Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar In A Sieve: As a Tale of Hapless and Desperate

Kamala Markandaya has occupied an extrusive place among Indian English writers as one of the leading woman writers in English. She won name and fame all over the world with the publication of her very first novel Nectar in a Sieve, in 1954. The present paper aims at studying the novel Nectar in a Sieve, which deals with poverty, hunger and exploitation as the major theme. It is a first person narrative written in a reminiscent mood. Rukmani is the heroine-narrator of the story. Rukmani recollects her tale in a tranquil reverie. The novel is a poignant illustration of the courage and fortitude of a simple peasant woman Rukmani. Rukmani has returned home after her wanderings during which she had lost almost her everything. In Rukmani, the protagonist ofNectar in a Sieve, Markandaya gives a richly delineated character whose three-dimensional quality heightens the significance of the ideological concerns that she embodies in her.