The Village Landscape in Kamala Markandaya’s Necter in a Sieve: A Mirror of Indian Village Life

Kamala Markandaya‟s novel, Nectar in a Sieve is the chronicle of Indian agrarian life that suffers hardships across time and space in the sub-continent. In the beginning of the modern era, Indian peasants suffered at the hands of the Colonizers and the local zamindars alike. The industrialization also had its brunt on the peasants. And the Independent India also could not protect its farming community with the wide spread of globalization, liberalization and privatization and the mushrooming of the multi-national corporate. The country shouted louder the slogans that said “Jai Jawan jai Kisan”, but its Kisan was not taken care of. Both landed and landless peasants suffer alike across the agrarian regions of the country. Nectar in a Sieve tells the tale of a farmer family, the farmer‟s relationship with the land they toil and the predicament of the farmer and the land as analogous to pathetic end.