The Company of Women

Book excerpt: Recently separated from his nagging, ill-tempered wife of thirteen years, millionaire businessman Mohan Kumar decides to reinvent his life. Convinced that ýlust is the true foundation of loveý, he embarks on an audacious plan: he will advertise for paid lady companions to share his bed and his life. Thus begins his journey of easy, unbridled sexuality in the company of some remarkable women. There is Sarojini Bharadwaj, the demure professor from small-town Haryana who surprises Mohan with her ardour and sexual energy; Molly Gomes, the free-spirited masseuse from Goa, mistress of the sensual impulse; and Susanthika Goonatilleke, the diminutive seductress from Sri Lanka. After each affair ends and before the next begins, Mohan finds solace in the practiced charms of his obliging maid, Dhanno, and in the memories of his first loves: the American Jessica Browne, to whom he lost his virginity, and the Pakistani Yasmeen Wanchoo, who brought him the heady passion of an older woman. In The Company of Women, his first novel in ten years, Khushwant Singh, Indiaýs most widely read author, has produced an uninhibited, erotic and endlessly entertaining celebration of love, sex and passion.