International Journal of English

and Literature (IJEL)

ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028
Vol. 6, Issue 5, Oct 2016, 15-20
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd

WOMEN PROTAGONIST IN KAMALA MARKANDAYAS NECTAR IN

A SIEVE AND SOME INNER FURY
VAISHALI RANGNATHRAO HAJARE1 & SHAIKH SAMAD2
1

Research Scholar, Department of English, Dr. B. A. M. University, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India

2

Ex-Principal, Vasantrao Naik Mahavidyalaya, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India

ABSTRACT
Women are different from men not only physically but also emotionally, mentally and psychologically, and
this difference is racial and decisive as it affects the total mechanism of personality, whether male or female, including
thinking and modes of feeling. It is always said that woman is the finest and fairest creation of God. By providing an
outlet, she turns man into the best of the human beings so that his lust and ego may come out. Woman with her
feminine remedy puts right all the germs from his heart, instills in him an inspiring flow of love, kindness and affection
and, then, makes his being a healthy one. Many Indian English women novelists have analyzed the socio-cultural
modes and values that have given Indian woman their image and role towards themselves and the society.
In post-independence era, it is Kamala Markandaya who has taken the initiative of holding the flag for women

The present research article highlights the women protagonists in the novels of Kamala Markandaya specially
in the Nectar in a Sieve and Some Inner Fury. Markandaya focuses on the hidden virtues and potentialities of woman
through her female protagonists. Through her women protagonists she prove that a woman is not inferior to man in any
way. Her woman protagonists have given an inspiration and a ray of hope to the thousands of women who are groping
in the dark and living in isolation and frustration.

Original Article

protagonists and, to some extent, winning the battle in their transformation from possession to person.

KEYWORDS: Racial and Decisive, Remedy, Women Protagonist, Socio-Culture

Received: Aug 30, 2016; Accepted: Sep 15, 2016; Published: Sep 26, 2016; Paper Id.: IJELOCT20163

INTRODUCTION
One of the most striking features of Kamala Markandaya as a woman novelist is her portrayal of woman
in relation to the historical, cultural, political and sociological environment of a changing India. Women have
significant place in Kamala Markandayas novels. There is no exaggeration in calling her novels as feminine or
womanly as they reflect more the world of woman and their ways of life than the world of men.
Kamala Markandaya shows her intellectual power by launching female characters as her protagonists.
Her protagonists own life-affirming qualities. She focuses on their roles in present-day world by making them
central characters of her novel. Even the novels which do not have female protagonists, receive strength and
vigour from woman characters. H.M. Williams opines that Kamala Markandaya has, particular interest in
analyzing woman characters and suggesting the unusal poignancy of their fate. The narrators are likely to be
female, and even when not, the novel will be told mainly from a womans viewpoint. (Williams, 1984, p. 28)

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Vaishali Rangnathrao Hajare & Shaikh Samad

