Nectar in a Sieve

Throughout the novel, rice appears regularly. It is the primary crop the village farmers grow, it is a source of currency the people use, and everyone plans around how they imagine the rice harvest will go—a higher yield makes for a better year. Symbolically, rice serves two purposes in the narrative. First, it represents the villagers’ quality of life. When the harvest is good, Rukmani portions out what they need for themselves and sells the surplus. They can make extraneous purchases and live more comfortably than they normally do. When the harvest is poor, Rukmani and her family eat less and must ration their food. Their quality of life decreases because they cannot afford the bare essentials.

Rice also represents Rukmani’s and Nathan’s hopes for the future. They dream of a day when they can own land—they put aside funds from their rice crops to buy the land from its owner so they do not have to pay rent and can be free from the system holding them down. Bountiful harvests mean the two can plan to rise from the poverty that controls their lives. However, one of the challenges of