothing to be done in the fields, Nathan would accompany me when I went to market. This happened so seldom that it was always an occasion, and O round it off we would go to the tannery to see ·66 NECTAR IN A SIETE Of course ours was not the only family involsed. were several others, among them Kali's, and she cam? bemoan the result "Two more mouths to feed." she complained. one of my three sons had the sense to go back. I do know what is to become of us, for the land cannot us all. So much for reading and writing," she said, a me with eye and finger "Did I not say no good come of it? Now look into what mess your saras led us !" "Ay, and out of it to better things," said Thambi , flint in his voice," but for spawn like yours tho bart themselves cheaper than dirt " "You will speak with respect," I cried, " or else Then Nathan interrupted, so violently that I started "Enough!” he shouted. "More than enough has said. Our children must act as they choose to, no our benefit. Is it not enough that they suffer 5" The veins on his forehead were bulgng I had never him so angry before. Kali went away. Then the men loo, father and sons, leaving me alone who had po un itanding. Once more Nathan was sole provider for us, and we he good living we had known. The reserves of grai rad put by began to dwindle despite my care. Fortunat arvest time was near, and I consoled myself with hought of it. Arjun and Thambi began to frequent the town more nore, coming and going at all hours with no word 29 that they did, and I suffered it in silence, for I knew i tad no money to lead them to ham, and I had no or the restlessness that afflicted them. One moming I was laying out some clothes to dry in un when Selvan came running in his face hot and "Tom-toms are beating," he announced breathlessly. Onun is full of drummers, they are calling for men.' I stopped my work and gazed at him, and all at wy heart tumed over. It was as if a scene long post 4 ·*KAMALA MARKANDAYA urting again this was not Selvam but Arjun, and he 11 "Z., bringing and over ing, eager repeated interest I was forgotten. Then they had gone-a triumphant Selvam in the van and the place was quiet, I did indeed hear the drums, diled and distant, insistently calling. Well,' I thought. it concerns me I shall heat soon enough, and if not I I have saved myself a walk.' So with ordinary things lught to still my qualms. They are calling for labourers," Arjun said, not looking ** It would be a good opportunity for us." mly Arjun and Thambi, who had stayed in the town nightfall , and my husband and I, were up. The others le long asleep. They are paying well," Arjun resumed. "It would be for us to work again It is not fitting that men should upt themselves in hunger and idleness I have heard,” said Nathan," that labour is required you not here, but in the island of Ceylon." Yes. It is work in the tea plantations of Ceylon" You may not have the knowledge for such work." They will teach us -- they have said so" Who will pay for the joumey – is it not one of many idreds of miles ?" 'True They will arrange everything, and everything will paid for," 0 Nathan was silenced, for he saw they were men and 1 made their decisions, but how could I let them go. were my own flesh and blood, without a fight? 'Promises," I said. "Fair words Who is to see if honoured? What is to happen if they are They need labour," Arjun said drily." Sel 11 keep these promises."

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·KAMALA ALARKANDAYA 69 her than two days' journeying, and that it is a good se that takes him? Kenny himself has assured you hat -- you should be grateful that he has recommended son." I am indeed," I said, flat and dispirited "He has e much for us." You brood too much," Nathan said, “and think only 'your trials, not of the joys that are still with us. Look ur land — is it not beautiful? The fields are green and grain is ripening It will be a good harvest year, there be plenty." te coaxed me out into the sunlight and we sat down ther on the brown earth that was part of us, and we d at the paddy fields spreading rich and green before and they were indeed beautiful. The air was cool and yet the paddy caught what little movement there was, ling slightly one way and the next with soft whispering Pne time there had been kingfishers here, flashing between young shoots for our fish, and paddy birds; and somes, in the shallower reaches of the river, flamingoes, ling with ungainly precision among the water reeds, with mage of a glory not of this earth. Now birds came no te for the tannery lay close — except crows and kites and h scavenging birds, eager for the town's offal, or someles a pal-pitta, skimming past with raucous cry but never pping, perhaps dropping a blue-black feather in flight to ight the chuldren. Nathan went and plucked a few green stems and brought "See how firm and strong they are -- no sign disease at all And look, the grain is already forming" I took the paddy from him and parted the grass and Te within its protective husk lay the rice-grain, just big wugh to see, white, perfect, and holding in itself our lives. "It promises a good harvest," he repeated eagerly. "We shall be able to pay the landlord, and eat, and rhaps even put by a little. We may even make - Would not that be good?" m to me visit our son

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·- KAMALA MARKANDAYA 71 ++ among you when my spirit wills it... I go when I am of your follies and stupidities, your eternal, shameful ty. I can only take you people," he said, " in small cas silent, taking no offence Barbed words, but what :r from one so gentle? Harsh talk from one in whom prings of tenderness gushed abundant, as I knew. told you what I did, in a moment of lunacy," he "I do not want it repeated." am not cursed with a gossip's tongue," I said, annoyed rould not repeat what you have said " Never. Understand?" understand." Tose to his feet and without another word was gone, ing with long, quick strides and stooping a little as ys A strange nature, only partly within my underling. A man half in shadow, half in light, defying vledge.

·► X CHAPTER XIII THAT year the rains failed. A reek Fent ts. tve stared at the cruel sky, calm, blue, indie.com our need. We threw ourselves on the earth and we I took a pumpkin and a few grains of rice to my Edd and I wept at her feet. I thought she looked at me compassion and I went away comforted, but no rain "Perhaps tomorrow," my husband said. "It is my late." We went out and scanned the heavens, clear and 1 tiful, deadly beautiful, not one cloud to mar its sert Others did so too, coming out, as we did, to gaze al sky and murmur, 'Perhaps tomorrow Tomorrows came and went and there was no rain no longer said perhaps, only a faint spark of hope. nately refusing to die, brought him out each dawn to! the heavens for a sign Each day the level of the water dropped and the of the paddy hung lower. The river had shrunk to a ti the well was as dry as a bone Before long the short the paddy were uipped with brown, even as He 112 the stain spread like some terrible disease, choking ou green that meant life to us Harvesting time, and nothing to reap The Daddy taken all our labour and lay now before us in faded. less heaps. Sivajt came to collect his master's dues and his fell when he saw how much was lost, for he was a good and he felt for us. "There is nothing this year," Nathan said to him. even gleanings, for the grain was but little advanced." "You have had the land," Sivaji said, "for thach have contracted to pay 50 much money, so much These are just dues, I must have them Would you 1 - me return empty handed ?"

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 15 - ment." athan's shoulders sagged. He looked tired and dispirited me and stood beside him Ira and the boys crouched us, defensively. There is nothing." Nathan repeated "Do you not set trops are dead? There has been no rain and the river Yet such was the contract else the land would not have frented to you." What would you have me do? The last harvest was gre; we have nothing saved ” Faji looked away. "I do not know It is your con- I must do as I am bid." What then?" The land is to be given to another if you cannot make Go from the land after all these years? Where would GO? How would we live ?" It is your concern I have my orders and must obey athan stood there sweating and trembling Give me time," he said at last humbly," until the next I will pay then, somehow" Pay half now," Sivaji said, "and I will try and do as wish" He spoke quickly, as if to give himself no to repent of his offer, and hurried away even before my band had assented No easy job for him," I said “He is answerable, even we are." That is why he and his kind are employed." Nathan bitterly. "To protect their overlords from such unasant tasks Now the landlord can wring from us his neys and care not for the misery he evokes, for indeed Fould be difficult for any man to see another starve and wife and children as well; or to enjoy the profits born such travail." He went into the hut and I followed. A few mud yots d two brass vessels, the tin trunk I had as

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 75 " It is for you to make the offer." " Tell me first how much you want and I will see what I t 1 do "Enough to pay the land dues." "How much is that?" "It is my business." He was silent for a while, and I said to him exasperated, Tell me if you are not prepared to buy and I will go lewhere." * Always in haste," he rebuked me in that gentle, oily ice of hus." Yet I think this time you will have to ait my pleasure, Rukmani." What do you mean?” I said, ruffled. "There are Iny who would be pleased to buy such good material.- I think not,” he said "I think not. For, you see, the Fes of other men have come to me, even as you have, a have gone away as you threaten, yet they have to the back to me because nobody else can afford to buy these hard times" As no doubt you can," I said with contempt, and then inspiration came to me and I went on : "Unless you ý a fair price I shall take these sarıs elsewhere There the Muslim wife of a tannery official whom I know, and e will buy from me as she has done before." Indeed," he said, a little disconcerted. "Well, Rukani, since we have done business for a long time, and cause you are a woman of spint whom I have long Imired, I will give you thirty rupees. Nobody could be ireo” "Fairer by far," I retorted. “I will not take one pie ider seventy-five rupees. Take it or not as you please." I put the clothes away, making a pretence of going to e door. I hoped he would call me back, for in truth I d not know where else to turn, but if not-Well, thirty pees was too far from our needs to be of use, and if I d not get what I asked I might as well keep the saris. ܒܫ -- ----

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·- KAMALA MARKANDAYA 77 "Let us only try," I said with the sobs coming fast. Let us keep our hope for a next harvest." "Very well, very well," Nathan exclaimed "Let us try all means. We may be kicked for our pains, but what' that! Anything to stop your wailing Now go, do not oss me further." "He is worried,' I thought, smothering my sobs. 'He is istracted and does not mean to be harsh' I went inside and lay down, with the money tied to my y, and at last dozed off into a troubled sleep. In the morning Sivaji came, and my husband took the oney and counted it out in front of him One hundred and twenty-five rupees," he said "Not if what we owe, but the best we can do without selling je seed for the next sowing" "It would raise only a few rupees" I pleaded. “Let us o keep it, and we will repay you twofold” It is not for me," Sivaji answered “You make paythént to another What shall I say to him that I bring ha! little? You made promise of half" "Give us a little grace," Nathan said, dragging the words tt. "We will make full repayment and over after the båt harvesting So we stood and argued and begged, and in the end vaji agreed to wait He took the money and tumed to 3, then he hesitated and said, a little wistfully What I do I must, for I must think of my own... do not wish to be hard. May you prosper." **May you prosper too." I whispered, hardly able to speak, or his words had left me defenceless. "Alay the Gods ive you their blessing." And so he departed The drought continued until we lost count of the timc. Say after day the pitiless sun blazed down scorching whatfor millones 12. urth hard unul # 31.1.- ·78 NECTAR IN A SIEVE of water, lizards and squirrels lay prone and blistering sunlight. In the town a water reservoir had been built to tannery workers and their families, but now others allowed a limited quantity as well So thither I jossa every morning, and, when I said how many we were half a mud-pot would be doled out, sometimes a little depending upon who was in charge. Then some women in their greed began to claim to have more e than they had, and non-existent relatives, and then jealousies and spite and bitter argument. Until at was decreed that each person must come in his ONT only, not for others, even children and old men, and ! an hi mar ind and our hopes had shovelled with the paddyto do any good -- then we saw the storm clouds gat and belore long the rain came Lashing down, making fury for the long drought and giving the grateful I: mucil 29 it could suck and more But in us the nothing left no joy, no call for joy. It had come to ·CHAPTER XIV soon as the rains were over, and the cracks in the rarth had healed, and the land was moist and ready, took our seed to our Goddess and placed it at her feet eceive her blessing, and then we bore it away and made sowing Then a few weeks had gone by, the seed sprouted i ler shoots appeared, thrusting upwards with increasing ngth, and soon we were able to transplant the seedlings by one, and at first they stood out singly, slender, nulous spires with spaces between : but grew and grew soon were merged into one thick green field of rustling dy. In that field, in the grain which had not yet begun form, lay our future and our hope Lope, and fear. Twin forces that tugged at us first in 1 direction and then in another, and which was the nger no one could say. Of the latter we never spoke, 3 it was always with us Fear, constant companion of Peasant Hunger, ever at hand to jog his elbow should Telax Despair, ready to engulf him should he falter. ir ; fear of the dark future ; fear of the sharpness of iger ; fear of the blackness of death, Long before the paddy ripened we came to the end of our ed-fish stocks. There was no money left - every pie gone to pay the land dues Nothing left to sell. Nothing be had from my efforts, for the vines and vegetables had hered in the long weeks of drought. At last no option but to draw upon my secret hoard : small stock of rice, ten ollocks in all, shielded from every mptation to sell or barter, kept even when the need to ld our land had squeezed us dry of everything else. Now brought it out and measured it again, ten ollocks exactly. sen 1 divided it into several equal portions, each of the stions as little as would suffice for one day, and counted 79 1 ·80 NECTAR IN A SIEVE the portions of which there were twenty-four, so that nearly a month we would not starve. For a long time hesitated, wondering whether we could do with less making thirty divisions, but finally, I decided against & Kuti was already ailing, and we needed to present strength for the harvest. 'For at least twenty-four days we shall eat,' I there • At the end of that time well, we are in God's long He will not fail us' Sometimes I thought that, and other times I was seized with trembling and was fright: not knowing where to tum. The nights were always the worst, and not for me Peace then seemed to forsake our hut and I could my husband and children moving restlessly in their and muttering, whether from hunger or fear I do not by Once Nathan cried out loudly and sprang up in his I went to him, and he woke then and clung to me. "Only a dream," I said, "Sleep, my dear onc." "A nightmare," he said sweating. "I saw the umed to straw, the grain lost .. Oh God, all was His voice was stark, bereft of the power of dissen which full consciousness brings "Never fcar," I said with false courage lest panic sh swoop down on us "All will be well" He composed himself for sleep again "You are a good wife," he murmured. "I would have any other I drifted at last into uneasy sleep, and dreamt cvil drcams, and in one I saw a shadowy figure with face creeping into our hut and bearing away the ten of of rice. I knew it was but the result of an over-burda spirit, but the following night I had the same dream the days passed I found myself growing increasingly cious. Except for my family, I trusted no one. Och night when there sere no passers-by, did I feel complet safe. Then I would bring out the rice, and measure and run the grain through my fingers for sheer love a fondling it like a simpleton. When I had taken out ! 10 ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 81 atted portion for the next day I would bury the jainder, one half, tied in a white cloth, in a hole I dug pe distance from our hut, the other half in our granary. Several times I thought of going to Kenny, and twice $id go He would have helped us, of that I am sure, each time I was told he had gone away the town folk not see him for many weeks. I would have gone again 1 again, but I had not my full strength; it was no longer ty to walk to the town and back. We might have Towed from Biswas, but there was nothing left to pledge; any event, we would not have been able even to pay the frest he demanded seven days went by and seven precious portions of rice c eaten. On the eighth day Kunthi came as I was king the rice-water had not set eyes on her for a considerable timesince the day i had seen her in her nakedness , and "Thad changed so much I scarcely recognised her. I gazed e her hardly believing The skin of her face was stiff and afiy as if from overstretching, elsewhere it showed folds 1 her breasts hung loose ; had been her pride and not a vestige remained. ell.' I thought. 'All women come to it sooner or later has come off perhaps worse than most ' Sit and rest awhile," I said "What brings you hither?" She made no answer, but walked to the pot on the fire d looked in. "You eat well," she said. "Better than most." Not well. We eat, that is all ” "You still have your husband ?" * Why, yes," I said staring at her, not quite taking her 'Why do you ask?" She shrugged. "I have lost mine. I wondered how you Poor thing." I thought She has suffered '- I looked at Jeaning ad fared." xer pityingly, ·ܕ ܝܢ ܀ my husband. NECTAR IN A STEVE "I do not want your pity," she said savagely, He is alive and well- he is 1 another." I thought of her husband, slow, sturdy, dependable, man like an ox, and I could not believe it of him; then they of Kunthi as I had once seen her, with painted not to Scented thighs that had held so many men, and I if after all these years he had not at last found out ! her. "Perhaps the truth has been forced upon the image thought, looking at her with suspicion, and I gazed * upon that ravaged beauty. "Stare your fill," she said scornfully. "You a Hacked graces, Rukmani." I averted my eyes hastily. I hardly knew what to “I have come," she continued, "nor to be seen, or you, but for a meal. I have not eaten for a long time I went to the pot and stirred it, scooped out a placed it in a bowl, handed it to her She swallowed it a and put the bowl down. "I must have some rice too. I cannot come every ...as it is I have waited a long time to make sure you afone." "There is no rice to be given away." I said. "I think of my husband and children. These are not 1 of plenty." “Nevertheless," she replied, "I will have some damage will never be repaired whilst I hunger. The no life for me until I am whole again "She is mad,' I thought. She believes what she s does not realise there is no going back for her. " Listen," I said, "there is none, or very little. D our ricc-water, come here daily, but do not ask for I have a daughter and sons, even as you have, to cors that I have belongs to us all. Can you not go to “My sons," she said, looking at me speculatively, not mine alone." Seeing my bewilderment she added, "I have wives. I would never approach them now." song?" - ·83 KAMALA MARKANDAYA What are sons for --" I began. Not to beg from," she interrupted with a flicker of tempt. "I can look after myself; but first the bloom st come back." ; was mute : I had said all there was to say and now re was nothing more. Well," she said, breaking the silence, and with an edge her voice. "How much longer have I to wait?" ihe came close to me and put her face near mine. I the grey, drawn flesh and the hooded eyes, deep sunken heir sockets, and I made to turn away but she held me. I have not so much patience," she said. “I will have Price now or your husband shall hear that his wife is. as virtuous as he believes - or she pretends" 3 He believes what is true," I said with anger. "I do pretend" Perhaps he has not seen what I have seen,” she said, there was menace in her voice and threat in the words. mings and goings in the twilight, and soft speech, and of milk and honey such as men make to the women have known" Stop," I howled at het, and put my hands to my ears. ughts kept hurtling through my head like frenzied Irrels in a new-forged cage With sudden clarity I re- Ped my daughter's looks that far-off day when I had gone Kenny, my son's words, such men have power, especially For women ; remembered my own foolish silences. i closed eyes and sank down. She came and sat by me. Which is it to be? Which is it to be?..." Her words were hammering at my brain, the horrible lables were beating the air around me, the whole place $s full of their sound. I need you,' I cried to myself, 'Nathan, my husband. Cannot take the risk, because there is a risk since she is pver and I am not in your anger or your jealousy, or en because you are not yourself after these long strained onths, you may believe what she says and what she means.. cause I have deceived you and cannot deny all ·my husband. 9) 82 NECTAR IN A SIEVE "I do not want your pity," she said savagely, He is alive and well-he is Inszig another." I thought of her husband, slow, sturdy, dependable, like an or, and I could not believe it of him; then I of Kunthi as I had once seen her, with painted : scented thighs that had held so many men, and ! if after all these years he had not at last found out her. Perhaps the truth has been forced upon thought, looking at her with suspicion, and I gazed upon that ravaged beauty. "Stare your fill," she said scornfully. "You 2 lacked graces, Rukmani." I averted my eyes hastily. I hardly knew what to "I have come," she continued, "nor to be seen, o you, but for a meal. I have not caten for a long time I went to the pot and stirred it, scooped out a placed it in a bowl, handed it to her. She swallowed it and put the bowl down. "I must have some rice too I cannot come ever ...as it is I have waited a long time to make sure you alone." “There is no rice to be given away." I said. "I hink of my husband and children. These are not of plenty." Nevertheless," she replied, "I will have some. damage will never be repaired whilst I hunger. The 20 life for me until I am whole again." 'She is mad, I thought 'She believes what she does not realise there is no going back for her.' " Listen," I said, "there is none, or very little. D sur rice-water, come here daily, but do not ask for I have a daughter and sons, even as you have, to cors What I have belongs to us all. Can you not go to sons ?" "My sons," she said, looking at me speculatively not mine alone." Seeing my bewilderment she added have wires. I would never approach them now."

