ABSTRACT
Young Janaki, married to an elderly Brahmin priest, seeks erotic attention from a crude young lamp-cleaner of the temple, and gets it though in a rough way, while tricky Carlos knows how to lure girls to the privacy of his large cargo boat. Poovan-amma and Kaav-amma, both aristocratic Nambootiri Brahmin widows, bound by rules of isolated life, try to create safe by-lanes in their inner quarters. Thirty-plus Poovan-amma is condemned to premature ageing and ailments in her isolated inner quarters. Kaavamma, 60-plus, finds vague gender support in her retired mahout now a widower, whom she would never have looked at in her days of glory. A young maker of wooden dolls, separated from husband, instinctively transfers her curves to her dolls but becomes a lifeless doll herself.
