Kamala Markandaya was born in a well-to-do Brahmin family of Mysore in 1924. Her father was a transport officer. Kamala’s education was not steady because of her father’s transfer, but her lot of traveling was a good training for her. She went to England and Europe and acquired much knowledge of western civilization. Her traveling proved to be very useful in her writings.

After a short schooling in Mysore, Kamala entered Madras University at the age of sixteen. She left the University without achieving her degree and began to write. But she completed graduation afterwards.

After leaving University, she worked as a journalist for a short-lived weekly newspaper and after it, worked as an army liaison officer. Soon she left this job and began to work as a free-lance journalist in Madras and Mumbai.

She went to England in 1948, but was unsuccessful in getting a job as a journalist. She worked as a proof-reader and as a secretary in some Private firms.

Kamala Markandaya married an English man John Taylor and has one daughter. She is living a happy life in London. Sometimes she appears in English radio and television programmes.

Kamala Markandaya was awarded the National Association of Independent Schools Award (USA) in 1967 and the Asian Prize in 1974. She has written eight novels:- Nectar in a Sieve (1954), Some Inner Fury (1956), A Silence of Desire (1960), Possession (1963), A Handful of Rice (1966), The Coffer Dams (1969), The Nowhere Man (1972), Two Virgins (1973), The Golden Honey Comb (1977)

Nectar in A Sieve

Nectar in a Sieve is Kamala’s first published novel. It is her most famous novel. It is a powerful novel of rural India. It deals with the story of Rukmani and Nathan against the background of suffering and agony of rural India.

Rukmani is the narrator of the novel. The technique of stream of consciousness is employed in the novel. Rukmani is married to Nathan, a farmer. Their marriage is successful. They are quite happy. First Rukmani gives birth to a girl, Ira. After it she gives birth to six male children, Arjun, Thambi, Murugan, Selvan, Raja and Kuti. Crop is not good for many years and they have to face a great financial problem. They are unable to pay the owner who forces them to vacate the house. Rukmani is very shocked by it. She does not want to leave her house as it is full of many memories of the past. All her children are born in the house. But they have to vacate it because it stands on the land of another person.

Ira is married at the age of fourteen to a farmer. She is unable to become a mother and returnes to her parents. She is now a burden on them. Arjun and Thambi leave for Ceylon, Murugan leaves for the city. Nathan’s economic condition worsens. Raja dies and Kuti falls ill. In order to lesser her parents burden Ira involves herself in prostitution. She gives birth to a child. Kuti’s condition is not improving, soon he dies. Nathan and Rukmani go to the city in search of Murugan. They do not find him. Nathan dies and Rukmani returns to the village with a boy, Puli, who helped her in the city.

The seasons came and go, bringing both joy and tragedy, a backdrop to the human drama. Life for the peasants exists almost exclusively at survival level. Even the poor land they own, racked with drought but loved, is taken from them. Human dignity survives especially in the passionate and loyal Rukmani, a brilliantly conceived character who changed from dignified stoicism to acts of near lunatic madness when goaded beyond patience, are made credible, the dignified religious sense of fate in the Indian peasant is portrayed with sympathy.