·KAMALA BIARKANDAYA 85 isting aside the small core of suspicion each time it Ded. 'Surely not. Who else? Who? kong time passed; when at last I rose, my limbs were and prickling, and darkness had given way to the first beginnings of dawn. athan was not in the hut when I went back : I saw sitting beside the paddy fields as he often did when could not sleep The boys were still asleep, the two ones side by side, Kuti squeezed close to Ira and she bi her arm thrown across him I shook her by the vder, and Kuti woke first and began to cry. I picked up and took him outside and left him there, and when ent back the others were awake I looked at the three 1$ and I thought bitterly. One of thern has done this me....Which one? Which one?' I thought, quesng looking at the three faces as if to read their thoughts ; there was nothung to see save alarm, they shrank a from my vehemence 5 must know," I shouted "I must know who has done re thing" epey looked at me as if I had lost my senses. Ira said sally, "We would not take what belonged to us all" Tell me I am imagining the loss," I stormed at her, that I myself have eaten it" they stared at me in silence, amazed. Outside Kuti was Sing Attracted by his cries, Nathan had come up, now See to the child," he said frowning. "Can you not him? He will choke" So much the better," I said. "It will be one mouth less You are ill," he said. “You do not know what you saying" He picked up the child, soothing him in his hes, and then gave him to Ira. My heart is sick," I said "I have been robbed, one of my own children, of rice, which above all ik 3 alled to me. feed." +7 most precious Is that what said to them?"

·86 NECTAR IN A SLEVE > I nodded I saw his face wither. "I took it," he said at last. "You? My husband ? I do not believe it!" "It is true Silence fell like a shroud I listened to it locked: own brooding bitterness Then it was rent by a so raw, so painful, that my nerves began screaming in res I looked up and it was Nathan His face was ** from his throat came those dry hideous sobs "Not for myself," he was muttering, trying to cort treacherous voice," for another I took it tor? There was no other way I hoped you would not I had to do it" I went to him I did not want to know any mor he had done it or for whom, it was no longer impc but he was still speaking it was as if he could not s "Kunth took it all. I swear it She forced me, I want you to know" Presently he was quiet "She has a strange power, this woman," I said, myself "Not strange," Nathan said "I am the father ons She would have told you, and I was cak" Disbelief first, disillusionment, anger, reproach, To find out, after so many years, in such a cruel Cali's swords she has fire in her body, men bum! nd after Aiy husband was of those men He had er not once but twice, he had gone back to give coond son And between, how many times,' I tant Jeak of spint, 'while her husband in his impotent in my innocence did nothing' " It was a long time ago," Nathan said. "I was oung, and she a skilful woman " The first time was before our marriage," he said "One did not see the esal for the beauty," he said At last I made an effort and roused myself. " It is as you say a long time ago," I said wearils. "?? he is evil and powerful I know mysell. Let it rest 1 ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 87 me possible for me to speak as well. I told him frizer visit and the grain she had extorted from me id it seerned to me that a new peace came to us eed at last from the necessity for lies and concealnd deceit, with the fear of betrayal lifted from us, {th the power we ourselves had given her wrested from Kunthi. that the last of the rice was gone it was in a sense ef: no amount of scheming and paring would make it y further : the last grain had been eaten. hereafter we fed on whatever we could find : the soft fruit of the prickly pear, a sweet potato or two, kened and half-rotten, thrown away by some more prosus hand; sometimes a crab that Nathan managed to h near the river Early and late my sons roamed the atryside, returning with a few bamboo shoots, a stick of zrcane left in some deserted field, or a piece of coconut ied from the gutter in the town For these they must e ranged widely, for other farmers and their families, ake plight to ourselves, were also out searching for food; ! for every edible plant or root there was a struggle - lesperate competition that made enemies of friends and : an end to humanity. It was not enough Sometimes from sheer rebellion we : grass, although it always resulted in stomach cramps d violent retching. For hunger is a curious thing: at st it is with you all the time, waking and sleeping and your dreams, and your belly cries out insistently, and ere is a gnawing and a pain as if your very vitals were ung devoured, and you must stop it at any cost, and you ly a moment's respite even while you know and fear the quel. Then the pain is no longer sharp but dull, and this o is with you always, so that you think of food many mes a day and each time a terrible sickness assails you nd because you know this you try to avoid the thought ut you cannot, it 13 with you. Then that too is gone, al rain, all desire, only a great emptiness is leít, like the sky ke a well in drought, and it is now that the strength drain

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88
NECTAR IN A SIEVE
from your limbs, and you try to rise and find :
or to swallow water and your throat is powerless, and
the swallow and the effort of retaining the liquid -
to the uttermost.
*It will not be long before the harvest,' Nathan
murmur, and I would agree with him, stifting the
whether our strength would last till then, saying.'
not long nowy; only a little time before the grain
It happened to me too, but I could not see mysel
what happened to others : saw their flesh melt ami
their skin sag and sink between their jutting bont
their eyes retreat into their skulls, saw their ribs cul
from under the skin; and what withered the your
doubly hard on the old and they were emaciated twi
But of us all Kuti suffered the most. He had nev
a healthy chud; now he was constantly ailme. At
asked for rice-water and cried because there was no
later he gave up asking and merely cried Even
sleep he whimpered, twisting and tuming endlessly.
ting no one to rest. Ira was gentlest with him, and ti
patient, nursing him in her skinny arms and giving hu
of what came to her, but more often than not he
away, unable to take the rough food we offered, an
she would hold him against her and give him her
and he would pull at the porched teat and be soothe
for a while his thin wailing would die away

·ir CHAPTER XV ONE NE day Raja went out as usual and did not come back. At dusk they brought his body home slung hpon There th, fresh his head, . - ir heads je suted their feet and spoke in low voices and then they Rent away It was real, yet it seemed a nightmare, it Jould not be true that my son lay dead before me Thus fy thoughts, dazed and confused, injecting pain where there Jas numbness; and my mind, furtively touching the edges realisation, then fleeing from it in terror He had been caught, they said , something about money. What had my son to do with money, who had not a pie ey told me They As if I did not . But why should me, but the sense mt I could not re- Pember. They repeated themselves again and again, but I Cept forgetting I heard Ira begin to sing a low dirge, she as rocking gently back and forth, and she was crying. " What are you crying for?" I said "You have little nough strength, without dissolving it in tears She looked at me stupidly, and away, and down at her rother, Her sorrow Howed to me, the numbness began to lear. I tried frantically to keep it might as well have fried to imprison a cloud. For this I have given you birth, my son, that you słould de in the end at my feet with ashes in your face and coldness in your limbs and yourself departed without Sving this huddie of bones and flesh without

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·91 KANALA MARKANDAYA business to be, and when the chowkidars caught him they rund he had stolen a calf-skin." "I do not believe it," I said "What use had he for such thing?" "Not in itself maybe," he replied in a strained voice, $ if struggling to keep his terper, “but of course he could ave sold it-sold it anywhere. We have had a lot of ysses recently." You cannot blame my son," I said wearily. "We five pm hand to mouth, as you can see .. there is no wealth Fre, such as your goods might have brought." I am not blaming your son alone,” he said carefully, ikut of course it is well known your sons have been troublekers Now we do not want any trouble from you, you derstand. The lad was caught in the act of stealing - lybe, as you say, for the first time and in a moment of akness - still, he was caught, and for the consequences It followed, no one was to blame except himself. He puld not have struggled. In these circumstances you urally have no claim on us." Claim?" I said. “I have made no claim I do not Jerstand you." He made a gesture of impatience. You may think of it later, and try to get compensar. I warn you, it will not work." Compensation,' I thought. "What compensation is there death?' I felt confused, I did not understand what was getting at. There was a pause The timid man a kindly : He was not brutally treated or anything, you know, jey merely tapped him with a lathi, as he was trying to ape, and he fell He must have been very weak or some- Ing." He was," I said "He worked hard, and ate little." "Naturally, it must have been a blow for you," said the nid one “It is hard to lose - that is _" He tailed Pinnathir meanin's clance fixed or him 7

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·CHAPTER XVI mes?" $ THERE is the reapung.” I said, " and the threshing and winnowing. How shall we manage when the time " When the time comes,” Nathan said with a gleam in eye, "the strength will be forthcoming, never fear." looked at him doubtfully thin and drawn, with thighs d arms so puny that no muscle showed even when he ked them. The rice would have to be lifted plant by int, and the grain separated from the husk, and the husk åten for the last few grains. It meant working long hours the flooded fields with bent back, and much labouring meafter converting the paddy into rice. It was no task for akened bodies You will see," he said with confidence "We will find strength One look at the swelling grain will be enough trenew our vigour" Indeed, it did our hearts good to see the paddy ripen watched it as a dog watches a bone, jealously, lest it snatched away, or as a mother her child, with pride and ection And most of all with fear As we sat there Irawaddy came to us, stepping softly, It is hot withun,” she said forlomly. “I could not rest." She went and picked a head of paddy before sitting down ſide us I saw her fingers parting the husk, feeling for grain within "How much longer ?” The same question, the answer to which she already knew, lo had lived on the land since birth. * Three weeks," Nathan's reply, grave, sincere, absolutely nest where another might have been tempted to easier ids, "It is not long to wait,” I said, trying to hearten her, Ind if the Gods are kind it may even be sooner."

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 95 Through relief and exhaustion I slept well that night, aking refreshed before daybreak with a renewed hope thess. 'Soon all will be well,' I thought. “We shall eat id the strength will come back to us, and there will be more fear. This has been a bad time but it is passing as I things must, and now it is not joy, which passes in a ice, but sorrow, which is slower in the going, and so one ust be patient. A few more days' waiting, a few more fy's' anxiety -- it is not beyond enduring, it is not too much ask' This I thought as I lay there, listening to the unds of sleep and lost in my own imaginings The darkness was lifting when I heard the sound of btsteps, wary, soft, less heard than felt as a slight tremor the ground. If it had been a reverberating gong, that und could not have had more violent effect. My fancies headlong from me; in their place a cloud of black a grey arose, revolving before my eyes and assuming atastic shapes and forms until at last one stood out arly away from the swirling musts and with a face to it. Inthi. No one but Kunthi, coming stealthủy by night to leve from us what little we had, unashamed as she was & always had been The footsteps were coming nearer. I raised myself on elbow the better to listen, trying to stil the thudding my car-drums which impeded my hearing Nearer and arer. I stood up, bracing myself for the encounter, and pped from the familiar darkness of the hut into the grey. $ night outside. The figure was there, soft and blurred outline, but a woman's. I threw myself at it, pinioning arms savagely, thrust at it and beat it to the ground; 1 on it with fury; felt the weak struggles of the body neath mine like the feeble fluttering of a trapped bird, derulted The air was full of harsh sounds, but whether y issued from my throat or hers, or existed only in my agination, I do not know. The being that was me was longer in possession. It had been consumed in the flames anger and hatred that raged through me in those butes; what took its places I do not knop. !

