Summary
Soon after Ira’s June wedding, monsoon weather comes early and more forcefully than ever. The boys delight in the strange sight of so much floodwater, but Rukmani and Nathan watch the rice paddy into which they’ve put so much hard work disappear under the rising water. On the eighth night of the monsoon, lightning strikes the family’s coconut palm, taking that too. The rains stop in the morning; Rukmani learns that many neighbors had it worse, such as Kali, whose hut was destroyed. Several men died, struck by lightning while sheltering under a tree. In the town, where Rukmani and Nathan go to buy palm fronds to repair their roof and rice to eat, dead animals and people can be seen everywhere. The tannery still stands, but the workers’ huts have been wrecked. The shops are closed or destroyed.
The family starves, surviving mostly off water that rice has been soaked in. The local grain seller claims to have no rice to sell Rukmani, so she buys from Biswas at a scarcity markup. Rukmani runs into Kenny, who complains that no one in the country does anything about the issues, only meekly goes along with things. Eventually it is time to drain the rice terraces to prepare for the next sowing. The family eagerly gathers the fish that have been living in the paddy, then processes the grain and guts the fish. The rice and fish lies “rich, if uneasy, in [their] starved bellies.”
Kunthi’s sons are the first among Rukmani’s friends to work at the tannery. Kunthi argues that it is a good thing for their community, disparaging the idea of working as farmers. One day Janaki’s husband’s shop closes and the family leaves town, their land swallowed up by someone else, just as so many people’s land is. The tanning goes on constantly, with a “never-ending line of carts” bringing “thousands of skins, goat, calf, lizard and snake skins.”
The tannery is owned by a white man, and he lives alone. Working under him are nine or ten Muslim men who live with their families and servants in white-washed, red tile–roofed homes. The women wear burkas; Rukmani pities the women for not feeling the sun on their skin and being able to work alongside men. One day a Muslim woman beckons Rukmani into her home to buy vegetables. She lifts her veil to get a better look at the produce; Rukmani sees that she is pale and bony, and wears rings with jewels so expensive one could feed Rukmani’s family for a year. Rukmani never returns to the cold, shuttered, unnatural-feeling house.
Rukmani is beating dried chilies into powder one day when her daughter and son-in-law arrive at the house without notice. Ira looks glum as her husband tells Rukmani and Nathan that she is barren. He has waited five years for her to bear him sons, and she hasn’t, so he is “returning her” to the family. Rukmani accuses the husband of not being patient enough; Nathan says he understands the man’s reasoning, and that a man needs sons. Rukmani thinks of how Kenny helped her, but says nothing. During an argument, Arjun makes a comment about the power white men have over women, seeming to imply he knows something about Kenny and Rukmani.
Ira moves back in with her family. Tired of starving in poverty, Arjun and Thambi take jobs at the tannery. They know there is no chance of Nathan and Rukmani owning any of the land they farm, and the boys want to turn away from the “injustice” of toiling as tenant farmers. Despite defying their parents’ wishes, the boys are good to them, giving their earnings to the household and bringing up everyone’s standard of living. Rukmani can afford to stockpile rice, chilies and lentils for the family’s consumption.
Deepavali (Diwali), the Festival of Lights, approaches; Rukmani gives her children two annas each to buy fireworks, something she’s never been able to afford. Rukmani’s children are swept up in the night's excitement, aside from Ira and Selvam, who stay back at the hut while the others gather around the giant bonfire in the center of the village. The ecstasy of drums and lights and explosions fills Nathan with good humor, and he gets the boys to carry Rukmani in the air with him. She is embarrassed by the spectacle she is making at her age. That night in bed, Rukmani senses her husband’s desire for her and feels herself being “filled with a wild, ecstatic fluttering.”
When Nathan leaves to attend a male relative’s funeral, Rukmani takes the opportunity to bring Ira to Kenny without Nathan’s knowledge. Kenny is gruff with Rukmani at first, but then apologizes for frightening her and says he’ll do what he can for Ira. Rukmani encounters Kunthi, who insinuates that she is maybe cheating on her husband, being out so late in the village. Rukmani grabs Kunthi violently and threatens her with worse if she says anything to Nathan.
