Nectar in a Sieve Read Online Free PDF

violence. But the change that now came into my life, into all our lives, blasting its way into our village, seemed wrought in the twinkling of an eye.
    Arjun came running to us with the news. He had run all the way from the village and we had to wait while he gulped in fresh air. "Hundreds of men," he gasped. "They are pulling down houses around the maidan and there is a long line of bullock carts carrying bricks."
    The other children clustered round him, their eyes popping. Arjun swelled with importance. "I am going back," he announced. "There is a lot to be seen."
    Nathan looked up from the grain he was measuring into the gunny bag for storing. "It is the new tannery they are building," he said. "I had heard rumours."
    Arjun, torn between a desire to dash back and a craving to hear more from his father, teetered anxiously to and fro on his heels; but Nathan said no more. He put the grain away carefully in the granary, then he rose. "Come," he said. "We will see."
    All the families were out: the news had spread quickly. Kali and her husband, Kunthi and her boys, Janaki, surrounded by her numerous family, even Old Granny, had come out to see. Children were everywhere, dodging in and out of the crowd and crying out to each other in shrill excited voices. Startled pi-dogs added to the din. We formed a circle about the first arrivals, some fifty men or so, who were unloading bricks from the bullock carts. They spoke in our language, but with an intonation which made it difficult for us to understand them.
    "Townspeople," Kali whispered to me. "They say they have travelled more than a hundred miles to get here." She was prone to exaggerate, and also believed whatever was told her.
    In charge of the men was an overseer who looked and spoke like the men, but who was dressed in a shirt and trousers, and he had a hat on his head such as I had only seen Kenny wear before: a topee the colour of thatch. The others wore loincloths and turbans and a few wore shirtsi but as the day wore on they doffed their shirts, one by one, until all were as our men.
    The men worked well and quickly, with many a sidelong glance at us; they seemed to enjoy having created such a stir and lured such a big audience. As for the overseer, he made much play of his authority, directing them with loud voice and many gestures but doing not a stroke of work himself. Still, it must have been hot for him standing there waving his arms about, for the shirt he wore was sticking to his back and now and then he would lift his hat as if to allow the wind to cool his scalp.
    Until at last there was a commotion about the edges of the circle of which we were the inner ring. The crowd was parting, and as the movement spread to us we gave way too, to let a tall white man through. He had on a white topee, and was accompanied by three or four men dressed like him in shorts. The overseer now came forward, bowing and scraping, and the red-faced one spoke to him rapidly but so low that we could not hear what he was saying. The overseer listened respectfully and then began telling us to go, not to disturb the men, although for so long he had been glad of many watchers. In our maidan, in our village he stood, telling us to go.
    "As if he owned us," muttered Kannan the chakkli. I think that already he foresaw his livelihood being wrested from him, for he salted and tanned his own skins, making them into chaplis for those in the village who wore them. So he stood his ground, glaring at the overseer and refusing to move, as did a few others who resented the haughty orders that poured from the man's lips; but most of us went, having our own concerns to mind.
    Every day for two months the line of bullock carts came in laden with bricks and stones and cement, sheets of tin and corrugated iron, coils of rope and hemp. The kilns in the neighbouring villages were kept busy firing the bricks, but their output was insufficient, and the carts had to go further afield, returning dusty and