Those Women of the Coromandel brings to life the eclectic, intertwined lives of three women living in Coromandel in nineteenth-century India. We meet Miss Beston who is known as the Boat Woman, a Briton who has gone native. Living in her boat (that grows into a chain of houseboats, each housing a different area of her living and working quarters) she is an entrepreneur, hunter, and host and guide to every British official who passes through the Coromandel. Deeply interested in local culture, she befriends people around her, 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 of the Stream, guides her to a divine understanding that underpins her life. Worker Aunt, Appachchi’s sister-in-law, who endures successive personal tragedies with the utmost dignity, is her close confidante and lifelong buttress. 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 spiritual fulcrum for the villagers. Peopled with characters who are eccentric, interesting, and pragmatic, such as the scholarly BA Garu, Appachchi’s husband and Worker Aunt’s brother; Mr Blotton, the Brahma of the Godavari anicut; Nephew, the first to welcome the Guru of the Stream, and others, Those Women of the Coromandel is a story of people trying to find their place in the world as it turns and changes around them. About the Author Vadrewu Panduranga Rao, better known as Ranga Rao (1936–2018), was a novelist and academic from the delta districts of Andhra Pradesh. He taught at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University, for thirty-seven years and was an honorary lecturer at Sri Sathya Sai University, Andhra Pradesh. His books include the novels Fowl-Filcher (1987), The Drunk Tantra (1994), and The River Is Three-Quarters Full (2001), and the short story collection An Indian Idyll and Other Stories (1989). He also translated Telugu stories in Classic Telugu Stories (1995) and That Man on the Road (2006). He published several works of literary criticism, notably a monograph on R. K. Narayan, published by the Sahitya Akademi in 2006 and R. K. Narayan the Novelist and His Art (2017). He also published books on the life and teachings of Sathya Sai Baba: Full Flame: Infinite Scenarios (autographed by Bhagavan, 2009); Bal Vikas for Lok Vikas (blessed by Bhagavan) 2010; and Full Flame: Unconditional Love (2015). Ranga Rao passed away in March 2018; Those Women of the Coromandel is his last work.