The Rajmahal, a magnificent-turn-of-the-century Calcutta mansion on Chowringhee, is imbued with a life of its own, its spaces inhabited by pigeons, ghosts and a diversity of tenants.

Surjeet Shona, a complex hybrid, gets involved with the tenants, and their problems – a British couple adjusting to the new India, a Russian patron of Bengali theatre overwhelmed by the Great Bengal famine, an Anglo-Indian widow fighting alcoholism, an ageing Bengali fobbing off a younger brother desirous of his inheritance and an elegant Muslim family caught in the post-Partition Hindu-Muslim dichotomy.

Brick by brick, the mansion grows old; chapter by chapter, stereotypes tumble.

About the Author

Kamalini Sengupta, a former member of the Indian Administrative Service, is a writer, documentary film-maker and freelance journalist and editor. The Top of the Raintree is her second novel.

She also runs an organisation working in the field of education, the Surya Trust, which is a passionate commitment with her. Kamalini Sengupta is married and has two sons.