The Doppelganger

On the borders of the lofty, mist-hung High Forest tea plantation in Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was called while still a British colony in the mid twentieth century, Rachel Varuni, the daughter of a Scottish tea planter and a Ceylonese village girl, lives alone with her mother. Their simple, frugal life has a quality of unspoilt happiness, although Rachel is troubled by her mixed parentage, seeing herself as a?doppelg?nger, belonging nowhere.? Rachel's escape from a hard, isolated life comes when a letter from a law firm informs her mother of a bequest from an un-named benefactor to pay for her daughter's education at Ceylon's most exclusive boarding school.? While education transforms Rachel unrecognisably and enables her to reclaim her European identity, her life becomes fraught with terror and daunting new hurdles.? Alone and alienated from her maternal kith and kin, the acceptance and identification with her father's race which she pursued single-mindedly, continues to elude Rachel as she mutinies against destiny, not heeding the tragic sadness of her own beginnings.