Nectar in a Sieve: Chapters 6–10

The choice of go-between was not easy to make: Kali was the nearest to hand and the obvious one, but she was garrulous and self-opinionated: rejection of the young man she selected would involve a tedious squabble.

“She is endowed with beauty,” Old Granny said. “It will make up for a small dowry—in this case.”

Ira accepted our choice with her usual docility; if she fretted at the thought of leaving us and her brothers she showed no sign.

Only once she asked a little wistfully how frequently I would be able to visit her, and, although I knew such trips would have to be very rare since her future home lay some ten villages away, I assured her not a year would pass without my going to see her two or three times.

As the light faded two youths appeared bearing a palanquin for the newly married couple, lowered it at the entrance to the hut for them to step into.

The crowd, full of good feeling, replete with food and drunk with the music, vicariously excited, pressed round, eagerly thrusting over their heads garland after garland of flowers; the earth was spattered with petals.

The crowd, full of good feeling, replete with food and drunk with the music, vicariously excited, pressed round, eagerly thrusting over their heads garland after garland of flowers; the earth was spattered with petals.

Past the fields, through the winding streets of the village we went, the bobbing palanquin ahead of us. Until we came at last to where, at a decorous distance, the bullock cart waited to take them away.

Then it was all over, the bustle, the laughter, the noise. The wedding guests departed. The throng melted.

Ira had been given in marriage in the month of June, which is the propitious season for weddings, and what with the preparing for it, and the listlessness that took hold of me in the first days after her departure, nothing was done to make our hut weatherproof or to secure the land from flooding.

Ira had been given in marriage in the month of June, which is the propitious season for weddings, and what with the preparing for it, and the listlessness that took hold of me in the first days after her departure, nothing was done to make our hut weatherproof or to secure the land from flooding.

At first the children were cheerful enough—they had not known such things before, and the lakes and rivulets that formed outside gave them endless delight; but Nathan and I watched with heavy hearts while the waters rose and rose and the tender green of the paddy field sank under and was lost.

“It is a bad season,” Nathan said sombrely. “The rains have destroyed much of our work; there will be little eating done this year.”

“It cannot last,” Nathan said. “The storm will abate by the morning.”

Uprooted trees sprawled their branches in ghastly fashion over streets and houses, flattening them and the bodies of men and women indiscriminately.

Dead dogs, cats and rats cluttered the roadside, or floated starkly on the waters with blown distended bellies.

In the sound of the drums I understood a vast pervading doom; but in the expectant silences between, my own disaster loomed larger, more consequent and more hurtful.

On the outskirts of the village there is Kenny. His face is grim and long, his eyes are burning in his pallid face.

When the water was all gone, there they were caught in the meshes and among the paddy, shoals of them leaping madly, wet and silver and good to look upon.

Then, we came and gathered up what remained of the paddy and took it away to thresh and winnow.

Then, we came and gathered up what remained of the paddy and took it away to thresh and winnow.

“You see,” said Kunthi. “The tannery is a boon to us. Have I not said so since it began? We are no longer a village either, but a growing town. Does it not do you good just to think of it?”

“Indeed no,” said I, “for it is even as I said, and our money buys less and less. As for living in a town—if town this is—why, there is nothing I would fly from sooner if I could go back to the sweet quiet of village life. Now it is all noise and crowds everywhere, and rude young hooligans idling in the street and dirty bazaars and uncouth behaviour, and no man thinks of another but schemes only for his money.”

There was something about those closed doors and shuttered windows that struck coldly at me, used as I was to open fields and the sky and the unfettered sight of the sun.

One morning I was pounding some red chillies into powder. Cho-chup! went the pestle into the mortar, crushing the brittle chillies and the seeds in them. Each time it fell, a fine red dust rose up, spreading a rich, acrid smell in the air.

He looked at me obliquely with darkening eyes, but would say no more.

I had never been able to do so before—in previous years we had contented ourselves with watching other people’s fireworks, or with going down to the bonfire in the village, and even now I felt qualms about wasting money on such quickly spent pleasures; but their rapturous faces overcame my misgivings.

I had never been able to do so before—in previous years we had contented ourselves with watching other people’s fireworks, or with going down to the bonfire in the village, and even now I felt qualms about wasting money on such quickly spent pleasures; but their rapturous faces overcame my misgivings.

I had never been able to do so before—in previous years we had contented ourselves with watching other people’s fireworks, or with going down to the bonfire in the village, and even now I felt qualms about wasting money on such quickly spent pleasures; but their rapturous faces overcame my misgivings.

A feathery breeze was stirring, setting the flames leaping and dancing, their reflections in the black glistening oil cavorting too.

The smell of oil was everywhere, heavy and pungent, exciting the senses. Our steps quickened. Quicker and quicker, greedy, wanting to encompass everything, to miss not one iota of pleasure.

Men, women and children from the tannery and the fields had come out, many of them in new clothes such as we too had donned, the girls and women with flowers in their hair and glass bangles at their wrists and silver rings on their toes; and those who could afford it wore silver golsu clasped round their ankles and studded belts around their waists.

The heat was intense—faces gleamed ruddy in the firelight, one or two women had drawn their saris across their eyes.

“No; only of my cares,” he shouted gaily, capering about with the children clinging delightedly to him. “Do you not feel joy in the air?”

Several of the women were laughing at him indulgently, the children were twittering with pleasure.