·7- 96 NECTAR IN A SIEVE Then I heard a thin, shrill scream “Mother ! Alofke* Hands were dragging me away. I felt mysell pulled thrown to one side "Fiend ! Madwoman!” Nathan shrieking. "Accursed mother!" He was bending over the form, doing something to it. I saw he was quite naked on wondered at it, forgetting he had come straight from shop He turned to me "Are you out of your mind? Your own daughter, you have killed her Murderess" He and Selvam carried her in I slunk after them believing It could not be Irawaddy It was some of strous mistake they had made, not I 1 crept to her side saw it was Irawaddy Her face was puffed and bore hori marks, one lip was bleeding where her tooth had bitten diren I closed my eyes Red circles opened out before them! -ceding into an endless blackness I shook myself click! am and went to aid my husband. He had a pot of de him and was wiping the blood from her body, # tra was stained with blood I took the cloth from him: "I will see to her " He thrust me aside "Get away; you have done emal arm. You are not fit " "I thought it was Kunth," I whispered He moved a little, making room for me, but remas ncar, not wholly trusting She had been badly cut A long jagged cash shem! in her left side, there was a similar one on her left si * These wounds." I said "1 did not make them"! did not expect him to believe me "I know The bangles broke" Bangles? Hors could she have bangles, who had med pie of her own? I stared at him, not knowing and the unrcal happenings whether those were his words of shat I had heard. Ile pointed. "Do you not see the glass - there and there. She wearing bangles."

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 97 They had broken against her body, which had protected le from injury. I began to swab The cuts were full of lass, some of it in splinters, some of it in powder like bing sand. When I had cleaned them I bound the two irgest gashes For the rest there was nothing I could use, it these were smaller and mercifully soon stopped bleeding he sarı I had taken from her was soaked with blood and imy where dust clung to the wet cloth I took it down the river intending to wash it, shook it clear of dust and pken glass As I did so, something dropped from the Ids, fell in the muddy water, sank, and was lost, but not fore I had seen that it was a rupee I went on with my work, scrubbing the blood-stains, asing the cloth, laying it on the grass to dry me back, swept and cleaned the hut, cleared the courtrd, removed all signs of the struggle that had been The was moving to mudday by the time I had finished " that there was nothing more to do, the thoughts I d so far avoided came crowding in on me in agitated moil. Who had given her the money Why? Had she len it, and if so how and who from? Why did she He to walk by night wearing glass bangles? I kept very 1, not to waken my sleeping daughter, while the thoughts nt galloping through my head, and question after ques. 1, unanswered. Kuti, lying in a comer of the hut, began to moan. Ira Ird and opened her eyes, gesturing vaguely towards him rent to her first. "Lie still ; the cuts will open again" She looked at me sombrely Feed him; he is hungry Take the rupee you will find my sarı" knew then that it was she who had been responsible the improvement in Kuti, not my prayers Nathan was about to say something, to question fer per- > I gripped his arm, forcing him to silence Tra was uggling to rise. I went to her.

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·"These are but words," she said at last. ." There arc KAMALA MARKANDA YA 99 Ira gave me a sidelong glance : Your imagination would not travel that far" "You do not know me," I said, troubled "And I no ger understand you." The truth is unpalatable," she replied Pondered awhile, searching my memory: then it came me the man who had called after Raja's death He said the same thing. The truth is unpalatable Nathan came in from the fields at sundown as Ira was ting forth. He had been clearing the irrigation chanand strengthening the dams, the fork he carried was ed with soil and water. He thrust it into the earth and bed on it. Where do you go at this hour?" It is better not to speak I will have an answer," The cart give you none" Hathan's brows drew together, she had never before den to him in this manner Looking at her, it seemed pe that almost over-night she had changed; she had tender and modest and obedient, now she had reuished every one of these qualities; it was difficult to eve she had ever been their possessor. Nathan was groping for words, stumbling a little over 'I will not have it said I will not have you parading right" Tonight and tomorrow and every night, so long as there feed. I will not hunger any more." Like a harlot," he said The veins in his forehead were standing out, on each ple a pulse throbbed fiercely. Tra stood defiant before guttering no denial, fingers plucking at the fringe of her I closed my eyes, I could not bear to see them thus. Ters, kinder ones, “Decency!” he 66 A common strumpet." for decency's sake "Do not speak of ·1 -- my face," 100 NECTAR 'IN A SIEVE She was quiet for a moment, and he said with del crueity, "No man will look at you, defaced as you are." ." The cuts will heal," she retorted, "Alen do not "I think he laid a restraining hand on her: for 11 her say, "Let me pass," and there was a slight ru sound as she withdrew from his grasp Well, we let her go We had tried everything in power, there was nothing more we could do. She no longer a child, to be coted or forced into submit but a grown woman with a definite purpose and a vincible determination We had for so long accepta obedience to our will that when it ceascd to be STC turally, it came as a considerable shock; yet there option but to accept the change, strange and bewul as it was, for obedience cannot be extorted simple that we forbade, she insisted, we lost. : got used to her comings and goings, as we had got u so much cise With her earrings Irawaddy was able to buy na sot, and milk for the child, who was too weak for any else. Alter the roots and leavings we had existed svas grateful enough for the food, but of what she b Nathan would not touch a morsel. Day after day he out as before, delving and scraping for food, as 'thin dry as a hollow bamboo stick *** What is done is done," I said, urging him to 22C." is no stricture on you, for you have tned." "I will not touch it," he said, cycing me steadily. bitterness was behind this I do not know, or what demnation of his powerlessness to fed his culdren: this I do know · his spirit was very strong, and he * upright man For the first few days after Ira resumod food.nz with milk, he seemed to grow better, but the impros -il improvement it had been: I do not know, for ceased to cry and we took this for improstirent -- ·more. Sched me. KAMALA MARKANDAYA 101 Intinue. Soon it became clear that he was sinking. His jes grew larger in his pinched face, there was a brightness their soft brown as if all that was left of life was con- Htrated there, and indeed they seemed to be the only ctive part of him. From his corner, when he was no hger capable of any other movement, his eyes constantly klowed us, seeming never to ure in their restless wandering therwise he lay quiet like a bruised fledgling, with the dry, Sched lips of exhaustion and a body which could struggle Only once I heard him call. a slight whisper that barely Ama?" Yes, dear?" 'I cannot see you - I cannot see anything" I am here my son, very near you" There was a feeble movement of his arms, and I knelt sfide him and clasped them round my neck, holding them re, for he was too weak Sleep, dearest. Soon you will be better, and then you be able to see again I promise you, you will see again" fle seerned content; he accepted the lies I told him and ped a little -perhaps in relief, for who knows what fears mented his child's mind? Soon I felt him relax and sing his hands gently drew away from hım. A little Er I heard a slight sound and turning saw that he had med his eyes and was gazing at Ira, staring at her unfiking I went to him and saw that his eyes were sightsi already a thin film was overspreading them. I picked m up and held him to me, his limp, emaciated body, light I might have been holding a handful of leaves, not child, sagged lifeless against mine I crooned to him, getting he was dead, until the cold came creeping through umbs and he began to stiffen; then at last r faid him mn, closing his eyes and pushing back the fronds of hair at clung damply to his brow. He looked tired but kie . at ·102 NECTAR IN A SIEVE face and bitter eyes Our last child, conceived in happu at a time when the river of our lives ran gently, had do taken from us ; I knew too well what he felt Yet, alther I grieved, it was not for my son ; for in my heart I a not have wished it otherwise. The strife had lasted tool and had been too painful for me to call him back to c *tinue it.

·CHAPTER XVII done. HEN Kut was gone with a bland indifference that mocked our loss — the abundant grain grew tipe. It fras the second crop of the year, sown on ground which kad not been allowed to le fallow, and so we did not think would be other than meagre ; but contrary to our expecatiors it was a very good harvest. Every husk was filled, die paddy stood fimm and healthy, showing no breaks in their Anks We worked through the days and in the twilight etting in the rice, and then we worked three more days faining the fields and clearing them, and then three more ghts siſting and winnowing Even 50, a heap of unhusked addy lay in our granary, waiting until the marketing should }" It is as I said," Nathan exclaimed “Strength has been ven to us. Else how could so much have been achieved such as we are ?" He looked round triumphantly, inting to the neat white hills of rice and the husks in a kuing, brown heap We looked at each other, streaked ith sweat, thin and bony like scarecrows and as ugly, and Iddenly what he had said seemed very funny; and first fivam and then Ira began to laugh, helpless, speechless, ith tears running down their cheeks, until we older people wwly joined them could not help but join in their laughter and the spectre of what had been tweaked at our memoles in vain. There we were, the four of us, hysterical, eleased, rocking with laughter and gasping for breath which an out as fast as we sucked it in. The hollow cheeks and pulging Lammo matter for lau r bounds È le thr some measure bom of relief that pre could do so Nathan especially was in exuberant mood. He kept 103 1

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·CHAPTER XVIII WENT to market laden with smooth-skinned brinjais and pumpkins, round and fleshed like young women he earth had yielded richly there were, besides, beans d potatoes, melons and chillies, and I was well pleased th them and with the silver coins I had received in ex. ange. I no longer sold to Biswas, there were several ter shops in the town now where I was paid better, and ere I did not have to endure the sly, epiteful observans he made. Increasing years had added more grease his bulk, more flesh to his paunch; they had not sweeten. his nature or endowed him with more kindliness. nfounding the curses that came his way - and there were Fly, for his usury was harsh beyond necessity -- he contito prosper, squeezing the life from those hapless creaes who were driven to borrow from him, and gaining strength from their weakness. Seeing me pass, he came and stood in his doorway and led. Rukmani! I have news for you, Stop a minute!" What is it?" 'Kenny is back. I have seen him." So," I said warily " That is good news for everybody." Especially for you," he said, keeping his eye on me. 'For everybody," I repeated, for he is a good doctor. iny people are in his debt." 'He is also a man," he said. "They say he is a good ind to you." "To me and mine," I said with rising temper. "He has le much for us For you particularly,” he insisted, hís flabby link tching with innuendo." I have heard from Ku. s is so " 105 ·-- 106 NECTAR IN A SIEVE "A whore's tale," I said contemptuously, "as suspect her body." He thrust his face up to mine "Yet not for that reason dismissed," he said, leering. I wanted to strike him, I wanted to ram tus Words into his throat I held myself still with an effort. "Foul-mouthed pig !" I said, "Carrion crow 1". Ile only smiled, being used to harsh words. "As hot-headed as ever, Rukmany," he said. "177 will you turn when next you need money? He was so slippery, so worthless, that my anger d Not even the malignant power of Kunthi could rouse I I felt too remote. I hung about for a while, unable to make up my whether to try and seek him in the town, or whether go home in prudence and await his coming, as I felt he would. Then it struck me as ludicrous that at this I should walk with caution, and I went therefor white-washed cottage on the fringes of the town, ex ht, carrying a garland of roses and jasmine to welcome! and a time for good luck. The cottage was bare - it always had been - and - and lifelcss from long disuse. Dust lay thick on the B there were neat hillocks of chipped cement and earth w bandicoots, for some obscure reason of their own, ladd So much I saw from the broken front windows, the pushed open the door to enter, Kenny was standing in the smaller room that led the main onc. He tumed when he heard me come in. It him frotvn. "How did you know I was here?" Accustomed though I was to him, the brusque words, short manner, dashed the welcome from my lips. "Biswas told me," I said. "I came at once." There was a silence. The garland I was holding : an encumbrance, I felt I had been stupid to buy it, the lime seemed unnecessary. I tried to hide them : my back. He noticed at once.

·Ance. He seemed to be hardly listening He was still nding, looking out of the window, biting his nails Troubles," he said. "We all have therr. I suppose 'It was a bad time," I answered him "Ye i KAMALA MARKANDAYA 107 What have you got there?" few things - I have just been to market," I began A garland, is it not?" Yes." I said sheepishly “I bought it for you. You exs well." le drew me to the window and pointed outside lay reap of garlands, roses, lilies, chrysanthemums ; evidently ere had been before me Not a guess," he said gravely, "a certainty You were the first." Well-intentioned for all that --" I was beginning hotly be began to laugh, grinning widely so that the lines of face were somehow lost in the creases of laughter, ping him look young and amiable. I felt better at once ; strangeness vanished You have been away a long time," I said "Too long : have missed you Why?" he said "More trouble ?" und lantar covertly "Yet LOL only on that account we ujuy It was stopped, not knowing how to finish He would he helped us in our needs with food and money and skill , it was something more than this that he offered us, and ould not find words for it Your presence," I said haltingly, "means a lot to us pre is a rare gentleness in you, the sweeter for its brief pearances." do not know what emboldened me - perhaps it was his Tops failed and you starved." + 1, with years ·108 NECTAR IN A SIETE sons. Raja died by an accident. The child was too for this world; he could not live as we did. After! crops failed he-" I stopped again. The memory of days was ever with me, yet the passing of time bad it quiescent; now my own words brought it savagely with a shrill, stabbing pain that swept the words awat, was quiet for a while, waiting for it to fade, to regain He did not look round, perhaps he sensed my stres "Enough of me," I said at last, "What of you yours?" He turned on me roughly, "What concern is that yours?" "Norte; save that I wish them well." * Save your wishes," he said unpleasantly. "Niy! has left me. My sons have been taught to forget to I tried and failed to imagine her, this woman who after so many years renounce altogether her diusband, the bond that must surely have existed despite his! absences. Perhaps it is just this that has driven by L' I thought. 'He is not without blame "You think it is my fault," he said "Do not des our face speaks plainly enough for me" - Women need men," I said, shrugging "It is not e to deprive a woman "Tell me also," he said "Do you not think a man choose his work?" "Such a man as you, yes," I replied. "What then if his wife cannot accompany him?" "Cannot?" I said. "She must. A woman's plaz with her husband" He sighed impatiently " You simplify everything, Big without understanding Your views are so limited it! possible to explain to you." "Limited, yes," I agree. "Yet not wholly without C* standing. Our ways are not your ways." “You have sound instincts," he said. For the first time since I had known him I 87W of admiration in his c'es. 1 + ·103 " You may be right," I said bitterly, "but you do KAMALA MARKANDAYA 11 am not a fool," I said, speaking in a low voice, pleased the corrimendation in his eyes, a little hurt by it as well. lave I not so much sense to see that you are not one of You live and work here, and there is in your heart licitude for us and love for our children. But this is t your country and we are not your people If you led here your whole life it still would not be." "My country," he said. “Sometimes I do not know ủich is my country. Until today I had thought perhaps it is this." He sounded bitter and weary • his forlorn spirit touched her , and a great ernptiness seemed to unfold in me. Bhed I could have my words back, locked away safely myself, unsaid, powerless to wound Save your regrets," he said “You have told me nothing lid not know." rose to go. "My husband and children will be happy See you. We shall be glad to welcome you in our use' You are not without riches, as I have said before." jaid, speaking half to himself"How is your daughter? was a pretty young woman" Vell; she is carrying So her coming to me was not in vain" Had she been barren for ever, it would have been better." Why? Was it not your wish ---" Not this way." I said, "with the father any one of a 11 suppose it was necessary," he said quietly "I have en it happen before" She would 80," I replied “She was devoted to the Eld; she would go But of course she knew nothing. ang inexperienced in such matters, and now she is with ld. She conceived quickly." You will feel better when it is bom,” he said, by is no worse for being conceived in an encounter." alise the shame of it. People have not spared us." 4 zen men." -

·NECTAR IN A SIEVE
110
He stared at me impatiently.
"That is all you can think of.; what people will
One goes from one end of the world to the other to
the same story Does it matter what people say?"
tone was contemptuous. Well,' I thought. It is e
you, but perhaps not quite so simple for us.'
I walked home, musing over what he had sai
presently it seemed to me there was truth in his
and I felt a little comforted. Nathan had said or
same thing : he and Kenny, so different in other
yet united in their views about this.

