Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya Read Free Book Online

that she should marry well? Now I brought out the stores I had put by month after month -- rice and dhal and ghee, jars of oil, betel leaf, areca nuts, chewing tobacco and copra.
    "I didn't know you had so much," said Nathan in amazement.
    "And if you had there would be little enough," I said with a wink at the women, "for men are like children and must grab what they see."
    I did not wait for his retort, hearing only the laughter that greeted his sally, but went out to speak to the drummer. Arjun, my eldest son, was sitting next to the man, cautiously tapping the drum with three fingers as he had been shown.
    "There is plenty of food inside," I said to him. "Go and eat while there is still some left."
    "I can eat no more," he replied. "I have been feasting all day."
    Nevertheless he had made provision for the morrow: I saw in his lap a bundle bulging with food; sugar syrup and butter had soaked through the cloth patchily.
    "Join your brothers," I said, hoisting him up. "The drummer is going to be busy."
    He ran off, clinging tightly to his bundle. The wedding music began. Bride and groom were sitting uneasily side by side, Ira stiff in the heavy embroidered sari, white flowers in her hair, very pale. They did not look at each other. About them were packed some fourteen or fifteen people -- the hut could hold no more. The remainder sat outside on palm leaves the boys had collected.
    "What a good match," everybody said. "Such a fine boy, such a beautiful girl, too good to be true." It was indeed. Old Granny went about beaming: it was she who had brought the two parties together; her reputation as a matchmaker would be higher than ever. We none of us could look into the future.
    So they were married. As the light faded two youths appeared bearing a palanquin for the newly married couple, lowered it at the entrance to the hut for them to step into. Now that it was time to go, Ira looked scared, she hesitated a little before entering: but already a dozen willing hands had lifted her in. The crowd, full of good feeling, replete with food and drunk with the music, vicariously excited, pressed round, eagerly thrusting over their heads garland after garland of flowers; the earth was spattered with petals. In the midst of the crush Nathan and I, Nathan holding out his hands to Ira in blessing, she with dark head bent low to receive it. Then the palanquin was lifted up, the torchbearers closed in, the musicians took their places. We followed on foot behind, relatives, friends, wellwishers and hangers-on. Several children had added themselves to the company; they came after, jigging about in high glee, noisy and excited: a long, ragged tail-end to the procession.
    Past the fields, through the winding streets of the village we went, the bobbing palanquin ahead of us. Until we came at last to where, at a decorous distance, the bullock cart waited to take them away.
    Then it was all over, the bustle, the laughter, the noise. The wedding guests departed. The throng melted. After a while we walked back together to our hut. Our sons, tired out, were humped together asleep, the youngest clutching a sugary confection in one sticky fist. Bits of food lay everywhere. I swept the floor clean and strewed it with leaves. The walls showed cracks, and clods of mud had fallen where people had bumped against them, but these I left for patching in the morning. The used plaintain leaves I stacked in one heap -- they would do for the bullocks. The stars were pale in the greying night before I lay down beside my husband. Not to sleep but to think. For the first time since her birth, Ira no longer slept under our roof.

     

    CHAPTER VII

    NATURE is like a wild animal that you have trained to work for you. So long as you are vigilant and walk warily with thought and care, so long will it give you its aid; but look away for an instant, be heedless or forgetful, and it has you by the throat.
    Ira had been given in marriage in the month of June, which is the