Nectar in a Sieve
Nectar in a Sieve portrays how the wind of industrialisation blows across rural India and causes the dislocation of
tradition. It is the story of Rukmani - her faith and love for her family as well as life. Novel highlights her endless battle
against relentless Nature, changing times and dire poverty.
Rukmani, the central character, is the narrator of the story. Because Nectar in a Sieve is a womans story told in
the first person singular, the point of view presented in it is that of woman. Kamala Markandaya explosits her artistic
freedom in the development of such a view and also takes full advantage of her feminine sensibility.
Rukmani, a child-bride of twelve, is married to Nathan, a poor tenant farmer in a South Indian village.
Theirs is a happy married life. Rukmani gives birth to Ira, a daughter but Nathan wants a male issue. Their idyllic life,
however, goes on: with the help of Kenny, an English Doctor who works in the rural area, she bears many more
childrenall male onesArjun, Thambi, Murugan, Selvam, Raja and Kuti. Then one day townsmen arrived to build a
tannery on the maiden near the village. Rukmani is hostile to this sudden intrusion of modernity, Industrialism enters rural
lifeugliness, vice, inflation and crowd. Rukmani is happy and contented in so far as the tannery does not touch her
family. Rapt in her own life and struggle for survival, she is oblivious of many changes. Then they arrange Iras marriage
to a young farmer who later returns her because she is barren. For lack of rain, crops fail, Rukmanis family verges on
starvation. Arjun and Thambi join the tannery. After sometime they are dismissed from the tannery for creating trouble and
leave for Ceylon. Murugan also goes to city for some job. Once again Rukmani and Nathan are in the grip of a terrible
drought. Raja dies and Kuti falls ill. Ira sells her body to feed Kuti. She gives birth to an illegal son. In the meantime the
old granny dies of starvation, Kuti also passes away. Nathan is evicted from his land by the Zamindar, and then Rukmani
and Nathan decide to live with Murugan in the city. Selvam, Ira and her baby stay back in the village to help Kenny, the
English doctor. Rukmani and Nathan reach the city but Murugan is nowhere to be found. They are forced to go on charity
and take to doing petty jobs, Puli, a young boy, is their guide in the vast impersonal city. Nathan is terribly old and sick,
unable to bear the rigours of such a life, he passes away and Rukmani returns to her village.
In Nectar in a Sieve, says A.V. Krishna Rao, Markandaya dramatises the tragedy of a traditional Indian village
and a peasant family assaulted by industrialisation: Rukmani and Nathan, the peasant couple in a South Indian village, are
the victims of the two evils: Zamindari system and the industrial economy. (Rao, 1967 p.56). But there are other themes
interwined with the above theme such as hunger, nature, human degradation, tradition versus modernity, the modern
exodus and the East-West encounter all explored with impossible realism and disciplined urbanity of art.
Kamala Markandaya presents a realistic portrayal of the village society in a state of transition which makes the framework
of the novel overtly sociological but basically it is not quite a sociological novel because the focus is on the emotional
drama that the novel records, a drama which springs from a simple peasant womens conflict with her circumstances.
Novel opens with the nostalgia and gentle rememberance:
Sometimes at night, I think that my husband is with me again, coming gently through the mists, and we are
tranquil together. Then morning comes, the wavering gray turns to gold, there is a stirring within as the sleepers
awake, and he softly departs. (p. 9)
This type of opening is in itself an indication of feminine sensibility at work in the novel in that the novel details
the concerns and responses typical of an elderly woman who recounts her past which, though dead, is fresh in her memory.
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.5629

