Nectar

In the story, Nectar and the Sieve, loss is a tragedy well known to the protagonist Rukmani. Rukmani finds loss in her children leaving and dying, but her relationship with Kenny helps her through the many hardships she faces. When the tannery comes to their villages many more jobs come available but the attraction of people raises her families rent, which causes starvation to courses through her family.

First, her relationship that Rukamni established with Kenny becomes apparent when she goes to him with the problem of infertility. She gives birth to her first child, a daughter named Ira, but when a year and a half comes and she has not become pregnant with a child and more importantly a boy, she becomes fearful that her husband might leave her. That’s when she goes to Kenny, a doctor from Britain doing missionary work in India, with her problem. He helps her and quickly she becomes pregnant and later gives birth to her first son Thambi. Second, Kenny helps Rukmani's family through Ira hard situation. The first issue was when Ira was first married and she was also having trouble getting pregnant. But unlike her mother's situation her husband returned her to her family. When Ira is returned to Rukmani she frantically brings Ira to Kenny for a treatment. When Ira becomes fertile it is to late however, her husband had already moved on and married another woman. This drives Ira into a serious depression that only the birth of Rukmani's last child Kuti brings her out of. But when the famine comes to her family Kuti suffers the most. With the starvation and diseases Kuti suffers, no medicine Kenny can give the baby will allow him to survive. Kenny being a European doctor represents the complex relationship India has with countries l...

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...f their ideas such as the importance of family are very valuable. "’Yet our priests fast, and inflict on themselves severe punishments, and we are taught to bear our sorrows in silence, and all this is so that the soul may be cleansed."

He struck his forehead. "My God!" he cried. "I do not understand you. I never will. Go before I am too entangled in your philosophies.’" (Markandaya 19.39). This is another quote that shows the struggle Kenny has with accepting their culture. He has a hard time comprehending the fact that the priests starve themselves and people and supposed to tell anyone their troubles in order for their “souls to be cleansed”. This is crazy for a British guy to comprehend because he like the rest of the culture is not very religious. All in all, Kenny represents the rest of the culture because of his struggles to comprehend the Indian customs.