·CHAPTER XIX ZENNY'S retum was the beginning of another change in pour lives, and in Selvam's Seivam, who for all that had been reared on the land and had the earth in his pod, yet did not take to farming Like his brothers, he as hard-working and conscientious, but he had no love it and in retum it did not yield to him He had a powledge of crops and seasons, bom of experience, but Lere crops thrived under Nathan's hand, under his they kted. Despite anxious care, the seed he planted did not tout, the plants that sprouted did not bear. One day he came straight from working in the fields, threw n the spade he was carrying and anncunced he was ished with the land. *I am no farmer," he said, “The land has no liking me, and I have no time for it." What then will you do, my son ?” I said, worried. How will you live when we are gone?" He did not reply at once, but sat down cross-legged, pking out absently beyond the small courtyard to the cool een of the paddy fields But he was not thinking of them Kenny is building a hospital," he said. "When it is ady he will need an assistant, and he has offered me the 10." But what can you know of such work?" Nothing He is going to train me, starting as soon as ossible. He says it will not be too difficult for me, for i m not without learning." It was true. Selvam had been cast in the same mould his brothers He had quickly learned what I had to kach and had progressed from there by his own efforts and enthusiasm. Study came to him naturally; he wrote and tead as I had once done, andly, with pleasure. 'He ki 19 ·." It will be a hospital, not a dispensary," he said col: He pulled out several papers, drawings and lane 112 NECTAR IN A SJEVE leam,' I thought. This is the chance he has been we for.' Selvam began to fidget, "I have told my father," he said hesitantly. "lle is willing." I smiled at him "So am I. I wish you well". He relaxed "I am glad." I thought you might be were --- displeased " "Not displeased Perhaps disappointed, since all our : have forsaken the land. But it is the best way for you "It is the best way," he repeated after me. "It w? a great venture. We have many plans and much highet We both relapsed into silence I watched him cott pondering whether I should say, You must be prepare his new association will not be taken at face value, & vill be villiers who will say it was done not for you! or your mother, who will seek to destroy your peace': hen I thought resolutely, 'I will not take the fire frost ive or sowy suspicion between them, and so I held nice. But his steady eyes were on me, calm and lesch I am not unaware," he said quietly "But is a ufficient that you have the strength and I have trust! "It is indeed," I said with relief "I wanted only: ou should know" We smiled at each other in perfect understanding I sought out Kenny again. "We are once store in yous debt. My son is Overjoyed ? is something he has waited for without knowing it." "I am indebted to him as well I need an assistant: promises to be a good one and will I hope be the first inany. I could not carry on alone. The town has 67 and is still growing, as you know." "It will be bigger than what vent before ?" "Let me show you" covered with calculations which I could not understand 81% ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 113 hen he explained them though this I did not confess. I thered only that it would be a big affair. "Where is the money to come from” I said bewildered. Such a construction will need I do not know how many indreds of rupees." “I have thousands" he replied I did not realise. You have lived like us, the poor" ** The money is not mine It has been given to me I ve collected it while I have been away In your country?" I said. “From your people ? " | Yes," he said impatiently. "Part of it came from my untry and my people, part of it from yours. Why do look puzzled ? hown 1 -1... d humbly. “I do us and who know 'exerause they have the means," he said, "and because y have learnt of your need Do not the sick die in the eets because there is no hospital for them? Are not Idren born in the gutters? I have told you before," he 1. "I will repeat it again ; you must cry out if you want p. It is no use whatsoever to suffer in silence. Who will cour the drowning man if he does not clamour for his It is said " I began Never mind what is said or what you have been told. Te is no grandeur in want -- or in endurance." 'rivately I thought, 'Well, and what if we gave in to troubles at every step! We would be pitiable creatures zed to be so weak, for is not a man's spirit given to him rise above his misfortunes ? As for our wants, they are y and unfilled, for who is so rich or compassionate a3 supply them? Want is our companion from birth to th, familiar as the seasons or the earth, varying only in . What profit to bewall that which has always been cannot change?'. is eyes narrowed: whether from our long for rom many dealings : beings, and ·112 NECTAR IN A STEVE legon,' I thought. This is the chance he has been for.' Selvam began to fidget. "I have told my father," he said hesitantis. "lle miling' I smiled at him "So am 1. I wish you well." He relaxed. "I am glad. I thought you might were displeased "Not displeased. Perhaps disappointed, since all have forsaken the land But it is the best way for y "It is the best way," he repeated after nie." a great venture We have many plans and mich nicy Wye bath relapsed into silence I watclied him wondering whether I should say, 'You must be pp this new association will not be taken at face valy will be vilifiers who will say it was done not for 3 for your mother, who will seek to destroy your peac I thought resolutely, I will not cake the fire Ive or sow suspicion between them,' and so I toe. But his steady eyes were on me, calm and le Drone I am not unaware," he said quietly "But i sufficient that you have the strength and I have in "It is indeed," I said with relief "I wanted or you should know" We smiled at each other in perfect understanding I sought out Kenny again. "We are once more in your debt. My son is overjoyee is something he has waited for without knowing it." "I am indebted to him as well I need an assista promises to be a good one and will I hope be the many. I could not carry on alone. The train has and is still growing, as you know" "It will be bigger than what went before?" ,"It will be a hospital, not a dispensary." He said “Let me shoy you." He pulled out several papers, drawings and long covered with calculations which I could not understand ·CHAPTER XX or in the town, where all that was natural had long been "sacrificed, but on its outskirts, one could still see the ássing of the seasons. For in the town there were the kowds, and streets battened down upon the earth, and the ith that men had put upon it, and one walked with care sr what might lie beneath one's feet or threaten from betore behind ; and in this procecupation forgot to look at the In or the stars, or even to observe they had changed their tting in the sky: and knew nothing of the passage of time ke in dry frenzy, by looking at a clock. But for us, who ped by the green, quiet fields, perilously close though these åre to the town, nature still gave its muted message Each issing day, each week, each month, left its sign, clear and imistakable The tender budding of our new year, the periwinkles and 2 jasmine, the soft, scented champak blossom, had yielded ice to the fierce flowering jacaranda and gold mohur, before t's time came for giving birth When my daughter was labour I erected the bamboo paling outside to warn my sband and son, as is the custom for those who have only room and one dwelling, and when I had scoured the t and poured wet dung on it I brought out the pallet of nited straw I myself had used, for Ira to lie on; and went gathered the petals the trees had shaken about them d took them into her, a vivid basket of layer upon layer gold and red and mauve and purple. A child of summer," I said, "should be sturdy." She smiled and laid her hands on the petals He is. I feel it." While I waited I thought of the other births this very had seen. First Ira herself, then the long, long interval d after that almost every passing year I bore a sot. There d been hope and expectation, perhaps some anxiety, before ·--- 116, NECTAR IN A SIETE each birth; they were natural feelings. But now fears en swarming about my head like the black flying ants att storm, and I cowered from the beat of their wings. Ao conceived in an encounter farcs no worse than a child bed in wedlock...so Kenny had said ; but could one be sa A man takes his wife with passion, as is his nature, sve is gentle with her : amid the fire of breast on breve bared thigh on thigh he still can hold himself, and ! much as he takes, leaving the exultant flech unbruised ? woman is his, his wife, not only now for this surgun rience, but tomorrow and next year. She will carry bus and he will see her fruitful, watch while day by dar child grows within her And so he is tender and care and comes to her clean that their fulfilment may be richa blessed. But the man who finds a woman in the street, raisi eyebrow and snaps his fingers so that she follows him, tuy her a few coins that he may possess her, holds her ut whatever he does to her, for this is what he has -what cares such a man for the woman who is s 1 Brief moment? He has gained his relief, she her payment we merges carelessly into the human throng, constgart back into the shadows where she worked or to the man streets where she loitered. of the thousands of men in the village, in the perhaps another village, another town, one man unkte is the father : of the vast range of manhood, who is to he was not of the unsound, the unclean? What are safeguard is there when the consequences of one's act hidden from one's thankful eyes, and the woman is one many, soft, desired, lost, forgotten! Ir Ira had any fcars she did not show them. perhaps had fought her battles out alone when I was not there see and when her face could not betray her; or personen her love for children swamped crety other facling was meant to have children: I had alssays known It was a cruel twist of Fate that gave them to her this sa Then at last the birth began, and while I was ministre ·- KAMALA MARKANDAYA 117 her all these thoughts coiled back into my brain, leaving ly the present and the immediate future which every sing second converted instantly into the past. Then there is no past or future, only now, the present, as I received é chuld and held him, while the fears that were nameless sanded on me and shrieked their message and were no Þre nameless. I held him, this child begotten in the street an unknown man in a moment of easy desire, while the ghtness of the future broke and fell about me like so many Kes of coloured glass. I did not want his mother to see : I washed him slowly, massaged oil into his body, hoping to mitigate the teness of it, hoping to give colour to his skin, while he lustily, for he was a healthy child and finally his ther called for him I swaddled him carefully before i e him to her hoping - still hoping -- that she would not Ice Your son," I said, handing her the bundle, hovering in my anxiety. She took it, smiling and relaxed. A lovely child," she said, gazing at the small face fondly. air as a blossom." fair! He was too fair. Only his mother failed to see how Batural his faimess was, or to notice that the hair which #slow and unwilling from his pate was the colour of onlight, or that his eyes were pink Sometimes I wondered fether her mind was gone, since she could not see what LA Fe the most beautiful Daby any wulicow. was to her, Such heaviness of spint as there was, pressed on her but on us, her parents, and of us Nathan tras le most burdened. She has lost her reason," he said. “She does not fr child as he is. as she would have him be 1114 T ·L had put on a lot of fat when prosperity had returns The shivering was bad this year and the fault KT sourly : he had neser liked her. Ira's 13 kas stra: iet of course not wholly sa 'She hides her knockdke 120 NECTAR IN A SIEVE Nathan's voice reached me from a distance : * What is the matter with you? Are you set let well?" "I am all right I was thinking." 3 "Give it a rest," he said "Give it a resta I was relieved that Kall , most garrulous of women, not come, but it was a short-lived relief She had been in fering from one of her periodic attacks of ague , and soon as she had got rid of it she came, wadding for the land. *** I would have come before," she puſsed, " baie belang ague tell you, 7 hardly know how I survised » She lower voice confidentially. “You know how it is - not cool at my age." "I hope you are better," I said "Ah well, one must not expect too much :. But I did not come to talk about myself" I looked at her without favourst was plain moud she had come She lowered her voice again Is it true about the baby ? People say he is milk and "He is fair," agreed Ira squably"See for your and she held out the sleeping child in her arms Key forward eagerly, quivering in her excitement, and at moment as ill luck would have it the child roke, his weak, pinkish eyes, yawned and began to yell piorca Kali stepped back as if she had been deliberately affron and such pity as she might have had in her perished “He looks peculiar," she said frankly, "Not a bit st nal. Who ever heard of pink eyes in a human child?", I did not knoty shat to say Nathan was lookin: und taut and queerly defensive, as if she had been and was wondering where the next bloer would fall she does know,' I thought with something akin to the silence went on, everybody afraid to speak, the ·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 12 ss-crossing in the over-full air, eyes averted, shifting fered at last to the ground. Then I heard Selvam clearing throat to speak, and at cnce heads tumed, surprised Bened of suspense, very much alert. Just a matter of colouring," he said, " or lack of it. 11 pnly a question of getting used to. Who is to say this bur is right and that is not?" The words of a boy - Selvam was not sixteen -- shaming all. But pink" Kalı began A pink eyed child is no worse than a brown-eyed one." said, looking at her with cold, rebuking eyes." I should re thought your instincts as a woman if nothing else uld have told you that" le turned away from her contemptuously and began king his fingers to the child Sacrabani, who had been caming vigorously, began to quieten down : he gave one two more tentative walls, then his mouth split in some ag like a smile and his fingers curled round Selvam's. Selvam tumed and smiled at us, raising eloquent eyews: Was not the child exactly the same as other babies ? a he not said so? Triumphantly he turned to look for Kali but she ioticed had gone ·CHAPTER XXI Cross the day construction began on the hospital, ceased to belong to us. During the preparations for the site was bought and cleared, and a contractor ergensen find men and material, he spent his time with Keroy, i what they discussed I do not know, but sometimes hea home elated and sometimes he was morose and dejting and it was clear enough that the many delays thes countered irked his spirit beyond the telling. The construction actually started, the bricks stacked high! cement in heaps, whatever time he could spare he spect the site watching while brick was laid on brick and flowed between : and occasionally when the labourers k:) (which was not often, for they were a jealous och would take a hand in the building himself, for nothurt ! him more pleasure than that. What he did not know! that seven more tedious years were to pass before them & was complete : both he and Kenny, possessed by el ce enthusiasm, had, I think, reckoned on a much better me. May be it was as well they did not know: F *years is a long time to be patient If things had gone as they had hoped, the hospital have been completed within a year, and Old Granny not hayc had to die in the street as she did. There nowhere else she could go she had lived in the streets she died there. Day by day she sat beside her torn beton sack selling handluis of nuts and berries, growing praxe sively older, more ragged, less healthy. She had no rela: left -- no person on whom she had any claim - Oriz there was no one to enquire whether she made a lisis how much longer the could continue to do so. Better avoid such questions, better to pass quickly by with a che ful word, than to stop and ask, for who would lightly on the burden of feeding another mouth? And so one ·arvation kit hnd hon- KAMALA MARKANDAYA 123 e quietly disappeared. They found her body on the path at led to the well, an empty mud-pot beside her and the irany-sacking tied around her waist She had died of Once a human being is dead there are people enough to pvide the last decencies; perhaps it is so because only in can there be no question of further or recurring assistce being sought. Death after all is final i could not bid the thought, which came from my own uneasy conence, harsh and bitter, as I watched them lift her up, light dust, on to the bier; as mourners came with flowers, as and camphor were lard unstunted on the pyre, as roseter and sandalwood paste were sprinkled on her corpse. ranny, Iman when S sure WILLILUL Did Granny's death bore especially hard on me for apart In the fact that we had been friends since my marriage pould not forgive myself for having accepted the rupee ich might have fed her for several days I wanted to pw it away --- give it to the next old crone I saw -- any. P& to gain my relief ; but the money belonged to Sacrabani, You are being very childish," Nathan said. “How long ild a rupee have kept her?" A few days at least," I said And what when those few days ran out ?". something may have tumed up sity the hospital was not ready She could have gone A hospital is not a soup kitchen," he said did not know what he meant by a soup kitchen and I ed at him. He repeated the words, pleased that he w and I did not. Where the poor are fed free of charge," he explained. other countries. Selvam tells me this is a fact." ; to me I don't know It is re 4 ·124 NÉCTAR IN A SIETE "And bow should he tonow? He has not beus c this town since his birth?" "From books he has read perhapsmor Kenny may told him. I do not know how he knows." "Well, anyway," I said, going back to what we had discussing," soup kitchen of not, they would not have re an old ailing woman," "Why go on about it?" he said crasperated. * * only distressing yourself and it might never have bee tell you a hospital is only for the sick. There is portas the old." The hospital was no more than a few months a! a few feet high when people began attempting to stakt claims. They went to Kenny and they came to Selena they even approached me, his mother, and from the who came I scon knew that not one-tenth could cater. what I of little perception knew Kenny and Selvam two-fold. but we none of us said anything, for ** woven about us a net of silence in whose meshes om Tiously held our fears and our misgiving Teanwhile, work on the hospital did not progress : twice the contractor was changed, and each mané appointed new foreinen, and these brought their own k One year there were not enough men; the nett cnough material During one very hot summer the men's huts caught fire and before it could be put out it spread to the timber stacked nearby. The loss had ? made good, as had also the theft, despite the presence chonkidar, of a cartload of bricks and the cart itself. Se times works stopped altogether, for what reasons I do know, while Kenny and Selvam strode about the deri site in exasperation, dark as thunder, unapproachable x made frequent trips away from the town from whid came back tired and often dispirited; but alkays work resumed on his retum "Every pie has to be fought for," Sciyam said. "It not be easy."

