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Nectar in a Sieve<<siv>>, a la Shmoop. Have you ever told someone a story about something

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that happened to you a long time ago?

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Like… when you regaled your friends with the tale of the time you fell off your bike

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and had to go to the hospital?

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Or when you told them about the time you fell off your skateboard and landed face-first

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on the concrete?

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Hm. Maybe you should be wearing protective padding…

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We like to tell stories about our past.

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But… why do we like doing that so much? In Nectar in a Sieve, our narrator, Rukmani,

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who is now an elderly woman…

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…tells us of her childhood.

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So why did the author…

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… choose to tell this story as a reflection of Rukmani’s past, rather than in the form

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of a normal narrative?

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Maybe it’s because she wanted to show how different things were years after the events

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that took place in the story.

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“Ruku” struggles with money problems…

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…a growing emotional distance between herself and her children…

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…droughts, starvation, death… all that good stuff.

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But the book ends on a hopeful note.

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And because our narrator has lived to a ripe old age, we can only assume that things got

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better.

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So perhaps we’re supposed to see how all those struggles… the strikes at the tannery…

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the overcoming poverty… the resilience in the face of tragedy…

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…all win out over desperation and despair in the end.

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Or could it be that the author doesn’t want us wondering whether or not Ruku is going

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to die?

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She’s an elderly woman when she tells us this story, so we know she’s not going to

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kick the bucket in some freak bicycling accident in her twenties.

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By giving us the information that Ruku survives, it allows us to focus more on the story at

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hand…

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…rather than tempting us to play prophet and try to predict the outcome.

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On the other hand… are we supposed to see… not how the world around Ruku has changed…

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…but how she has changed? Has she become more or less optimistic as

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a result of her hardships?

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Has she lost faith in love and goodness in the world, or did her experiences enforce

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her positive attitude?

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Does she have regrets, or is she satisfied with the way her life has played out?

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We wouldn’t be able to answer these questions… or to even ask them, really… if the story

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were being told as it unfolded. So… why are we some… fly on the wall of

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this time machine?

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Are we supposed to see how Ruku has changed…

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…how the world has changed…

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…or are we just supposed to not worry about her suffering an untimely demise?

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Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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