Miss Timmins' School for Girls: A dark murder mystery

Nayana Currimbhoy's fiction debut isan absorbing atmospheric thriller setat a girl's boarding school. CharuApte, an impressionable girl about 21 yearsold and new to teaching,arrives in 1974 atthe fictional BritishMissionary MissTimmins' School forGirls in Panchgani,run just like it wassince the turn of the20th Century. EliteIndian families sendtheir daughters hereto learn English andWestern ways.

Nayana Currimbhoy

Shy and sheltered Charu is running from a scandal that disgraced her Brahmin family. And in this small, foreign universe, she is drawn to the charismatic teacher Moira Prince, who introduces her to pot-smoking hippies, rock ‘n' roll - all freedoms she never knew existed.Charu's double existence begins.

By day Charu shares shrewsbury biscuitsand tea with the school's British missionariesand teaches Shakespeare to a hothouse ofprivileged Indian girls. And by night shefinds herself running riot with Moira Princeand her pot smoking hippie friends.

Moira is everything that Charu is not - alarger than life British woman who nursesplenty of secrets and a puzzling relationshipwith the school's administration. But asthings can go wrong, they do and veryquickly.

And unfortunately, one night duringthe monsoon season, in a mountainous outlyingarea known as the "table-land," Moira isfound murdered at the bottom of a cliff.

The ordered worlds of school and town arethrown into chaos. The tragedy divides thetown along an "English fault line" and fillsthe school with rumors of heart burning jealousy,spicy lesbian affairs, and vendettas.

"Everyone is suspect. But when Charu isimplicated in the murder, three courageousschoolgirls take it upon themselves to solvethe crime. This is when the young schoolteacher's real education begins."

Like most boarding school stories, this isalso fun but in some parts. The author's useof language and smooth writing is very enticing.

The setting in a small mountain town inIndia is unique and well drawn. Much of thestory takes place during the monsoon season,and the reader can feel the clammy dampnessthat rains can cause and visualize a landshrouded in mist, heavy thunderstorms anddownpours.

While Currimbhoy has a talent for charactersketches and for creating a strong narrativevoice, some of her characters seem halfdeveloped. Also, there are descriptions thatare either missing completely or inadequatelydrawn for the reader to get a goodsense of place. Besides, the back and forthtime jumps confuse instead of helping theplot.

The book has an intriguing premise in additionto many interesting tidbits about lifein India. But somehow it didn't quite workfor me. Also, the book was way too long anddragged.Tthe section narrated by the schoolgirlNandita really does not add to the storyat all.

However, it is not to say that Currimbhoy'sworld of an isolated boarding school in westernIndia during the 1970s, a lingering outpostof British colonialism where thestudents learn Scottish dancing and are requiredto wear elasticized bloomers, is notgripping. It is but the author could haveadded some more of it. Also, the realistic descriptionof the monsoon season is very absorbing.All in all, this love story and a murder mystery- Miss Timmins' School for Girls - is ultimatelya coming-of-age tale set against theturbulence of the 1970s as it played out inone small corner of India.

Nayana Currimbhoy was raised in Indiawhere she attended an all-girls boardingschool in a fairly remote hill station. Shemoved to the U.S. in the early eighties, andhas been a businesswoman and a freelancewriter. She has written books, film scripts,and articles about many things, including architectureand design, and a biography ofIndia Gandhi. Miss Timmins School forGirls is her first novel. Nayana lives in NewYork City with her husband, an architect, andtheir teenage daughter.

[ BY R. PADMANABHAN ]