Value of Suffering in Nectar in a Sieve by MarkandayaNectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya portrays its positive female characters as ideal sufferers and nurturers. "[T]he cause of her suffering comes mainly from poverty and natural disasters. The women come from the rural sectors of society. They are daughters of the soil and have inherited age-old traditions that they do not question. Their courage lies in a meek or sometimes cheerful [sic] to face poverty or calamity" [Meena Shirdwadkar, Image of Woman in the Indo-Anglian Novel (New Delhi: Sterling, 1979), 49]. Rukmani, the main character, and her daughter Ira show suffering throughout the novel. Rukmani works hard and is devoted to her kind husband. She endures blow after blow of life: poverty, famine, divorce of her barren daughter, death of her children, prostitution of her daughter, and finally the death of her husband. When she discovers that the emotional center of her life, her relationship with her husband, is threatened by the discovery that he is the father of another woman's children, it neither affects nor crumbles: first the disbelief; disillusionment; anger, reproach, pain. To find out, after so many years, in such a cruel way. ... He had met her not once but twice; he had returned to give her a second child. And in the meantime, how many times, I thought, dark in spirit, while her husband in his impotence and I in my innocence did nothing... . .I finally made an effort and recovered... "It's as you say a long time ago," I said wearily. "That she is evil and powerful, I know too. Let her rest." Accept the blow and move on in life. Furthermore, when his son Raja is murdered, even his thoughts do not express rebellion. It moves from the center of the paper… by Kunthi. Their goodness originates in their acceptance of suffering, while Kunthi's wickedness originates in her refusal to sacrifice herself for others. As ideal images, the heroines of Markandaya are related to Shirwadkar's conception of how early Indo-Anglian novels portray women as Sita-like characters. However, respecting cultural values, Rukmani and Ira find in their way of life not only suffering, but also security and inner peace. Shirwadkar argues that women in later novels also lose the satisfaction of this fulfillment because they find themselves caught between traditional and modern requirements for women. Previous images of calm, tough women transform into new ones, of frustrated women caught between the Sita-Savitri figure and the modern, Westernized woman. Works Cited: Markandaya, Kamala. Nectar In A Sieve. New York: Seal Fiction, 1995.