Saroja, the pseudo-intellectual who owns and runs the Victorian dyes factory; Kamala, the eunuch, who carries within her a painful past; and Raman, the mosquito-scientist whose experiment with the malarial insect comes to be known as the Raman Technique. Then there is the ghost of Elizabeth Gibbs, the bored English woman who slept with her equally bored brother George and gave birth to a hermaphrodite. And Nayantara, who teaches Mallika all there is to know about love. But above all, this is the story of Mallika and Siva - a mother and son in a complex and deeply disturbing relationship.