Kamala Purnaiya Taylor, better known as Kamala Markandaya, was born in an upper-caste Brahmin family in Chikamurti, Mysore. Not much is known about her parents, except that her father worked in the Indian railways. She studied history at the University of Madras. From 1940 to 1947, she worked as a journalist during a burgeoning nationalist struggle for freedom, which explains her fascination for Gandhian ideals that are at odds with the sociopolitical reality of her Indian characters.