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 6.1

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The style which tends to be sentimental and poetic provides a clue to the character of Rukmani. Kamala Markandaya
portrays a feminine heart never so well portrayed by a male novelist as when she makes Rukmani say:
While the sun shines on you and the fields are green and beautiful to the eyes, and your husband sees beauty in
you which no one has seen before, and you have a good store of grain laid away for hard times, a roof over you
and a sweet stirring in your body, what more can a woman ask for?.(p. 17)
It is with great artistic skill that Kamala Markandaya traces the development of a girl growing into womanhood
and finally into unhappy old age. Each stage is mapped out carefully and with restraint. The tenderness with which she
refers to her adopted child, Puli, who has no fingures, only stubs speaks of an essential motherinstinct, and her early
life is measured in terms of marriages and births which is a village womans typical way of measuring time. Similarly she
accepts change which she saw from the very beginning. Rukmani is, observes Uma Parameshwaran, a child of the
transition between the insular, autonomous village life of old and the new village dependent urban civilization and in
constant contact with it. Rukmanis father is the village Headman, a position that once carried much power and prestige but
which now, with changing times, has lost both. (Parameswaran, 1968, p.92). The winds of change bring in new social
forces which are in conflict with tradition. The narratorheroines recollection of her past is an elegy on this change.
Rukmani being the narratorheroine of the novel, it is marked by a singular focus and female central
consciousness. The larger concerns of Indian English novels such as Untouchable, Collie, The Serpent and the Rope are
missing from Nectar in a Sieve because its female protagonist is a little educated rural woman but her reactions and
responses come filtered through a female sensibilityRukmani is a matchless anatomy of the psyche of an Indian village
woman.
Some Inner Fury
Some Inner Fury (1955) Kamala Markandayas second novel, is a first-person autobiographical novel in which
Mira, the heroine, is the narrator of the story. Some Inner Fury is, a fury against the British people who oppressed the
Indian people during the struggle for Independence. The novel is set against the background during the Second World War
when the Quit India Moment was in air in 1942. But on the other hand, it is essentially a novel of love, about Mirabais
love for Richard, a young Englishman. Meenakshi Mukherjee correctly remarks that in Some Inner Fury the action takes
place in the historical year 1942, yet it is essentially a novel of love. The two individuals who love each other belong to the
different races of the ruler and the ruled, and the novel studies the impact of the troubled national spirit of the early forties
upon their love. (Mukherjee, 1971, 64).
The novel talks about some inner fury of three women characters. First one is Mira who is the narrator of the
story. Second one is Roshan, the firebrand freedom fighter and third is Premala who is a complete housewife. The female
characters are pilgrims in their own way as they are on a journey obtaining answers to their questions on the meaning of
life. To find out their identity, they step out of their houses with some doubts in their mind and place their feet on the
different paths where armies of troubles are waiting for them. The paths are different but the goal is same.
Mirabai is the sister of Kitsamy, a thoroughly Westernised young man who comes back from London and with a
British friend, Richard Marlowe. She is made to accompany Richard on his sightseeing trips and they fall in love with each
other. Premala is Kits wife and Govind is Miras adopted brother. He is a terrorist and engaged in the violent activities of
National Movement. Kit who has become the District Magistrate knows about his activities. Along with his companions
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Govind plans to bum the village school run by Hicky, the missionary. In that great fire Premala gets suffocated. Kit who
rushes to the spot to save his wife is slabbed to death probably by Govind. Govind is put on trial for this murder.
Mira supports him but Hicky gives evidence against him. In a bid to release Govind a furious mob attacks the Court, and
Hicky and Richard are killed. Seperated from Richard, Mira is left lonely.
Unlike Rukmani, a rural woman, Mira belongs to a highly educated, upper class and ultra modern society but both
of them are victimised by violent socio-historical changes. As Laxmi R. Moktali says, If her heroine Rukmani in Nectar
in a Sieve represents the peasant woman folk, Mirbai of Some Inner Fury represents the rebellious young blood of pre
independent India. If one is rural, the other is urban. But the situations in which these women are placed are, more or less
the same in that both of them had once their golden days and are now thwarted. The problem is universal. But the
environment is particular, that is, peculiarly Indian. (Moktali, 1974, p.130). Like Rukmani, Mira looks back at her past
with nostalgia. Mira plunges into memory with the chance discovery of a scrap of Richards sleeve torn on the day he went
out of her life.
Through Roshan, Markandaya portrays a set free woman of Modern India. Educated in England and on the
Western values, she has a double citizenship and feels home like in both the worlds.
Born in one world, educated in another, she entered both and moved in both with ease and nonchalance. It was a
dual citizenship, which few people had, which a few may have spurned, but many more envied, and which she
herself simply took for granted. And curiously enough, both worlds were welcome her in their midst.(p.142-43).
Roshan have complete power for the advocacy of the New Woman and is a symbol of the more popular Indian
woman in the wake of the National Movement. She seems to similar to Rajeshwari (of K.S. Venkataramanis Kandan, the
Patriot) who renounces the comforts of her luxurious life to dedicate herself to the cause of Indias struggle for
independence.
While Premala is a misfit in the world of Kitsmay and, hence, fails miserably. She grows lonely without an outlet
for her pent-up affections. Her wifehood remains incomplete in absence of child. So without her husbands approval she
brings up an orphan girl. Her rebel and the bringing up of the orphan girl is the first act to make Kitsmay realize that she is
not mere property or possession at his disposal but a woman who has her own identity. She got the possession of the
orphan girl and enjoys alot a pleasure of unfulfilled motherhood. This unsatisfactory marriage becomes the coz of her
social works. The saying that broken hearted woman are often driven to become good reformers is quite true in her case.
As she needs an outlet, she becomes busy in her social work. If her husband had really loved and accepted her as she was
without forcing her persona into rigid moulds, the question of her becoming a reformer would not have arisen.
The feminine sensibility in Some Inner Fury is revealed in the dramatically charged inwardness through which
Mira presents her story. Like Nectar in a Sieve, it no longer remains a mere autobiographical narrative but a record of a
girls growth in to womanhood. The following passage shows the emotive piquanly with which only a woman in Miras
situation can speak:
My mother would strive to betray her misgivings, hiding them that she might not thwart her son or risk his light,
piercing scorn, his Darlings, why ever not and so, unopposing, she let us go, hoping none of our relatives
knowing they would see us as she herself did, man and woman, bearing each within them the spark which waited
only the hour, the opportunity - a look, or a touch to burst into flame; and knowing too they would not withhold
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.5629