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 125 ** He told me he had enough." I said. "He was away long time collecting the money." There can never be enough," Selvam said, turning away muild nat haloss pit they were e 'It is not as to myself. It bare your WOES Id catalogue yoаr needs, people have only to close their les and their ears, you cannot force them to see and to ar- or to answer your cries if they cannot and will not.' nce I dared to say as much to Kenny and he looked at me little sadly and said there were other ways which he could it explain to me. There was much talk between him and Nyom at but I do not rate building t least it did 011 Before long Selvam began his training. The small whiteished cottage was once again in use, with my son now sisting Kenny. By the second year of his training he gan treating minor cases by himself, and from then onrds Kenny paid him a small wage, not regularly but as when funds came his way Once in a moment of sughtlessness I asked how he would contrive to pay all Staff when the hospital was finally established, for it was tain many people would be needed to run it His face kened : he would, he said, find ways and means. It 1 become his most frequent saying.

·CHAPTER XXII and , separation when my daughter went to her husband bi affected their relationship not at all, she treated him 1 as if he were her son than her brother, and he in turn acom her love and returned it in his own deep, quiet way understood her well, better than I did who was her mo! in fact, I wonder whether parents ever know their chi as they know one another. At any rate in our family 15 were better read, more leamed, than we were : but since the troubles at the tannery in which her sons become involved, and for other reasons, she had been iudiced against any kind of learning. In her view my troubles in the country sprang from the pages of Selvam's easy attitude towards her son brought in kter to him From the beginning Selvam had aco www.che child's albinism : accepted it and thought no more From infancy he treated Sacrabani cxactly as if he w normal chuld. The pity of it was that it was a lo battle, No amount of such action on his part or ours bring others to the same persuasion Sacrabant was isol from the start, a white COW 19 a flock of black, a grai wheat among the rice. By the ume he was four, Sacra is used to being a hanger-on-forever on the fringt others' activities Because of his difference, the other chil: never included him as a matter of course in their games they were short of a player, or for some other good net they sometimes invited him to join them, but on no BCC was he to do so of his own accord. In the hope of thus asked he had to tag along, patient and submissive physical disabilities alone would have ensured his i 125 ·Why does he never come to see us ? KAMALA ALARKANDAYA 127 le; for his skin was unable to stand the sun, and the light lected his eyes. The sight of him crouched in the shade hreddened face and streaming eyes evoked from hís comtions not pity but ribaldry. Poor child, he had even to fer the behaviour of his elders, who stared -- those who d not seen him before and nudged each cther and aspered and rustled, while those who had vied with each her to be the first to enlighten them Then one day, sprung m who knows what taunts flung at him, his questionings, of many, began. 1 Alother, what is a bastard ?" What does one say to a child? What possible answer there? I saw ira eyeing the boy, startled, wary, ing to guess how much innocence and how much knowledge behind the question, wondering how little and how much could tell him, questioning in her turn to gain time Why do you ask? I want to know" It is a child whose birth his mother did not wish for " Oh," he said, looking at her speculatively. “Did you me to be born?” Yes, of course, darling," Ira cried, and all the guilt of efforts to have an abortion was in her voice "I would lose you for anything Why do you have to ask ?" I wanted to know," he repeated lightly, noncommit- V not knowing how cruelly he had hurt his mother. Some days later he tackled her again Mother, have I got a father?" Yes, dear, of course." Where is he?" Not here, my son ; he is away" He will when he can." But why not now?" Because he cannot. You will understand when you are er." "How old ?"

·128
NECTAR IN A SIEVE
"I do not know myself. Now run away and play
must not ask so many questions."
The first lie; many to follow. The distressing, inescap?
need for lying.
"I would have told him his father was dead," I s
" as he certainly is to all intents and purposes It **
have been easier."
"Do not interfere," Nathan said "It is for Ira
decide."
Tra looked heavyeyed and hurt. “Yes; you are rol
she said "I should have told him that. I was not preparate
for the question - he is such a baby still"
"He did not think of it himsell," I said. "He is a
too young. No doubt one of his companions."
"Leave it, leave it," said Nathan "Do not upset
girl any more."
He put out his hand to Ira, but she shied away from i
I saw her leave the hut.
." It is no use going to her," Nathan said sadly. "S
Port as there is to be had must come from her
-
Nevertheless, after a little while he did go to her
is gentleness melted her last remnants of control, fox
xgan to weep, I heard her crymg for a long time.

·CHAPTER XXIII third son, Murugan, who was a servant, married a girl from the town in which he worked. We had not en her, nor did we know her family, and the marriage, the second year after Sacrabani's birth, was solemnised ther parents' house without either of us being present Had been at all possible we would have gone, but it proved Fond our power. The town was over a hundred miles pay, and since the harvest had been a poor one and Selvam Seaming very little we had not the money to go by rail. hrgan, it is true, had a bullock in addition to his milch s, and a cart which he offered to lend us for a small sum, Nathan was not fit enough to undertake the journey fe and back. He was nearing fifty and no longer as healthy he had been He had begun to suffer from Theumatism, apart from this had had several attacks of fever, from h of which he recovered more slowly and emerged weaker Mhetimes in the middle of sowing or reaping or tilling, or innumerable tasks the land demanded, he would stop straighten up, breathing hard and trembling Often he unable to continue work and was forced to lie down in hut for a while ira and I did what we could , but the d is mistress to man, not to woman. the heavy work Aded is beyond her strength Several times Kenny came see him bringing food and sometimes medicine ; he told bluntly that my husband was not getting enough to eat. We eat well enough when the harvest is good," I swered him, "but of course we have our lean times." 'Too many,” he said "Your husband needs milk and retables and butter, not plain rice day after day." I looked at him incredulously. "Those can only come hf way when the yield is rich," I said "It cannot be fways or indeed even frequent, for we are not rich, you helorstand." 129

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 131 pd his peace with you. We would not have had it erwise Yet in your hearts you may have wished for something If so, we have long since forgotten it. We would wish for our son other than what he would wish for Eell. He has chosen well" nother silence Do you never," he said, “ think of your future > While still have your strength and can plan?" Naturally we think. But plan' How can we? It þt within our means" Is there nothing you can do ?” he asked “Nothing 11?" Vhat can we do? There are many like ourselves cannot provide for the future You know it your- Des; I know.. I do not know why I asked ; it was less. There is no provision at all," he said, speakhalf to himself, "neither for old nor young ncr sick accept it; they have no option e looked so stern that I grew alarmed Do not concern yourself," I said diffidently “We in God's hands." le looked up sharply, abruptly as if some chain of isht had been ruidely broken then he left me athan was lying within." What happened?" he d, turning to face me. "You were a long time" We were talking, that is all." What about?" You are as persistent as your grandson," I said, " but & older you should know better ut Selvam. Kenny thinks he will be good He is ping well." am glad. Tell me, did he not say anything about Only that you were not to forty and then We were talking ila

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·KANALA AIARKANDAYA 135 one of the truths of our existence as those who live by e land know that sometimes we eat and sometimes we fare. We live by our labouts from one harvest to the ext, there is no certain telling whether we shall be able to feed arsetes and our children, and if bad times are prolonged know we must see the weak surrender their lies and bs fact, too, is within our experience in our lives there to margin for misfortune. Suur, while there was land there was hope Nothing now, thing whatever. My being was full of the husks of pair, dry, lifeless I went into the hut and looked about Brown mud walls that had crumbled many a time and us. As own hands in the time he was waiting for me pught me to it with a pride which I used to better living ld so very nearly crushed In it we had lain together, an children had been bom. This hut with all its memorie is to be taken from us, for it stood on land that belonger another. And the land itself by which we lived It is cruel thing, I thought. They do not know what they do When Selvam came home that night from his studies y husband broke the news to him I do not know what expected indignation, anger, perhaps sorrow but he trayed no erriotion He put the books he was carrying the wooden crate he had made, then he sat down, saili eping his own counsel; the wavering light from the wick its saucer of oil fell on his face, sombre and serious as always was in repose Well, I thought This cannot ..) at then Idom med' in the brooding selle ! rulu kau.. In again, and I thoucht. 'Naturally he is impatient s good cause posi.

·t ·anings KAMIALA MARKANDAYA 137 bild not. I closed my eyes and felt his hands on my Aples where the pulses beat, gently stroking, soothing me the only way he could. He suffered for me, not so ch for himself, and I likewise, so that although together re was more strength there was also more suffering, and ach had been alone the way might not have seemed so d, yet I knew neither could have borne it alone Thus jfused, my mind turned this way and that, like a paper e dipping to every current of air, unsure of its own It length in the midst of the blackness I heard Selvam aking and I opened my eyes He seemed to be strug. ig with himself, for the words did not come easily and fierce inner battle he waged had brought the sweat out his forehead and left his lips dry. He was addressing father alone -'No doubt he dismisses me as an hysterical man,' I thought 'He is not far wrong' I can always return to the land," he was saying "I young and able-bodied together we can rent another ce of land . live as we did" saw my husband's eyes kindle, I saw in them, fearfully, light of hope You should not have said it,' I cried atly to my son 'It is too difficult for him, cruelly icult' But already Nathan was shaking his head 'No, my son. I would not have it so " He spoke olutely. There are some things that cannot be Tificed ..besides I would never be happy Certainly ir mother would not let me rest," he added, smiling a ie. No; we must go Ira and Sacrabani must come with of course; there is nothing for them here" I will stay," said Ira, whom we had supposed asleep: she rose and came and knelt beside her father “I I not be a burden to you. I am happy enough here, sple are used to me and my son. I cannot start a new now," "If I can," said Nathan, "Fhose youth is only a

·133
NECTAR IN A
mory now, why should not you, n
young; it will not be difficult for
"I must think of my son," she
"How will you eat?" I said
"11 she decides to stay," said S
me. I will look after her. I swe
* And the child"
"And the chuld, of course."
"Is it possible?" Nathan aske
you have for yourself"
"Do I not know it?" sasd Selva
petual shame to me that I have n
rents, Yet I promise they shall not
If it had not been so late at nugh
tired and dispirited - we might h
partly for her sahe and partly for
we said no more not that night
subsequently we had more discussions
only that we were to go
and grandchild were to stay

·CHAPTER XXIV rook down the mats on which we slept from the wall there they hung and rolled them up Inside I ed the cloth bundle which contained two ollocks of rice, e chillies, tamarind and salt, and the two wooden bowls, han's and mine, tying the ends of the rolled mats to e sure nothing fell out on the way Most of the ang vessels I had brought with me on my marriage been sold to pay our debts, of the remainder I left for Ira and the cther two I put aside for ourselves. grindstone, pestle and mortar were too heavy to take, ny case my daughter-in-law would be providing these cooking days are over,' I thought a little sadly, and lenly what I had formerly performed without thought, wen with impatience the gathering of fuel, and the ring of the fire, and the waxing of the flames under steaming pot, with all the business of smoke down the s and in the eyes - acquired a sweet and piercing nancy. "There would be meals to cook on the joumey, ever, since we were travelling by bullock-cart and sted to be on the road at least two days, and for these pok the hand-made bellows and six cakes of dung. er the granary floor our money lay buried three rupees Sur own, three that Selvam had given us out of his ungs, and a ten rupee note that Kenny had sent through am When everything was done I took out the money. ited it and tucked it in securely at my waist. Then were ready he moming of our departure comes it is a still morning. 4. dewy for it is yet early. The bullock-cart lumbers the bells around the animals' necks jangling, they have bells fixed to caps on the tips of their horns too, which le as they move The cart is piled high with bales of Uy-packed skins, for we are passengers on a , ·140 NECTAR IN A SIEVE journey, but there is room enough for two. We of Selvam hands us the two or thrce bundles tre are us which we hold on our laps until the carter tells ... stow them on top of the bales. We do so, carefully Then it is time to go. Selvam steps back, Ira comes ? ward from the courtyard where she has been standing, is holding her son by the hand. The three of them stara Ime waiting to see us on our way. The carter flicks) bullocks with his whip, the animals strain forward, the gives a lurch. Nathan holds out his hands, our child bow their heads Then we begin to move and the three them come after us a little of the way, walking in the the wheels grind out of the earth, until the bullocks begin trot and they fall back The bullocks have found theist rhythm now, moving so that their hoofs strike the eart gether and the yoke is borne steadily on their shoulders : are travelling fast. The hut - its inhabitants --recedes hind us and yet in front of us, for we are sitting for the backs to the bullocks. Our beloved green fields fail aw! a blur, the hut becomes a smudge on the horizon, S. strain our eyes to pierce the reddish dust the wheckt up. We are farther away with every tum of the wheels stare at them fascinated until the spokes begin to me backwards while the rim is inexorably borne forward! dizzy, my throat is dry. I lean against my husband. already Jeaning on me, together we achieve a kind of fort. The carter is asleep on his jointed perch: the bure know the route rrell, they keep on without guidance him. At midday we halt near a small wayside rell carter wakens, shorts, stretches himself before climbing a We are to eat here, he says, and he unyokes the build water them. I see one of them has a large raw patch of shoulder where the yoke has rubbed the skin ol. "The animal is not well," I say to the man. He shrugs : "What can I do? I have no other. I make these trips since they are my livelihood." Te wash, cat, wash again, then proceed.

