The Pearls of Coromandel

The author of business manuals published in England, Bhattacharya makes his fiction debut with a thoughtful and disturbing tale set in India during the decline of the British Raj. John Sugden is a young, idealistic British civil service officer sent to a remote province to act as a district magistrate. At first, Sugden is enchanted by this new land and people, but soon loneliness and lassitude set in. Trips to the nearest town are difficult due to distance and the rising tensions between Muslims and Hindus. Gandhi and Jinnah are both gaining influence within the deeply riven population, while the British are struggling to retain power. Sugden tries to walk a delicate line between the opposing factions, but when he marries Kemala, a Hindu woman whose rape by Muslims has made her a pariah, he violates social and religious traditions. His career is ruined, and he is used as a political scapegoat by both religious factions and by the British, who do not allow mixed-race marriages. Yet he and Kamala seem bound for happiness, until a final irony brings a tragic denouement. While Bhattacharya's prose is merely serviceable and the novel's climax soap-operatic, the author evokes clearly the delicate social, religious and political issues at stake. His background detailing gives density to an intelligent story whose characters play out their fates while buffeted by the winds of change. (June)