Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya

nothing to be done in the fields Nathan would accompany me when I went to market. This happened so seldom that it was always an occasion, and to round it off we would go to the tannery to see our sons. They invariably came out at midday for their meal, and we would sit with them for a few minutes, talking while they ate their rice and enjoying the rest. Then one day -- a bright, soft morning with a whisper of rain in it -- we got there to find the gates closed and guards posted along the iron railings that encircled the compound.
    Midday, mid-afternoon, still no sign of any workers. At last I pluck up courage to enquire of the guards -- it needs courage, for they are in uniform, and have lathis strapped to their wrists.
    The first one is surly. "Begone! I have no time for idle women!"
    The next swings his lathi jauntily; he does not know anything, he will not say.
    So to the next. He is a big, hefty fellow, and he looks down at me and says there has been trouble -- the workers will not be out today -- no, not even to eat.
    My knees turn to water. "What trouble?" I stammer. "Are my sons in it?" He shakes his head, he does not know.
    My husband is behind me. He supports me a little with his arm and we go home. And wait. At last they come, long after dusk, with the faces of angered men, though neither is yet twenty.
    "What has happened?" we ask with trepidation. They are still our sons, but suddenly they have outgrown us.
    "Trouble," they say. "We asked for more money and they took from us our eating time."
    I bring out some dried fish and rice cakes. They are ravenous. "More money," I say, "What for? Do they not pay you well already?""What for?" one echoes. "Why, to eat our fill, and to marry, and for the sons we shall beget." And the other says, "No, it is not enough."
    I do not know what reply to make -- these men are strangers. Nathan says we do not understand, we must not interfere: he takes my hand and draws me away. To his sons he is gentle.
    Into the calm lake of our lives the first stone has been tossed.
    Looking back now, I wonder how it came to pass that not until that fateful day did we realise the trouble that had been brewing. No gossip, not a whisper, had come to us of the meetings the men had held at which my sons had been spokesmen; nor of the agitation that followed; nor of the threats by the owners -- there were now four -- of the tannery. All this we heard only later.
    Then one day they did not go to work.
    "We shall not go back until our demands are met," Thambi said. "All the workers have stopped. We do not ask for charity, but for that which is our due."
    "How can you force them?" I said. "Are they not the masters? For every one of you who is out, there are three waiting to step into your place."
    "We will see," he replied in a hard voice, and I dared say no more.
    When a whole week had passed thus, the tannery officials called a meeting to announce that those who did not return to work would be replaced. My sons came home from that meeting even more silent, if possible, than they had been in the past. This was the test, and it failed. The next morning the tannery had its full complement again, most of them workers who had gone back, the remainder men who were only too glad to obtain employment.
    For so long hope and the heat of battle had sustained Arjun and Thambi. Now there was only bitterness.
    "The people will never learn," Arjun said savagely. "They will rot before they do."
    People will never learn! Kenny had said it, and I had not understood, now here were my own sons saying the same thing, and still I did not understand. What was it we had to learn? To fight against tremendous odds? What was the use? One only lost the little one had. Of what use to fight when the conclusion is known? I asked myself, and got no answer. I went to my husband and he was perplexed twice over.
    Of course ours was not the only family involved. There were several others, among them Kali's, and she came to bemoan the