·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 141 lile after mile of dusty road stretching out straight before lined here and there with cool shady banyans or tama. Wtrees. The bullock with the sore patch is slowing the up; the carter turns impatient and brings out his D. It is to use, its pace does not alter We pass cther Ock-carts, are passed by some, eat again, sleep again At it we stop while the carter lights the lantern slung bethe cart, then we move on in the darkness and the 1 yellow 'light-disc travels with us like a comforting on On and on, and on and on, we journey. he cart driver roused us when we reached the outskirts he city where my son worked It was mid-afternoon, sun was streaming down hot and at its most powerful. Here you are. This is as far as I can take you" He red Nathan, who sat with his head lolling against the $, fast asleep I shook him, pushing his head erect Wake up, we have arrived " : opened his eyes, reddened and with drooping lids I could easily sleep the whole day through," he said, ung and stretching. We are late already," the carter was grumbling ld have got here by morning if only this bullock had better pace--" - leaped down and lifted the yoke preparatory to water: is animals. The raw patch on the bullock I had noticed e had begun to fester, more skın had been eaten away trickles of blood were running down the edges This animal will soon be fit for nothing," he muttered imself "Heaven knows when I shall be able to afford her" soon as the animals had drunk he put the yoke back bullock cringed, but accepted the torment and as soon le whip fell it began to pull again le carter leaned from his perch to call to us, his face and perspiring. Good luck friends, herr Milli" !!!! ? Was friendly. Coodbye, go ·842 NECTAR IN A SIEVE For a little while we stood by the roadside, cur about us. There were three turnings before us and was no telling which way lay the house of our son Nathan picked up the mats "Come along We may meet somebody soon." We chose a road at random , walked for some time out seeing anyone We should have asked the car. thought. 'He would have known *; but did not say sa length we saw two men approaching, jogging along Low us with bundles on their heads. "Can you direct us to Koil Street, friend?" "Koil Street ? Let me see," he put up his hand to say hus head, but, the burden being there, withdrew it "No, I do not Brother, can you tell these people hey want to know?" His companion thought. "I have heard of it. emember now, it is in one of the suburbs of the town way from here, but this is the right road " "How far ?" "About fifteen miles If you keep to the road you et a lift," he added good-naturedly, seeing our Cre? aces. We plodded on Several bullock-carts passed us two jutkas, but none stopped Most of them nec den already. The bundle I carried, for all that it coram 7 little, grew heavier with each step, my neck w2 ith the effort of holding my head steady, for the as poised on top Under each arm was a cookrst henever the sweat came trickling down -- which har "equently, it was a hot day -- I had to stop and put own before tiping my face My husband, similarly become f, and troubled more than I was by flies and insects! so to stop frequently, so our going was slox. As we progressed the road broadened ; it split and ther roads curled apay from it and more came to :: so that it was difficult to know whether we were ko the right road or not Many people were about.me uickly and intent on their business : we did not + ·vcught uneasily We shall not reach our son tonig 143 kout at us ickened and night crept up on us When at last se rose, ats Here bright in the sky. 'We have stayed too lor KANALA AFARKANDAYA ay to stop and ask them the way. Not only people but faffic -- bullock-carts, jutkas, cars and bicycles, more than He had ever seen, many times thicker than in the town mund the tannery. The noise never let up car horrs, produce is impos- "we were bells we not heard Unce a jutka almost ran us over the driver st managed to pull up the horse and while we stood pal- Fating he leaned from his seat, irate and frightened, to His voice was very loud, and he shook his tas he drove off. Several people stopped to stare at us siously as we hurried on We had reached the city's centre, Koil Street lay some miles away, and we were still not sure of finding it I uld see Nathan was very tired · the heat and the noise, è bustle of the city, had taken their toll He was walking (ggishly, now and again he stumbled, and at last I said, Let us rest for a while, it will do us both good" fle agreed at once, we found a quieter side street, and ankfully putting our burdens beside us sank down No He paid any attention to us We were allowed to sit there peace. We had bought on the way a hand of plantains, which four remained, and as we had not caten since oming I brought these out, giving two to my husband and iting two myself It was nearly dusk the activities of city were beginning to die down, the noise was decreas- & Scon street lights were winking and in the shops gas mps and hurricane lanterns were lighting up, but in the tle side alley where we sat it was dark darker than the and the sky above us from the shadows cast by the uildings on either side It was such a relief to rest, and the thought of continuing le search was so unwelcome, that we sat on while the slom

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·ated the images of the past my sons, Ira, the hut where KAMALA MARKANDAYA 145 In the precincts of the temple, shops and stalls were open, mahtly lit with gas lamps with their owners standing or kong within and calling out their wares to passers-by : At most had no money to spend At one shop pilaus were ng sold, mounds of saffron rice on buttered plantain aves, glistening with ghee and garnished with red chillies curling strips of fried onion The smell from it, rich tempting, swirled up with thc puffs of steam from the lling rice. Impossible to shut it out, useless to try the grant smell was everywhere. I felt a cramp beginning in stomach, held it with an effort that turned me giddy : en it had passed, the familiar symptoms of nausea began than pressed my arm in sympathy; he too looked queasy and along the corridors we whom this was evidently a vaulted chamber with arched Here we stopped and down to wait with the rest on the stone floor On the ik inner chamber the God and Goddess were seated on fit thrones, freshly anointed and garlanded with florvers their feet were piled betel-leaves, rice and a host of A woman sitting beside me nudged and pointed " The food is given to the poor -- to us -- when it has en blessed There is a lot tonight," she added. "You e lucky !" I saw her sucking her hips in anticipation. After a while two priests with half-shaven heads entered de carried a beakerful of water, the other a tray of more tive offerings, which they placed at the feet of die God alls began to tinkle ; at their sound the priests began inning the prayers, one taking up where the other left off veryone was standing, most of them with hands folded and Sed eyes. I closed my eyes, too, pressing my hands over neath them a black-rimmed orange glow against which eetmeats Am tha fontor amo, I saw Old Granny again

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 147 Sortions. Then I saw two men enter bringing the food and W other thought ceased, Craning my neck and body, standng on tiptoe, I saw the cauldrons they carried, cauldrons of lice heaped high and showing white gleaming peaks from vhich wisps of steam issued, and pots filled with a mixture dhal and vegetables which sent forth a most savoury mell From a pile beside him one of the men took out a plantain af - not a whole one, but cut into pieces twice the size Hy by going close to the vessels that I could see any rule all One of the men rebuked me sharply. 'Keep your distance Do you want to devour pot and I must ask for my husband,' I thought, and found mysell aking The plantain leaf was handed to me, the rice aced on top, then the cup of dhal Now. If you would be so kind, sir," I said, "I will take my Isband's portion as well on my leaf" They gaped at me, surprised, affronted "The woman 19 mad," one called out "Expects a double Irtion." "Not satisfied with one," the other rejoined in an offendvoice, “but must try and make capital out of charity." "I do not," I said "I have a husband and he is here, ask only for his portion" " If he is here let him come and we will serve him in his m We cannot hand out food to everyone merely because ey ask for it Do you take us for fools? Keep your tales the unwary!” cried one, and the other called out imatiently :

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·would not go to her destitute. Soothed a little by the d the low rat-tat of drums for the prayers which Three or four had seen us searching, three or four more ned these, soon a small crowd of advisers and helpers lowed at our heels "Are you sure it was this Hall of Pillars > There is anrer on the West side of the temple." "Quite sure. We have not been on the other side" How could they?" said a scornful voice. “That side Socked at night." Who was looking after the bundles?" No one, no one ..we left them untended.” Untended! Looking for trouble that was ! There are by thieves and strangers about these days" What, even in a temple! We did not think --" Yes, even in a temple, of course. Many kinds come there can be no guarantee of their honesty" fit appears not," Nathan said heavily "Our possessions e gone" there was futility only in further searching, further weari- 1. We gave up and leant our backs against the painted which encircled the temple, the vermilion and white bed wall we had foolishly thought meant safety The frise of shelter had been kept however : food, and somefre to sleep At least the loss is not irreparable," Nathan said "We e our money still, the pots and matting can be replaced " Best not to speak of it," I said, feeling cautiously for money in my waistband, the coins hard and comforting kimy touch“We must be careful" He smiled wyly "After the horse has bolted ?". But I could not smile, and the ease with which he ac- "Now I shall be wholly thought. 'I go to her beggar off the streets ;' Su digaway i uelemburu tu ovend one or two of the lns I felt digging into my flesh at the nearest bazaar, for bright. I drifted into sleep, broken often by bells ringing 1

·**
strove to wake, to brush aside those pathetic flutterings, die
at last I sat up, sleep
dream alike banished, wide awake now. And whether for
the fact of sleeping in new surroundings, or frora theo
selves down, watching the wind play with the yellom
on top of the temple, looking into the darkness wluch wzi
of the temple, on the colonnades, and in the nicties di
150
NECTAR IN A SIEVE
on at intervals throughout the night. Once in my
it seemed to me someone was tugging at my arm, but
I woke it was only Nathan clutching at me in tastet
i dozed off again, and after a while I felt a soft fumblr
about my face, noiseless, like fingers on spindie motor
strive as I would I could not
we had sustained, I was unable to sleep again
I leant against that same wall by which we had land
out the forms of the carven Gods and Goddesses
on the
walls, and as i gazed they seemed almost to live, there
breasts
gently breathing, their limbs lightly moving Me
-nearly could I believe what I saw, sitting
there in the
ness by the temple wall, Until dawn, when the stars
one by one, and the grey light changed the server
sures back into immobility

·CHAPTER XXV always Nathan stirred with the first light, when he aw I was awake he sat up quickly, rubbing the sleep i his eyes. You slept well," I said, a little envicus because I had yet glad since he looked so much better for it. Yes, I was tired But you look as if you had been up ight." Wmost I could not sleep You were worried no doubt," he said gravely, and the in in his voice made me slightly ashamed of myself. 1, we shall soon be with our son and you will be able st Come, we may as well start now - the sooner the 1 went to wash at the tap threading cur way among leaps of rags under which men and women lay hudin sleep, their crutches or staffs and begging bowls them, and when we had done we went out the way ad come in fly though it was, many of the shops were open From bod stalls came the spluttering of ghee and oil as bread pancakes were fried, ready for the early worshippers yould soon be coming As we passed, Nathan hesitated I saw him eyeing the crisp golden pancakes laid out a platter. et us buy a few," he said cheerfully"I am hungry th and you must be too" or my part hesitated, although the food was tempting th, for the silver coins we had were few and precious there was no telling what our needs might be: suli Id not very well deny him when I had already made up und to spend some of the money on cooking vessels, 30 I put my hand in my waistband to take out the y I had tied there 151

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 153 It being nearly midday we sat down to rest by the roadde. A dozen or more children were playing there, dodging I and out of the traffic with a skill and indifference which could not help admiring. For all their play they looked if they had never eaten a full meal in their lives, with leir sibs thrust out and bellies full-blown like drums with ind and emptiness; and they were also extremely dirty Ith the dust of the roadside and the filth deposited upon and the running sores many of them had upon their Mies were clogged with mud where blood or pus had Puded. But they themselves were forgetful of their pains or patient with them as the bullock had been — and played ked and merry in the sun Merry, that is, unt) a crust of tad fell on the road or a sweetmeat toppled from an fer-ambitious pyramid when, all childishness lost, all play gotten, they fought ferociously in the dust for the food .. children had fought thus too, I remembered, but time mellowed the memory or dinned it, for it did not Im to me that they had struggled Itke these tecth bared, pls clawing, ready, predatory like animals. But when man of wealth passed they were as tender and pitiful as Hglings, beseeching with soft open mouths and limpid es, their begging bowls meekly held before them and al- - hush rrol my children they played ed with the have, their years. We indy yel w Tulliu w uidu zan, pointing Sfant our son--- "N • by his dejection Cor They seem quick bough" He clicked his fingers and called, and they came with right curious eyes, twittering like sparross * Tell me, my son, do you know where Koil Street i ܚܝܫܝ 11

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 155 made off, his head down and his shoulders moving as he ran. We stood and looked at the house, arrived but uncertain how to proceed, and it looked back at us neither inviting hor forbidding There was a wooden paling around it, proken by a small wooden gate, and at length - there being nobody in sight to ask we walked through to the garden and so to the house The doors and windows in it were wide pren as if the occupant needed all the fresh air there was, and we could see right to the back of the house where two fr three men were sitting wearing the white tunics of serfants, and one of them at length saw us and came forward, aying mechanically as if he had used the same words many imes before, "Beggars are not allowed here, only those who ced Then seeing we neither carried begging bowls nor held jut our hands for alms he stopped short." What have you ome for " "Our son works here," Nathan said. "His name is Iurugan." "Murugan? No one of that name works here" "Doesn't work here! Are you sure?" "Of course I am sure. There are only three servants "mployed, and Murugan is not one of them" "There must be some mistake," Nathan muttered. He Pulled out the slip of paper on which the address was mitten and handed it to the man, looking anxiously at him she read - or perhaps pretended to read, for ne handed back quickly saying “Yes, yes, no doubt it is written there -- but you must ake my word, he is not here now "Why did we not wnte?' I thought miserably. 'We should have atten.' But we had been so sure he would De here, we had reliel on it, it had never struck us that he Jould leave without telling us Just then we heard a car driving up, and from it stepped figure wearing slirt and trousers, carrying a small black 05 bag

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 157 "I am not sure,” she said with a hint of pity in her Eyes, " but I have heard that he works for the Collector. He lives on Chamundi Hill," she added. "Anyone will show you the house : it is big enough." We were at the gate when she came after us. "You ook faint-have you not eaten ?" "We were fed at the temple," I said, not meeting those hrewd eyes "It is a long time since," she said. “You had better jave a meal here before you go" She called to the servant ind spoke to him rapidly, and he came, looking none too pleased, to lead us to where we had to go The servants' quarters lay behind the house and some istance away They consisted of three godowns standing a row, square rooms with brick walls and stone floors, ach with a separate low doorway At the first one the Nanservant, Das, stopped and beckoned us to enter. hside it was half-dark, for there was only one window igh up on the wall and a thick blue smoke was rising com a corner where a young woman was busy cooking. "These people are to eat with us," Das said "They re the parents of one Murigan who was before me." The young woman rose and came to us cheerful and miling, nursing a round, chubby baby. "You are more aan welcome -- you seem very tired Her friendliness, her smile, were warming like the sun on ld limbs, gentle as the rain on parched earth, I felt the tiffness that had collected in me departing. felt a new psurge of hope Nathan was visibly relaxed. “The rice 3 nearly cooked," the young woman was saying. “Per. laps you would like to wash before we eat -- the tap is Putside, my husband will show you" Das was on his feet * Ah yes, I had forgotten. Certainly a wash will do you good" He sounded more riendly We followed him out to the tap, which was about a furlong way. A cement floor had been built around the base he tap, but the water which dopped constantly i >> 64

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 105 good to us and gives us rice and dhal. Today she sent extra for you" So we ate with easy conscience, for I would not like to have taken from the store of a family who were for all their kindness only strangers to us, and who moreover had enough mouths of their own to feed. As evening wore on the mother brought out a striped mat, for she had persuaded us to stay the night, on which to sleep And sleep we did, the deep sleep of those who being bred have fed well and rested well. The next morning early we departed, after thanking the doctor who was a woman, and Das and his wife wlxa had cared so well for us, and she came to see us go with her curious-eyed children about her, sunny and smiling as when we had first sech her and to this day I sce her as she was then, young and kind, with a warm smile ever ready on her lips.

