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| Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve- A Study of Social Exploitation of the Poor | |||||||
| Paper Id :
17085 Submission Date :
09/01/2023 Acceptance Date :
21/01/2023 Publication Date :
25/01/2023
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| Abstract | Poverty, a tyrant ruling the world with very high taxes and unjust laws, has been pushing people into a pitfall condition so easy ,but to come out from not easy. The cruelty of poverty resulting in suffering death and misfortune is most explicit in Kamala Markandaya’s novels Nectar in A Sieve . She shows the unhealthy experiences undergone by her creations under the rule of poverty. Nectar in a Sieve does present the unfortunate fate of the poor farmers in a southern village of India. Kamala Markandaya was genuinely concerned with the problems of rural India before independence. Among many ailments, hunger and degradation were the most torturing and disgusting. References to human degradation could be found in almost all her novels, especially in Nectar in a Sieve, A Handful of Rice and Two Virgins. Her tragic vision found its best expression in her novels which she filled with her social concerns. The novel was a powerful presentation of patience in the face of suffering woman for rampant hunger, natural calamities. The aim writing this research paper is to highlight social evils in rural areas. Kamala Markandaya novel Nectar in a Sieve we will find social evils like hunger, starvation, beggary, prostitution, unemployment and poverty. | ||||||
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| Keywords | Hunger, Unemployment, Poverty, Starvation. | ||||||
| Introduction |
In the novel Nectar in a Sieve Kamala Markandaya spot lights the despair of the farmers realistically. She describes the life-story of the poverty-stricken of Nathan and his wife Rukmini and how they face the financial crisis and economic depression .Rukmini the protagonist is a simple peasant woman who battle against poverty and social injustice . At the age of twelve Rukmini marry from Nathan is a poor tenant farmer. Both Rukmini and Nathan lead a simple andcontended life with basic necessities such as food, clothes and shelters. Poverty plays an important role in the life of Rukmini's family. After some time of their marriage, Rukmini gives birth to Ira, daughter but Nathan wants a son. In a rural society it is quite difficult to accept a woman without a child or a woman with daughter. An English doctor Kenny who works in rural areas, by the treatment of his Rukmini bears many more children all are males. A female child is a liability to a family because she will not work the land and dowry must be given at her marriage. Nathan wanted a son to continue his line of farming. Madhumita Ghosal says:
I turned away and, despite myself, the tears came, tears of weakness, and disappointment; for what woman wants a girl for her first-born? [1]
Poverty is bigger than just economic problem. The Nectar in a Sieve focuses on financial trouble of Rukmini ‘scaused by industrialization. Nathan is compelled to pay the land taxes of the zamidars, even the failure of the harvest. One day the landlord gives notice to Nathan to vacant the land with in a week. The landless Nathan and Rukmini find no other alternative. Rural people often face the devil of poverty and hunger and they do not have their lands to cultivate because their lands have been taken for the tannery. Rukmini’s two sons, Arjun and Thambi work in A tannery for improve their economic condition, but very soon they have no longer their jobs and have a journey for search of work. Her son Rajaexpires of beaten by the tannery watchman. The tannery is the main cause of social justice and poverty uproot their sons from native soil and force them to go other place for daily bread butter. Nathan sold everything because he had pay half the dues of the Zamidars. Rukmini understand that hunger, starvation and fear have become part of peasant life. Since the novelist, has been subtitled A Novel of Rural India. The subtitle is appropriate because the novelist concentrates of the lives and the existence of rural Indians. Rukmini and her husband, Nathan, are forcibly dispossessed of their land because of rapid industrialization. As Hari Mohan Prasad:
it is a poverty of the Indian village where farmers exist, undergo sufferings with patience and come out more nobler, more merciful in their actions with their rags, last breathing words and their stubborn attachment to the land like the branches of a tree spread everywhere but its roots implanted in the soil.[ 2]
A Handful of Rice also tells us about the life of the people who migrate to the city In the how of a better living. There is no difference for a poor man whether he lives in a city or in a village. City life also offers him dissatisfaction and restlessness. It is a man-made world which is full of snares and traps. Ravi comes to the city in the hope of a good job but soon he realizes the hard realities of city life. Poverty , hunger and exploitation can give birth to social injustice like, person rush towards the city, disintegration and prostitution. It is poverty that derives Kunthi to prostitution and forced Ira to adopt prostitution in her desperate attempt to save the dying brother. When Rukmini marries Ira A poor, landless farmer due to the lack of money to spend on dowry. The flood destroy their crops, but after four years of marriage, Ira returns to her parents house because Ira had been stamped as a barren woman so her husband reject her. Almeida remarks:
