LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 16:1 January 2016
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Thematic Study of Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar In A Sieve

Ms. R. Mahalakshmi, M.A., M.Phil.


Abstract

Kamala Markandaya is one of the well-known Indian Women novelists writing in English. She won international fame and recognition with the publication of her maiden novel Nectar in a Sieve. In Nectar in a Sieve, Kamala Markandaya spotlights the despair of the farmers realistically. They are desperate because of the vagaries of natural calamities, the resultant constant hunger, ruthless machines and heartless men. When an Indian village is on the threshold of industrialization, the peasant community suffers both physically and mentally. Nathan and Rukmani are representatives of millions of tenant farmers in India and their life is an example of the havoc caused by industrialization. The whole novel thus reveals the story of an Indian village shaken to its roots by the onslaught of modernization. Nectar in a Sieve is much more than the story of the life and suffering of Rukmani and Nathan, a faceless peasant couple, symbolic of rural dwellers all over the country. The tragedy of Rukmani and Nathan is universalized and vested with an epical significance. Markandaya’s novel vividly records the poverty-stricken, heart-breaking existence of the people in rural areas. Their struggle has been given an epical grandeur and dignity. The village where they lived has not been given any name and its locals had been kept vague and indistinct. This was so because it symbolizes rural India and Nathan and Rukmani symbolize the Indian farmer and the tragedy of rural India. Nectar in a Sieve captures the effects of social upheavals on its characters. Markandaya’s themes depict her tragic vision of life.

Keywords: Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve, poverty, rural India, tenant farmers, effect of modernization.

Kamala Markandaya (1924-2004)

The British impact on India has given rise to an impressive mass of writing in English that could be conveniently described as Indian English literature. Indian writing in English refers to the body of work by writers of Indian origin who write in the English language and whose mother tongue is usually one of the numerous languages of India. It has grown from a sapling to a strong rooted tree in full bloom in each of its genres – poetry, prose, fiction, novel and drama with a diversity of themes, forms and styles. Indian writing in English, especially fiction is gaining ground rapidly.

Kamala Markandaya (1924-2004) is one of the most popular Indo-Anglian novelists with a vast concourse of readers in India and abroad. Her original name was Kamala Purnaiya which links her with the Dewan Purnaiya which was a well-to-do aristocratic Brahmin family of Mysore in South India. The woman consciousness is central to all her novels. Markandaya died in London on May 16, 2004. She uses fiction as a vehicle for communicating her vision of life. Markandaya’s heightened awareness of poverty in India probably was the result of her rare visits to the country and accounts for the frequent repetition of this theme in her novels. Nectar in a Sieve is the first Indian novel in English in which a sincere attempt has been made to project a realistic picture of rural India in all its shades and details – famine, drought, excessive rain and struggle for survival, eviction, superstition, hunger and starvation. There is a realistic portrayal of a village which is symbolic of rural India. The sub-title of the novel “A Novel of Rural India”, gives a clue to the novelist’s predominant occupation in the novel and its inner content. It depicts with vivid clarity and keen observation the socio-economic conditions of rural India. Particularly, the terrible degradation that human life brings is depicted with unflinching realism.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ms. R. Mahalakshmi, M.A., M.Phil.
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Sri S.R.N.M. College
Sattur
Tamilnadu
India
mahalakshmimphil1992@gmail.com
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