Read Online Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kamala Markandaya
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stayed behind too, saying she preferred to stay with him. I think she was glad of the excuse he provided, for since her return she had not cared to be seen about, and of course there would be a large crowd in the town. Villagers from all round, like us, were converging towards the bonfire to be lit there; already smoke wisps were curling towards the clouds, torches were beginning to flare. The smell of oil was everywhere, heavy and pungent, exciting the senses. Our steps quickened. Quicker and quicker, greedy, wanting to encompass everything, to miss not one iota of pleasure. Then as happens even in the brightest moment, I remembered Janaki. Last year she had come with us, she and her children. This year who knew – or cared? The black thought momentarily doused the glow within me; then, angered and indignant, I thrust the intruder away, chasing it, banishing it... tired of gloom, reaching desperately for perfection of delight, which can surely never be.
There was a great noise everywhere. Men, women and children from the tannery and the fields had come out, many of them in new clothes such as we too had donned, the girls and women with flowers in their hair and glass bangles at their wrists and silver rings on their toes; and those who could afford it wore silver golsu clasped round their ankles and studded belts around their waists.
In the centre of the town the bonfire was beginning to smoulder. For many weeks the children had been collecting firewood, rags, leaves and brushwood, and the result was a huge pile like an enormous ant hill, into which the flames ate fiercely, hissing and crackling and rearing up as they fed on the bits of camphor and oil-soaked rags that people threw in.
In the throng I lost Nathan and the boys, or perhaps they lost me -- at any rate we got separated -- I pushed my way through the crush, this way and that, nobody giving an inch, in my efforts to find them; and in the end I had to give up. Before long, in the heat and excitement, I forgot them. Drums had begun to beat, the fire was blazing fiercely, great long orange tongues consuming the fuel and thrusting upwards and sometimes outwards as if to engulf the watchers. As each searching flame licked round, the crowd leaned away from its grasp, straightening as the wind and the flames changed direction; so that there was a constant swaying movement like the waving of river grasses. The heat was intense -- faces gleamed ruddy in the firelight, one or two women had drawn their saris across their eyes.
Leaping, roaring to climax, then the strength taken from fury, a quietening. Slowly, one by one, the flames gave up their colour and dropped, until at last there were none left -- only a glowing heap, ashen-edged. The drumbeats died to a murmur. The scent of jasmine flowers mingled with the fumes of camphor and oil, and a new smell, that of toddy, which several of the men had been drinking -- many to excess, for they were lurching about loud-mouthed and more than ordinarily merry. I looked about for my family and at last saw my husband. He seemed to have gone mad. He had one son seated on his shoulders and one son at each hip, and was bounding about on the fringes of the crowd to the peril of my children and the amusement of the people. I fought my way to him. "Have you taken leave of your senses?" I cried out above the din.
"No; only of my cares," he shouted gaily, capering about with the children clinging delightedly to him. "Do you not feel joy in the air?"
He sounded so light of heart I could not help smiling.
"I feel nothing," I said, going up to him. "Perhaps it is the toddy that makes the feeling."
"Not a drop," he said, coming up to me. "Smell!"
"You are too tall -- I cannot," I replied.
"Lift her up," somebody yelled, and a dozen voices repeated the cry: "Lift her up, lift her up!"
My husband looked at me solemnly. "I will," he said, and dropping his sons he seized me and swung me high up, in front of all those people. Several of
There was a great noise everywhere. Men, women and children from the tannery and the fields had come out, many of them in new clothes such as we too had donned, the girls and women with flowers in their hair and glass bangles at their wrists and silver rings on their toes; and those who could afford it wore silver golsu clasped round their ankles and studded belts around their waists.
In the centre of the town the bonfire was beginning to smoulder. For many weeks the children had been collecting firewood, rags, leaves and brushwood, and the result was a huge pile like an enormous ant hill, into which the flames ate fiercely, hissing and crackling and rearing up as they fed on the bits of camphor and oil-soaked rags that people threw in.
In the throng I lost Nathan and the boys, or perhaps they lost me -- at any rate we got separated -- I pushed my way through the crush, this way and that, nobody giving an inch, in my efforts to find them; and in the end I had to give up. Before long, in the heat and excitement, I forgot them. Drums had begun to beat, the fire was blazing fiercely, great long orange tongues consuming the fuel and thrusting upwards and sometimes outwards as if to engulf the watchers. As each searching flame licked round, the crowd leaned away from its grasp, straightening as the wind and the flames changed direction; so that there was a constant swaying movement like the waving of river grasses. The heat was intense -- faces gleamed ruddy in the firelight, one or two women had drawn their saris across their eyes.
Leaping, roaring to climax, then the strength taken from fury, a quietening. Slowly, one by one, the flames gave up their colour and dropped, until at last there were none left -- only a glowing heap, ashen-edged. The drumbeats died to a murmur. The scent of jasmine flowers mingled with the fumes of camphor and oil, and a new smell, that of toddy, which several of the men had been drinking -- many to excess, for they were lurching about loud-mouthed and more than ordinarily merry. I looked about for my family and at last saw my husband. He seemed to have gone mad. He had one son seated on his shoulders and one son at each hip, and was bounding about on the fringes of the crowd to the peril of my children and the amusement of the people. I fought my way to him. "Have you taken leave of your senses?" I cried out above the din.
"No; only of my cares," he shouted gaily, capering about with the children clinging delightedly to him. "Do you not feel joy in the air?"
He sounded so light of heart I could not help smiling.
"I feel nothing," I said, going up to him. "Perhaps it is the toddy that makes the feeling."
"Not a drop," he said, coming up to me. "Smell!"
"You are too tall -- I cannot," I replied.
"Lift her up," somebody yelled, and a dozen voices repeated the cry: "Lift her up, lift her up!"
My husband looked at me solemnly. "I will," he said, and dropping his sons he seized me and swung me high up, in front of all those people. Several of
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