Nectar in a Sieve exposed the cruel lot of typical Indian peasant who suffers silently – a victim of the vagaries of nature, of the feudal system of zamindari, of the forces of technological progress which dislodge him from his native soil and force him to relocate an alien environment. [3]
Kamala Markandaya is also a very successful describer of those labourer who have migrated from the small villages to big urban areas. The breaking of their dreams of happy and prosperous employment, their hard struggle for jobs, the dissatisfactory working conditions and dehumanizing work assigned to them and the consequent trials of their family –have been realistically and provokingly presented by the novelist. The novels of Kamala Markandaya faithfully recreate a atmosphere of rural poverty, dreadful scenes of the poor villagersmiseries create by industrialization and finally the terrible shocking deaths caused by starvation. Parmindar Kaur says:
Markandaya‘s women, though victims of nature and society never give in completely. Beneath the veneer of fragility and weakness lies an inherent strength. They are like leaves of grass: the humblest, the most downtrodden, continually being rooted up and continually reappearing, pushing their way, surviving all pressures and sprouting again with vigor and vitality.. [4] |
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| Aim of study | This research increased in number and methods with the development of English Indian novels. The roles and events in the works of Kamala Markandaya show different types of irony, , tragedy and drama it’s a sincere attempt to get a real picture of rural India and Indian life depicted in the novels of Kamala Markandaya that are firmly rooted in Indian background. Markandaya gives optimistic theory in which her novels will play an essential and role under teaching justice, dignity, and social responsibility in the work of Kamala Markandaya as well as other Indian fiction writers in English. She portray authentically the real picture of sufferings, hunger and poverty of rural Indian society in Nectar in a Sieve. The present study paves the way for shows how the hostility of nature and rapid industrialization lend farmer‘s family to hunger and poverty. | ||||||
| Review of Literature | Markandaya clearly
explains the tradition change in her
novel Nectar in a Sieve. It is a novel about the contradictions between the
conventional rural community and a modern industrialized agricultural
society. The motive of Nectar in a Sieve
is economic inequality in the countryside, It reveals an Indian caught in the
process of change, a transition from a rural society deeply embedded in
tradition to a materialistic urban society based on machinery. The Nectar in a Sieve deals with the
rampant hunger and indebtedness of the Indian peasant. Rukmini’s pain is the
pain of all the tenant peasants in India who are evicted from their lands by
the cruel mercenary Zamidars. The slow separation of their family is heart
touching. The famine, a force of destruction, strikes its death blow on the
family of Nathan who has sold everything to pay the dues of the Zamidars and
Kamala Markandaya analyses the mental pain and the torture of these tenants.Margaret
says: The novel especially
is a family chronicle and in the same dimension a chronicle of the suffering of
peasants……. Epitomizing the whole of the Indian agrarian order happen to be the
desperate victims of three predominant evils namelynature, Zamindari system and
Industrializations.[5] |
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| Conclusion | Thus the novel deals with the struggle that occurs between man and overpowering hunger, before which honor, morality and even God do not count. Under the pressure of the hungry stomach, the characters begin to scorn the society, and go to the dogs. The novel, based on the traditional pattern of life in rural India, is a passionate cry of protest against social injustice. The characters of Kamala Markandaya shows great powers of heart and soul even in moment of crisis and calamities. In Nectar in a Sieve see the how poverty changes and degrades the life of poor people. Person can’t judge the impact of hunger and starvation without passing through the terrible deal if being hungry. As P. P Mehta remarks: The struggle between man and overpowering hunger, because which honor morality and even God do not count. | ||||||
| References | 1. Ghosal, Madhumita and Mehri Major, “The Indian scenario In the Novels of Kamala Markandaya: An Assessment of popular Superstitions and Beliefs” Indian Women Novelists New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1993.
2.Prasad, Hari Mohan. The Fictional Epic on Indian life-n A Study in Theme and Technique of ‘Nectar in a Sieve; Perspectives of Kamala Markandaya Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan, 1984.
3.Rochelle Almeida, Originality and Imitation: Indianness in The Novels of Kamala Markandaya, (Jaipur: Rawat Publication, 2000) .
4.Kaur, Parmindar, (2008), Frank and Realistic Portrayal of Characters in the works of Kamala Markandaya, International Journal. Of Education and Applied Research, 2(2) pp- 524-527.
5.Margaret P. Joseph, Kamala Markandaya, New Delhi: Arnold- Heinemann, 1980 .
6.Mehta, P. P Indo -Anglian Fiction :An Assessment , Prakash Book Depot, 1979.Print., |
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