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·KAMALA ASARKANDAYA 161 Come" Nathan said in a cracked voice. "Let us go 10 But we could not, although the door stood openi, for sudden shyness had set a stranglehold upon us and the sense of intrusion was strong ..and in the end we stood by the cpen doorway and called A thin girl with untidy hair came out the baby we had heard crying at her hip, a small boy clinging to her sari; stood staring at us with a slight frown “Who is it? What do you want?" No smile, no welcome Perhaps she thinks we are beggars,' I thought. "No wonder since we look it,' and once more the humiliation of having nothing, not even a cooking pot, smote at me "We are Murugan's parents," Nathan said gently. "You must be his wife" The girl nodded, then recollecting herself she drew aside so that we could enter, came after us and stood biting her lip as if uncertain what to say "These must be our grandchildren," I said, trying not to notice her attitude "I have long wanted to see ther." "No doubt" the girl said, her lips twisting a little. "No doubt you want to see your son, too. He is not here." "Not here," Nathan repeated "I was told he was here ! When is he coming back?" "I wish I knew," she replied "I do not think he will ever come back" "What do you mean? Are you not his piſe? What makes you say he will never retum ? " “He left me," she replied bitterly “He has been gone nearly two years" We had come a long way to meet bad news and now it scerned there was neither going back nor going forward What we had sayed had been taken from us, there svas nothing more ... nothing left to sell ; neither fe strength left to t 1

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·! KAMALA MARKANDAYA 163 "Of course." "One must live," she repeated, defiant, challenging, sensing reproach where none could be ; for it is very true. one must live. At midday, as she had said, she came back She had told us to wait, yet now her attitude said very clearly : 'You should not have taken me at my word, what I said was said in duty and for no other reason.' In a sullen silence she began preparing the meal, lighting the fire, : fetching the water, boiling the rice, the baby astride her hup as before and whimpering unheeded. She did not speak until we had eaten Then she looked up "Where will you go? Can you return to your village ?" And when?' said her hostile questioning eyes I cannot keep you here indefinitely, the sooner you go the better." “We must return to our village.” Nathan agreed. "There is nothing for us here We came only because of Our son, you understand " She nodded "Yes, he has let us all down" "Maybe there were reasons," I said Whatever claim this woman had on him, still he was my son, I could not let her heap all the blame on him. Her face darkened, anger bloated her lips and lit fires behind her black brood. ing eyes "They were the usual ones : women and gambling," she said harshly We looked at each other, trembling on the brink of a quarrel, bitterness parting the threads of forbearance one by one, but while a fexy still held, suddenly, the outward semblance fell away I saw only that she was a very young girl, frail beyond most, deserted by her husband and doing her best to feed herself and her children "I am sorry," I said jerkily "I must have been out of my senses " She nodded very slightly, accepung my explanatthe blaze dying out behind her face. "It is better that we should go now," said N 1

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·KAMIALA MARKANDAYA 16: she had displayed had gone with the fear that we migh have come to stay. * Take care of yourselyes," she called "Godspeec and may you get home safely" Her lips were smiling, she brought the boy to the door to wave to us Though we had known them so short a while there was melancholy in the parting Maybe we shall never see therr again,' I thought sadly, and I heard Nathan beside me heave a sigh Both of us absorbed in our thoughts, we did not understand the shouting we vaguely heard until one of the Peons came running after us puffing and angry "Are you deaf?" he bawled "I have told you three times that servants are not allowed to use this gate, yet you continue as if you had not heard !” "We are not servants." "Servants or not, it is all one! You must use the back sate Come on, if you are seen here I will lose my job." We followed him some distance from the main gate was a smaller one, and to this he pointed. "There ! And emember to use it next time as well ” "There will not be a next time," said Nathan gentiy, *but we shall remember." - ·CHAPTER XXVII 1 NE or two of the regulars in the ti "What, you back again ! Trouble in-law no doubt ?" "No, no trouble. All is well" Some sniggered knowingly, others "Ah well, things often turn out unexpect fuck will change soon A fesy were antagonistic and openly a waw their share of the food shrinking Nouth. "Outsiders should not be allowed, Ase there not enough destitute in thu yhole of India flocking in?" We looked at them resentiully. were zey? Soon we were looking at 1 Jl eye, wondering with each fresh 1 there would be Each night was a struggle, more fierce. atly engaged in it I saw, night aiter 1 t observed before the lame with their way from them so that they ſell and we le iceble separated (rom their support umbers were halved Many & time me side unable to face the fray I had no !s distaste of the whole procedure would arvation. As it was, snore often than not f 15. And shen the crowd had disposed, to carente, in the cool of the night and es the quiet courtyards, or leaned our inha metod radarem linn + ·Waits alf-eager, and somehow the eagerness alone communicated "Do you think you could ?" Nathan was half-despondent, Yes, I am sure. If I write letters as well as read them, shall eam even more." How can you write without paper or ink?" "Who asks must provide," I said confidently "Leave We looked at each other and hone stirred, albcit cau- PARALA MARKANDAYA 167 of brown earth and green fields and the ripe rustling paddy, xx, curiously, as they were, but as we had first known Demi.fresh, open and unspoilt, with their delicate scents nd sounds untainted, with the skies clear above them and he birds finding sanctuary amid the grasses. And at the zame time, keeping pace with these longings, our distaste or the city grew and grew and became a sweeping, eryading hatred. "Better to starve where we were bred than live here." Nathan said passionately. “Whatever happens, whatever us, we must retum But how? We have no money My husband can till nd son and reap with skill, but here there is no land. can weave and spin, or plait matting, but there is no zoney for spindle, cotton or fibre For where shall a man. um who has no money > Where can he go? Wide. lide world, but as narrow as the coins in your hand Like tethered goat, so far and no farther Only money can lake the rope stretch, only money Then one day I thought I would set myself up as a kader of letters such as there are in most villages, and barely also in cities? Whoever heard of a woman reader," said Nathan. No one will come to you." "If I ask little, and less than the cthers, custom there 172 surely be," said I "In any case one must try Even few anpas would help tously, making us tself to me, t to me." 1) ·$ 170 NECTAR IN A SIEVE "He guided us to the doctor's house," I explained, she we first came." There was a pause. Nathan began sharing out the ris and dhal, carefully tearing the plantain leaf he carried in - three pieces on which to put each portion. I had with th day's earnings bought as usual one rice cake which I no broke to hand round. The boy stared at it: "You mu have money! Otherwise how could you buy rice cakes?" I sighed. "I earn two annas a day by writing letters: sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. I buy loc with it." 'Which is not unreasonable," Nathan said impatienth seeing how one portion has sometimes to be stretched & three !" At last Puli seemned satisfied. He began to eat, and on more I saw that he had no fingers, only stumps. He himse did not appear to find any difficulty in managing v cxcept that once or twice he had to use both hands, and a certain awkwardness in his handling of the fcox Despite myself I could not keep my eyes off his hands; harder I tried to keep my gaze fixed elsewhere, the more! atened itself to those stumps Puli, seemingly unaw21 continued eating stolidly. He is used to it,' I thought ! knows and accepts the shameful probing curiosities of huma beings.' When we had caten, and fed the leaves to the goats, 20 sashed, Puli to my surprise lay down beside us "You had better go home,” I said, nudging him "17 will your poor mother think if you stay here all night?" "I have no mother, poor or otherwise," he said. "The is no one to worry about me and none to worry me cithe: which is a good thing," and tuming on his side he fell i stantly asleep. I might have felt apprchensive for him, but that 1 ETC him to be eminently capable of looking after himsell : 9 sorry, sase that he so patently did not desire it; but could not help feeling a vague responsibility which certainly I knew I was in no position to fulfil.

·- KAMALA MARKANDAYA 171 "He is probably better fitted to fend for himself than we Nathan began, but although he was echoing my ---ruel... "Un are HE ulguioughluny. * You earn two annas," he asked, " after working all day?" nodded : "Sometimes three or four" "Between two and four then," he amended impatiently plave you no wish to earn more?" I stared at him, "If only I could," I said, half breathless "Is there me way?" * There is a stone quarry," he said, “not far from here. pne-breakers earn good wages And who will employ us," said Nathan sadly, "at our ! Such heavy work would in any event be beyond us" Age doesn't matter," the boy said impatiently “As for Jo will employ you, there is no such thing Anyone can and work and be paid by the results - so much for each kful." Are we not beyond such labour?" Indeed no! All kinds work in the quarry, men, women jd chuldren I would work 100," he added, "but I cannot pid a hammer or stone firmly enough One can eam a af one work's quickly" "Lead on," Nathan said "We are in your hands” tve heard the noise of the stone-breakers long before the Kached the quarry, a clink-clank of stone on stone with ktermittent dull explosions As we drew near, the din grew der ; we had to shout to make ourselves heard The quarry was on a hillside, not the calm and pleasant pramundi Ilul, but another, lesser hill, bare and rocky, with of nricklu nont On nne side pere and there a few put the hill the land 2

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·KANALA MARKANDAYA 173 "It is not a simple way of earning," I said, " and it is nore difficult than it looks." And Nathan grumbled, "If s had a hammer, at least we should not have so much Lite." Yet there were many like us without hammers and ng only stones, who were making very good progress bice or twice I stopped to watch, admiring and envious, hile the stones broke obediently to the right size under her skilful blows and the knobbly heaps before them grew. bly once were we disturbed by blasting near us Engrossed our work, neither of us had observed the red flag, nor with hammering constantly beating upon our eardrums, did Shear the whistle go; but Puli, more alert than either of 5 hustled us to safety, and as we ran we felt the ground ake beneath us. * You must learn to be careful," Puli said severely, while kes and earth still rained down on us like hail-stones d you not hear the whistle, or the people who shouted to ? Thus blasting is a nuisance," he went on. “You will your stones are scattered ; but you will get used to it." The stones were indeed scattered, and mixed inextricably th those of other workers . but when we had collected lat we reckoned to be our pile no one raised any objections. Sometimes one loses, sometimes one gains," a man said slosophically “It evens itself out” 7 was thankful there was this spirit of amsty: we were p of stones tore us was LIUI YU, . cyes, very nall All about us people were stopping work. As the ght faded so the clink-clank dis died, in the gathering arkness only a few faint sounds of hammering told of a Litary stone-breaker continuing his labours I tumed to the boy beside us."Well, what now? Who ays us?" "Your husband "We must get a sack first,” he replied ad better wait here while we are gone. Come, I will show ou the overseer's hut."

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·KAMALA MARKANDAYA 175 thanked him, feeling surprised that Puli had not known, who was so competent in his way. Then I reminded mythat despite his airs he was only a child. Fitur I entered. A man was sitting on the floor tuning on a small raised wooden board resting on bricks fore him How many ?" He did not raise his eyes One only." Ke entered something in a book and reached for some ps, then he looked up. "Where is your sack?" I have not got one I have just come for it," I stamed. Why did you not ask for it in the first place >" he said ply. "Are you trying to get money for nothing ?" be put the coins back on the pile, took a basket from e stacked behind him Here you are no sacks left And hurry up, else you be paid tonight" look it and ran back to Nathan Breathless with haste illed the basket and I was back while the line of waiters 'stretched before the hut Two sacks, one rupee three sacks, one-eight. " the seer's voice kept calling, monotonous, slightly weary. ping I placed my basket in front of him One sack, eight annas," he called; then impatiently. ing his rhythm, "Not there! Behind, with the others !" put the basket alongside the others Now at last I was e paid He took out the money. two coins, each a foura piece, dropped them in my palm athan was waiting, eager and impatient "How much?” Eight annas ve looked at each other, smiling, jubilant. "We shall be home," Nathan said softly “Think of it." I seemed natural that we should wait for Puli, and sure ugh he joined us a few minutes later. The boy had atled himself to us of his own accord and now both . kit for granted he would remain

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·CHAPTER XXVIII WUM counting annas, as the days went by, we began to sunt rupees. Four rupees, five, six. Even Puli began show excitement. There was the time when we worked wel -- or the stones were so kind -- that we earned a pre in a single day I handed the coin as usual to Puli, thrust it into the ragged pouch which covered his rnand. Where he transferred the money we gave him from te I do not know. It was his own business and he never certainly not one pie was ever lost We walked back Fant that day in the coppery twilight already edged with k like ashes around dying embers A thin drizzle was las, so fine it might have been dew, the ground beneath feet felt like the earth in the early morning and no longer feet In fancy I was already home. he single, twisting road that led from the quarry soon into several streets, the main one leading to the bazaar,. it was this that I took I will go on to the temple," said Nathan. "I am a le tired besides it does not take two to buy rice cakes" Maybe a little more than rice cakes this time," I said erfully, wirtking at the boy “You go on, we will give a surprise." went to the small shop as I did each morning, Puli in er step beside me, and the vendor hailed me as an old Homer He was a good man, for all that I bought so le from him, he sought out the largest rice cakes for same money, and sometimes a lump of ghee to go with as well Wait a bit," I said, as he began to wrap the rice cake plantain leat "There may be a little more today." f' come into money, have you ?" he cried, chuckling and pping his thigh with a loud report. "Well, you have be to the right man I have a selection such as few have ·the man, "We need not buy, let us only stop and we , with painted spokes to the wheels and a yoke which po it, who was only a child, when I myself was encounter So he jerked the string and as the cart come true 180 NECTAR IN A SIEVE and, mark you, cheaper than anybody else! What will have? Potato fritters, crisped in butter and melting insi or these fried pancakes I have myself stuffed with omor Something sweet for the boy ..:Sugar-whirls, or exquisite curly-curlies?" What shall it be, what shall it be? I inspected a!!! delicacies, which I had never dared to do before, and I los it next to impossible to decide between them. Puli, hope up and down beside me, was likewise veering from dainty to another "The pilau there, such a lovely s and it has roasted nuts in it -- or no, I think the price will last longer ..." In the end we bought the fried pancakes, one each, pa six annas for the three, and four annas for two rice "Well, if we are extravagant it is only once," LA seeking to console my uneasy mind. "Ten annas is little over what we usually spend The change will die good" But the recklessness did not end there. As we wallego we passed a hawker, and he had a sensitive nose and see that we had a little money and little control to go ரம் and he came after us pulling out and exhibiting his em and at last he took out a small wooden cart on which which he attached a string and pulled it along behind as he came following us. "A dum-dum cart," cried Puli, and he echoed and he tugged at my sarı So we stopped to look af toy and indeed it was a pretty thing, lovingly made on the necks of the painted oxen. "Pull it and hear the drum beat," said the wily holding out the string to Puli, and how could be him the legs of the oren moved and the carter's .

