THOSE WOMEN OF THE COROMANDELA Novel

Those Women of theCoromandel brings to life the eclectic intertwined lives of three women living in Coromandel in nineteenth-centuryIndia. We meet Miss Beston who is known as the Boat Woman a Briton who hasgone native. Living in her boat (that grows into a chain of houseboats eachhousing a different area of her living and working quarters) she is anentrepreneur hunter and host and guide to every British official who passes throughthe Coromandel. Deeply interested in local culture she befriends people aroundher both Indian and British. Appachchi known as Granny is a lover of nature mangoes and the monsoon. An early encounter with a spiritual man the Guru ofthe Stream guides her to a divine understanding that underpins her life.Worker Aunt Appachchis sister-in-law who endures successive personaltragedies with the utmost dignity is her close confidante and lifelongbuttress. Also deeply influenced by the teachings of the Guru of the Stream she undertakes a trip to Kasi later in life that establishes her as a spiritualfulcrum for the villagers. Peopledwith characters who are eccentric interesting and pragmatic such as thescholarly BA Garu Appachchis husband and Worker Aunts brother; Mr Blotton the Brahma of the Godavari anicut; Nephew the first to welcome the Guru of theStream and others Those Women of the Coromandel is a story of peopletrying to find their place in the world as it turns and changes around them.