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 6.1

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their censure, against which she had no defence.

But Richard, outside these complexities, simply accepted Kits evaluation: I was a child, Kits sister and as he had
said, a good guide. I was content enough for three

years, since leaving childhood, I had not known the sweetness of

walking alone.
It is an Indian girl who in a situation of love clings all the time to her innate ideal of total commitment. She cannot
snatch herself away from Richard despite her growing dismay at the gulf that divides them. If she cannot love him, she
cannot love anyone else. It is an ideal of attachment typical of Indian woman and Kamala Markandaya proclaims it through
the character of Mira. In her situation and her responses to it, Mira represents Indian womans ideals of a totality of
response, a total surrender and a sacrament of giving. She accepts her fate with the knowledge and acceptance of love and
in doing so redeems herself and the novel as a whole. Her loss in love gives her a greater sense of self awareness that is a
Hindu ideal.
In this way Markandayas treatment of love in Some Inner Fury is womanly. Her female central protagonists are
also the narrators of her stories. Nectar in a Sieve and Some Inner Fury give full evidence of womans point of view.

CONCLUSIONS
In this way Kamala Markandaya very effectively portrays her women protagonists by studying above two novels.
Markandaya gave an ideas for the improvement of women in the society by applying feminine concept in her novels. She
presented the liberal aspect of change in the attitude of woman.
The woman consciousness being central to her Fiction. Meena Shirwadkar has viewed her novels as feministic
strain by her sensitive and feelingful portrayal of woman: Rukmani, Kunthi and Ira in Nectar in a Sieve and Mira, Roshan
Merchant and Premala in Some Inner Fury etc. Her portrayal of women characters has been mistaken for a feministic
strain. In fact, it is a measure of the extent to which her feminine sensibility has affected her artistic creation.
Only a woman novelist could have created, and presented the way they are, such woman characters as Rukmani and Mira.
There is an inwardness in their portrayal that has clearly flowed from the feminine sensibility of Markandaya.
Nyantara Sahgal, herself a distinguished novelist says:
But among the Indian authors I have read----I havent read all their books----I am very partial to Kamala
Markandaya.( Sahgal, 1972,13).
REFERENCES
1.

Sudhir Kumar Arora, A Study of Kamala Markandayas Women Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi, 2006.

2.

Anita Sinha, Feminist Visions: Indian English Woman Novelist Creative Books, New Delhi, 2000.

3.

H.M. Williams, Victims And Virging: Some Characters in Markandayas Novels. Perspective on Kamala Markandaya ed.
Madhusudan Prasad ( Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan, 1984),28.

4.

A.V. Krishna Rao, Op.cit., 1967, p.56.

5.

Uma Parmeswaran,op. Cit., 1968, p.92.

6.

Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Twice-Born Fiction (New Delhi: Arnold- Heinemann, 1971) p.64.

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Vaishali Rangnathrao Hajare & Shaikh Samad

7.

Laxmi R. Moktali in Experimentation With Language in Indian Writing in English Fiction (Kolhapur: Shivaji University,
1974) p.130.

8.

Sahgal Nayantara, Landmarks, Span August 1972, 13.

9.

Dr. Pattanaik Arun, Kamala Markandaya: A Critical Study. Omega Publications , New Delhi 2011

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.5629

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 6.1