Rukmani goes to Ira’s husband and tells him she will bear children now; the man apologizes and says he has found a new wife. Ira sulks until Rukmani gives birth to another boy herself. Ira’s mood improves as she takes care of the child as though he is her own. Still, Rukmani worries about Ira’s future now that she is no longer a virgin and known as barren. She envisions her daughter ending up poor and alone, like Old Granny.
Rukmani’s sons each earn one rupee a day at the tannery, giving the money directly to their mother rather than spending it on “whoring” and vices like other young men. One day Rukmani and Nathan go to the tannery at midday mealtime to discover the workers aren’t being let out and guards are surrounding the building. Late that day, Rukmani’s sons finally come out, starving. They explain that they demanded a higher wage, so the four owners refused to let the workers take a lunch break. Rukmani is astounded to learn that her sons have been part of an organized group of workers agitating for higher pay. To Rukmani, the owners are their masters and they must obey them. The boys insist they aren’t paid enough.
Soon there is a worker walkout. The owners say that anyone who doesn’t return to work will be fired and replaced. Most men return, but Arjun and Thambi refuse to demean themselves. The family’s food reserves disappear as the boys go back to helping on the farm, bringing in no outside income. One day, men come to the village offering tea plantation jobs on the island of Ceylon. Three of Rukmani’s sons sign up to work, their journey paid for by the company. One night Rukmani asks Kenny, for the first time, if he is alone. He admits that he had the “chains” of a wife and children and home, but he “resisted” married life and is now alone. He asks her not to tell anyone, calling his admission “lunacy.”
Analysis
The themes of poverty and resignation to suffering return with the dramatic flooding that wreaks havoc in Rukmani’s village. To cultivate their rice paddy—a form of rice farming that keeps the plant roots mostly submerged in water—Rukmani and Nathan must construct elaborate water channels that divert just the right amount of rain or river water to their planted rows. The couple’s main crop is sown during the June-July “kharif” monsoon season to coincide with increased rainfall. However, Ira’s wedding distracts the couple and they find that their farm isn’t ready for torrents of rain, which make the paddy too flooded to grow anything in.
While Rukmani laments the destruction on the farm, a visit to the village center shows her and Nathan that others have fared far worse, with many homes completely destroyed and some villagers struck dead by lightning. A symbol of the tannery’s urbanizing power over the villagers’ way of life, the brick structure is completely unharmed but the surrounding mud huts have been wiped away. This image foreshadows the tannery’s steady displacement of the people and infrastructure surrounding it. Eventually, the tannery pushes Janaki and her family out of the village when their business can no longer compete, and it draws the sons of villagers away from farms to earn better money.
Following the flood, Rukmani’s family starves, surviving off what little rice she buys from the local moneylender at an exorbitant, exploitative price. The theme of resignation to suffering arises when Kenny frustratingly comments that Rukmani’s people are too submissive in their acceptance of misfortune. Coming from an English context, Kenny expects people to demand a certain standard of living and for the government to intervene in crises. Rukmani, by contrast, meekly struggles to survive until the next harvest, seeing her fate as lying in the hands of God.
The themes of gender roles, shame, and motherhood arise when Ira, after five years of marriage, is 'returned' by her husband, who claims she is barren. Rather than sympathize with his daughter, Nathan comments that he understands her husband’s feelings, saying a man needs sons. Ira is powerless to do anything about the issue, and simply accepts her husband’s decision with a glum resignation. In an instance of dramatic irony, the reader knows that Ira has inherited her mother’s fertility issues, which are solvable. But the fact Rukmani has kept her treatments a secret from Nathan means she has to wait for an opportunity to sneak Ira to Kenny. Kunthi, a local woman who has never liked Rukmani, confronts her after the meeting and insinuates that she knows Rukmani’s secret. Rukmani betrays how much shame she feels by physically attacking Kunthi when she threatens to reveal the truth to Nathan.
Markandaya builds on the theme of urbanization with Rukmani’s sons’ experience working at the tannery. Although the family enjoys a higher standard of living when Arjun and Thambi each bring home one rupee a day (pennies in US currency), the boys become full of modern ideas about workers’ rights they have learned from reading or speaking with foreigners like Kenny. Rukmani cannot believe that her sons would dare disobey the tannery owners by staging a strike that fails when men are forced to return. Too proud to go back and too modern to farm, the boys have no choice but to seek higher-paid jobs far away. In this roundabout way, the tannery displaces several of Rukmani’s sons from the village and their parents’ antiquated way of life.
