The principal character of ‘Ladies Coupe’, Akhilandeshwari, a Tamil Brahman, who is frustrated with life
for she has sacrificed her youth in taking care of her family consisting of her mother, younger sister and 2 younger brothers after her father's untimely death. She has secured the life of everyone around her but is still single, unmarried and exploited.
While going to
Kanyakumari, she meets 5 other ladies- Janaki, Prabha Devi, Sheela, Margaret and Marikozhunthu in the Ladies Coupe. The lives of these ladies and the impact that they make on Akhila is what the rest of the story is all about.
The problem with Ladies Coupe is that it is very pretensions. The men in all the stories are the same- spineless, lustful, selfish, and insensitive- prove that the author is a feminist writer.
The weakest point in Ladies Coupe is how Akhila finds ultimate satisfaction by sleeping with a strange young man in Kanyakumari. While the whole idea of Akhila losing her long preserved virginity (not
forgetting her sexcapades with Hari in the early part) in the land of the virgin goddess might sound fantastic on paper, it is utterly idiotic to even think that a woman would experience peace, tranquility and a sense of victory when she sleeps with a stranger! Akhila and Anita might feel happy at the turn of things in the end, but it is not fair on their part to expect the same out of the hapless reader.