Nectar in a Sieve: Chapters 1–5

Puli is with me because I tempted him, out of my desperation I lured him away from his soil to mine. Yet I have no fears now: what is done is done, there can be no repining.

“Are you happy with me?” I said to him yesterday—being sure of the answer. He nodded, not hesitating, but a little impatient. An old woman’s foibles. A need for comfort.

Padmini next, and she too made a good match and was married fittingly, taking jewels and dowry with her, but when it came to Thangam, only relations from our own village came to the wedding and not from the surrounding districts as they had done before, and the only jewel she had was a diamond nose-screw.

My husband, seated already on the bullock cart with the tin trunk full of cooking vessels and my saris next to him.

The animals, refreshed, began stepping jauntily again, tossing their heads and jangling the bells that hung from their red-painted horns.

A mud hut, thatched, small, set near a paddy field, with two or three similar huts nearby.

A mud hut, thatched, small, set near a paddy field, with two or three similar huts nearby.

He did not reply at once but went into the granary and came out with a handful of paddy.

Kali, big and plump, with ample hips and thrusting breasts, whose husband worked the next field to ours; Janaki, married to the village shopkeeper, with her homely face and sagging figure, for she had borne her husband several children; and Kunthi, youngest of the three, small and narrow, moving gracefully despite her burden.

“Oh, yes! Every bit of it himself, and neglecting the land sometimes to do it, so that Sivaji had often to chide him, although he is a good man for a Zemindari agent.”

“You must go,” she kept entreating.

“A snake,” I whispered, bereft of voice and breath. “A cobra. I touched it.”

“Here is a marvel indeed,” they would say, and make comparisons with ordinary parents who sometimes bore a child of matchless brilliance; or with a devout couple who had brought forth a wretch.

“You must not allow it so early,” Kali said to me ominously, “or her legs will bend like hoops.”

My husband ploughed it, steadying the plough behind the two bullocks while I came behind, strewing the seed to either side and sprinkling the earth over from the basket at my hip.

Sometimes I would go to see my parents, but seldom, since there was so much to be done in my own home; and my mother, knowing this, did not reproach me for the long intervals between my visits.

But the Gods have other things to do: they cannot attend to the pleas of every supplicant who dares to raise his cares to heaven.

So it was in a house of sorrow that I first met Kennington, whom people called Kenny. He was tall and gaunt, with a pale skin and sunken eyes the colour of a kingfisher’s wing, neither blue nor green.

Kali’s and Janaki’s children were much older, and as for Kunthi, she preferred to keep aloof.

Between us we prepared mounds of rice, tinting it with saffron and frying it in butter; made hot curries from chillies and dhal; mixed sweet, spicy dishes of jaggery and fruit; broiled fish; roasted nuts over the fire; filled ten gourds with coconut milk; and cut plantain leaves on which to serve the food.

So I had to be content without him; but contentment cannot be forced, and Nathan noticed my preoccupation.

And so I made a skirt for her, weaving bright colours into the white cotton that she might like it, and so she did for a time, wearing it gladly, twirling it about her as she spun round and round; but when the novelty had worn off, she became fractious and wanted to tear it from her.

Children were everywhere, dodging in and out of the crowd and crying out to each other in shrill excited voices.
Startled pi-dogs added to the din.

The others wore loincloths and turbans and a few wore shirts, but as the day wore on they doffed their shirts, one by one, until all were as our men.

Every day for two months the line of bullock carts came in laden with bricks and stones and cement, sheets of tin and corrugated iron, coils of rope and hemp.

Every day for two months the line of bullock carts came in laden with bricks and stones and cement, sheets of tin and corrugated iron, coils of rope and hemp.

The kilns in the neighbouring villages were kept busy firing the bricks, but their output was insufficient, and the carts had to go farther afield, returning dusty and brick-filled.

The workers departed, taking with them their goods and chattels, leaving only the empty huts behind.

In the unwonted quiet we all wondered apprehensively what would happen next.

In the unwonted quiet we all wondered apprehensively what would happen next.

Losing our awe we entered the building, poking into its holes and corners, looking into the great vats and drums that had been installed; then, curiosity slaked, we set about our old tasks on the land and in our homes.

“Ah well,” I said, dissembling, “perhaps I exaggerate. If they return we shall have a fine dowry for our daughter, and that is indeed a good thing.”

So they were reconciled and threw the past away with both hands that they might be the readier to grasp the present, while I stood by in pain, envying such easy reconciliation and clutching in my own two hands the memory of the past, and accounting it a treasure.

“My daughter is no wanton,” Nathan replied.

Poor child, she was bewildered by the many injunctions we laid upon her, and the curtailing of her freedom tried her sorely, though not a word of complaint came from her.

Poor child, she was bewildered by the many injunctions we laid upon her, and the curtailing of her freedom tried her sorely, though not a word of complaint came from her.

Unlike some, he did not extract payment in kind to the last grain; he allowed us to keep the gleanings; he did not demand from us bribes of food or money; nor did he claim for himself the dung from the fields, which he might easily have done, stipulating only that Kali and I should gather our share on different days to avoid arguments.

“You are my benefactor,” I said stoutly. “Have I not five sons to prove it?”

“Yet not so poor,” the other replied politely, “for the women of your house do you credit, and you have begotten five healthy sons.”

I knew little beyond the fact that he worked among the people of the tannery, treating and healing their bodies during long hours and then going to his lone dwelling; but when he left the village, for days or years at a time, nobody knew where he went or what he did, and when he returned he was more taciturn than ever and none dared ask.