These lessons will discuss the themes around Ira’s son. You may find answers here to the following questions: Why is it significant that Ira’s son is albino? What hope does the hospital bring to the village? What conversations do Rukmani and Kenny have about the hospital and people’s willingness to help them build it?

Objective: This lesson is designed to help students understand hope and how people, because of their differences, hope for different things. After completing this assignment, students will have sensitivity and be able to relate their lives including their hope, dreams, and fears to the lives of the characters in the text.


Rationale: Students will examine their own lives in relation to the lives of one or more of the characters in the novel. Students will examine the challenges of being different and/or having a disability. Students will also examine what role Kenny played in the text, and determine if he offered hope to the villagers or fear.

MI Standards: 2.1, 3.2

Introduction: At least two characters in the novel are restricted in their daily activities because of certain physical conditions. Puli has leprosy and limited use of his hands and fingers, and Sacrabani cannot stay in the sun for any length of time. However, both have friends and relatives who seek to include them in all their activities. How accessible is your community to those who are physically challenged? Prepare a checklist of items for rating different institutions in your community on how accessible they are to all people, including those with disabilities. Rate several different buildings, activities, or institutions. Use the data you collect to make a list of suggestions on how accessibility might be improved. ***You may just have students look at the assessability of the school itself. Have students walk around and make notes to how the school can improve.

Procedure: After the list of suggestions to improve your communities’ ways to help the physically disabled is completed introduce this quote: “It is not enough to cry out, not sufficient to lay bare your woes and catalogue your needs; people have only to close their eyes and their ears, you cannot force them to see and to hear—or to answer your cries if they cannot and will not.” -Rukmani Chapter 21 Have your students discuss what they think Rukmani is saying here. Hope is only delivered through a two-way communication: the people in need have to express their needs, but also the people who can help have to find an answer to fulfill these needs. The suffering will continue to suffer if we do not answer their cries for help. Have students write in their journal about what it is they value most in life? Friends? Family? Personal possessions? Something else? Discuss the journal entries. How do values vary based on cultural differences? Compare how the values of your students to the values of Rukmani and her family in the text Nectar in a Sieve.

Assessment: informal Students will be assessed on their participation in the activities and their journal entries.