·all day." KAMALA ALARKANDAYA 181 and fell and the drum-sticks he held in them came e upon the tiny drum in front of him -- a real drum, ingly made with cords up the sides and skin stretched Atly over the top Dum-dum-dum-dum went the ht, the quicker you pulled the faster it beat. Two annas only -- you will never be able to buy cheaper, est me all of that to make .. There is no profit to u it, I only sell because I must I have not sold one merked a glance at Pult and he was looking at me h eyes like lamps He still held the string between stumps of his fingers, and kept yanking at it as if the mung was sweet to his ears. Why do you not pay for it with your own money if want it?" I said uneasily "I see you begging every K... You know I have spent more than I ought pady Two annas more won't matter," he wheedled. "I Anuse I will never ask you for anything..." But you have money of your own," I repeated. "I be seen it myself" I have spent it all," he said pitifully. “People gave at but now they are used to me. It is a hard world" gain I thought, 'He is a child after all, still tender, eager. Whatever he may say or do he has lived only hort time, not easily' And even as I nodded he began nbling at his pouch, unable in his haste to undo it, until last I had to do it for him, taking from it the coios I ded, still warm from his body, and handing them to hawker Then extravagance grew frenzied encouraged by this se, and I could not stop myself from taking out two te annas to buy another cart. “For my little grand- 3' I thought, 'who has had so much to bear from his th, and I pictured his white transparent checks flushwith excitement while Ira hovered nearby with I. smile that graced it. Be like a flower and the PY 1

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·Estinct, unmistakable. A few brave souls had nsen Tow will be enough ts passed us on the way to collect the broken stones, bullocks drawing them struggling to get through the t-wheels sank deep in the mud as they turned, mud ttered continuously from the creaking wheels "The worst season of the year," a voice was grumbling Rext year whatever happens I shall not work" 'Pah, you say that every year." 'No, really, this time I mean it even if it means lans, everyone had plans They were all built on ney. Save enough to keep dry, save enough to cast i's chains, save enough to go away. The clink of stones came to us sodden with the KAMIALA MARKANDAYA 183 shivering, but no longer violently. I broke up the two cakes and we ate in silence, depressed by the ceaserain. "Nathan has eaten his share,' I thought. He it be better; it is the cold which makes him shiver' vertheless I said to him anxiously. "Stay behind and - it is not good for you to go out in this rain To- * Tomorrow and tomorrow it will rain," he replied. is the monsoon. I cannot sit here idling while the s slip past and we are still far from home" We went, the three of us, to the quarry, joining the fraggled groups of workers toiling along the winding, Those who were richer bought and med palm-leaf hooded cloaks which fell stiffly from d to thigh, making them look like walkıng beetles, but protectors were expensive, twelve annas aprece, st of the workers did without lain had softened the road, liquid mud came squelch: up between my toes as I walked Ahead and behind were scores of footprints, many of them like small is where water had seeped in The cart-tracks were full water tco, long lines criss-crossing with mud flung up on Jer side of the trenches. Three or four empty bullock. Tass, their hides slippery with sweat and rain. The ddy road eating."

·stone corridors. When the spasm of sickness was onto “It was the food," he gasped. “It turned my stom "You have worked too hard," I said, "It does I felt his body and it was burning hot, the skin and stretched. He had obviously been ill for xy? ours. “Why did you have to do it?' I wanted to Why?' But I only said, "Lie and rest. You für better." And I took his head in my lap and set me! The rain which had been a fine drizzle had bu by moming a heavy downpour. The air, as 23 the beginning of the monsoon, lay like a blanket the earth, damp and suffocating, but when it My 182 NECTAR IN A SIEVE The hawker took the money from me and trad quickly --no doubt fearing that I would come to senses. We continued on our way, Puli dragging on behind him, I carrying the other together with the cakes, the pancakes and the two-anna piece which all that was left of the day's earnings ; while I ty again and again of what I would say to my hus! Now we were within the precincts of the temple I caught sight of Nathan and ran towards him, tid the boy pick up the cart with its infernal drum : but nx was bewitched, the cart must come dum-dumming behind "I don't know what came over me," I blurted, pero "I shall work very hard tomorrow to make up. You will Nathan looked at me, his eyes were dull 'He is perated,' I thought 'No wonder ! “We have a surprise for you," I said with falsc fulness. "Look, pancakes!" Nathan gave them a glance, then rose hurried his feet. I saw him stagger to one side, away from came back to lean against a pillar to strain oneself" "The fever has been coming all day," he said. this morning to massaging the pain from his limbs wind came through the rain met and chill. Nathan He was shima ACT ·KANALA MARKANDAYA Iss Disjointed thoughts kept dattering through my brain or was the clatter only the rain? I stumbled down the -slopes, treacherous with mud and stones sighing with el as I reached the road. Talf way along it, I saw a small knot of people gathered. othing can make me stop,' I thought, hurrying along. here one of the group called "Ai! See to your man. has fallen." stopped and my senses poised themselves on the brink insensibility, ready to swoop away at the merest nod a me. I shook off the blackness and went to him ugh the gathered people, who parted to let me through, | closed their ranks as I knelt beside him. e was lying by the side of the road where someone had ied him not in the gutter but away from the road, void the mud-churning cart-wheels His body had made Mugh of the wet mud, in it he lay jerking and twitching : to him the swollen gutter ran like a stream, noisily: e it I could hear his hoarse breathing I touched him his body was as chill as the wind. The piless rain : splashing down uncaring I had no shield for him. ist I unwound part of my sari, meaning to tear it, but material would not tear, where my hands were it limp and perished in despair I wound the rags t me again Nobody gave anything, nobody had ning to give, the men in loin-cloths, the women in tattered and sodden like mine 'It makes no difference, ught to myself, and found the words being murmured nother. 1 le man took him by the armpits, another his fect · walking behind, with me other women, hispearing s of comfort that the rain washed 2x2y as soon as were uttered. Sometimes there was a silence while waited for my ansaer, waited while I groped for S. las he been all long? les; some time." 11 ·186 NECTAR IN A SIEVE "Have you no sons to help?" “Yes --no-not here." I licked my wet lips There was a taste and of the fresh sweetness of rainwater. I had been crying.

·CHAPTER XXIX He memories of that night are hard and bright within me like a diamond, and the fires that flash from it have Frange powers. Some are blue and wrap me gently in eir glow ; or green and soothing like oxen eyes in the ht; but there are others, yellow and red, that sear me Eth their intensity When this happens I call to the mists d'they come, like clouds that cover the sun But the fires emselves are always there, they will never be extinguished til my life itself is done What do I remember? Every word, every detail. I Flember walking along the wet deserted street by the wall the temple : I remember looking up for the flare that had er burnt on the top of the temple, and it was quenched : the black demons of fear came shrieking at my ear would not be silenced, for all that I repeated like a dwoman, 'Fire cannot burn in water.' I saw the faces men who were not there and of children from whom the had been filched, and yet it was a black night, blacker in black since the stars were hidden They laid my husband on the paved floor and I sank yn beside him. Somebody brought a light, a hurricaneatern that burned steady in the stormy wind; somebody 3, water His body was caked in mud, wet and dirty. riped him clean, took his head in my lap The knot of ople who had come so far with me melted away into e darkness, in ones and twos, when they saw how it was. Nathan's head kept twitching from side to side, he called Our sons and muttered words that I did not understand. ec rays from the lantern fell on his wasted face, on the ht, yellowed skin, on the lips sput with ſever, on his bs which were like a child's Sometimes his breath came tween his chattering teeth in gusts, rising above the

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·CHAPTER XXX he days went by, Nathan no longer beside me; no more. Ashes and dust, scattered to the winds, moised by the rain, unrecognisable. I picked up the fragnts of my life and put them together, all but the missing 2; and out of my affliction I called to Puli I do not w.what words I used, when I think of what I may have 1 I shiver. Rich promise to lure a child, before I knew ould be kept. Priceless treasure of health, not mine ta · And he, compassionate creature, who drew from me arrows of sorrow one by one, listened, and when I came e I was not alone. > good to be home at last, at last. The cart jolted to andstill. I looked about me at the land and it was to my starving spirit. I felt the earth beneath my feet wept for happiness The time of in-between, already emory, coiled away like a snake within its hole. rom the unfinished, scaffclded building a figure emercame running Selvam, my son Thank God," he said "Are you all right?" and he me My daughter joined us, her haste making her thless Puli alone not of the family, standing a little rt awkwardly, clutching in his arms the dumdum cart. alled to him My son," I said "We adopted him, your father and You look tired and hungry." Ira said, taking his arm. ome with me and rest, I will prepare the rice." Do not worry;" Selvam said "We shall manage." --lnd ta par what had to be said hey walked on ahead 1 ·THE SPELL OF APHRODITE AND OTHER STORIES by S. K. CHETTUR To Indian readers Chettur is well know through his absorbing short stories and the murder-mystery novel which had appeared various Indian Journals. Here is a collection of very interesting short stories each betraying the writer's penetratan observation and gifts of imagination. Hi charming characters come and go making lastıng impressions in our mind. All these stories, without any exception, hast remarkable qualities to make them very much appealing to readers of a wide range ,J - 75 ONE THOUSAND NIGHTS ON A BED OF STONES AND OTHER STORIES by K. A ABBAS The prolific Indian writer who gave. ..... AND ONE WHO DID NOT COME BACK, OUTSIDE INDIA, INQILAB and a host of other books, here now offers this collection of absorbing short stories, to the reading public. These good stories are exceptionally amusing, witty, swift-moving and gripping. As ne read them multitudes of unforgettable characters Crowd the gallery of our mind with their smiles, wiles and guiles, platitudes, snobbery, suffering, SOTTOw and pain. The portrayal is so vivid that we are unwilling to believe that the characters are only imagenav nes ·LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM by H. G. YELLS This is one of the best novels written by Wells. Besides its story interest this novel sheds a flood of light on Wells first acquain. tance with love. Mr. Lewisham and Ethel met for the first time and ever afterwards their sweet interviews followed Whether or flot love is blind, Mr. Lewisham had the first taste of it after which he surrenders to its overwhelming power. Having tasted these Sweet doses of love he concludes that love is the greatest of all things The reader will see that this novel makes delightful reading J-57 THE MOTHER by GRAZIA DELEDDA Conscience - Instinct - Conflict "It was a supreme struggle of the blind instinct of the flesh against the dominson of the spint "After a few moments he rose to his feet, uncertain still which of the two had con guered · The mother was conscious of the agony that was raging in the heart of her son, the priest. She lamented, 'Why, Oh Lord, was Paul forbidden to love a woman?" +

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·J--61 TEARS AND LAUGHTER by KAULIL GIBRAN TEARS AND LAUGHTER 18 the full flowe of Gibran's genius.' These beautiful philoso phical poems and lyric prose touch upon the universal misery, and throw a flood of ligh on Gibran's magnificent understanding and sincerity. This very wise book has a magnetic charm all its own THE SONG CELESTIAL (Bhagavad Gita) by EDWIN ARNOLD " Its popularity and influence have not waned ever since it was composed and written is pre-Buddhistic age, and today its appeal is as strong as ever in India In times of crisis, when the mind of man is tortured by doubt and is tom by the conflict of duties, it has tumed all the more to GITA for light and guidance -Jougharlal Nehru (Discovery of India) ·60 CHITRALEKHA by BHAGWATI CHARAN VERMIA Translated by CHANDRA B. KARKI -- Her Beauty is Her Power Her charm has conquered the heart of every. one. She has overcome many obstacles and finally become the most famous dancer at court. What can withstand the power of her beauty? But, lo' a new foe has arisen, the spiritual strength of an ascetic. Watch this breathtaking struggle between spiritual strength and bodily beauty -- the eternal struggle between Good and Evil. Which one 19 going to be the victor? J-53 Banabhatta's KADAMBARI (A Classic of Ancient India) Translated by C. M RIDDING KADAMBARI is a romantic tale told with skill and discrimination Written more than thirteen hundred years ago, this novel is a masterpiece of all time. Banabhatta's genius is so superb, his understanding of human nature so deep, his power of developing love and pathos so great that the modern reader will forget the unrcal character of the work and his mind will be engrossed by SOTTOMS and smiles of its characters.

·BOOK OF FACTS + Edited by J. D. SUNTHANKAR . BOOK OF FACTS is a useful collection of Kreat educational value Here is the book that will provide you with the most interesting and factual information about everything under the suri Every page of this wonderful book is densely packed with answers to most frequently asked questions, both usual and unusual BOOK OF FACTS will be of immense practical use to everybody. TREASURY OF WIT AND HUMOUR This volume presents to the reader a rare collection of Wit and Humour which is not only entertaining and exhilarating, but thoughtprovoking and edifying too. It contains the wittiest quotations of the greatest authors.

·-- JAICO BOOKS RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM-Edward Fitzc MOTHER-Maxim Gorky PANCHATANTRA--Arthur W, Ryder LIGHT OF ASIA AND THE INDIAN SONG OF SO Sir Edwin Arnold DROLL STORIES–Balzac THE VISION OF INDIA-Sisirkumar Mitra AMONG THE GREAT--Dilip Kumar Roy MY CHILDHOOD-Maxim Gorky MY UNIVERSITIES IN THE WORLD FOUR GREAT NISTORICAL” PLAYS OF-131 Shakespeare NO nte Dickens ten de Maupassant WNA KARENINA–Leo Tolstoy THE LIBERATOR_Sisirkumar Nitra MMA- Jane Austen [E WHO RIDES A TIGER-Bhabhani Bhattacharya XQILAB-Khwaja Ahmad Abbas HE SUBSTANCE OF A DREAM-F, W. Bain "HE NATIONAL CULTURE OF INDIA D. S Abid fusun HE GOLDEN BOAT--Rabindranath Tagore ECTAR IN A SIEVE-Kamala Markandaya ONADEVA'S VETALAPANCHAVIMSATI-C. H awney ASANOVA'S MEMOIRS- Joseph Monet CAMILLE_Alexandre Dumas JUR HEARTS-Guy de Maupaseant MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN Theophile Gautier THE WISDOM OF INDIA-Lin Yutang A DIGIT OF THE MOON AND A DRAUGHT OF TITI BLUEF, V. Bain

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