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My Little Sunshine by Megha Manchanda
My Little Sunshine written by Megha Manchanda is a coming of the age novel that that deals with dreams and aspirations of a young girl who want to live her life on her own terms. The novel starts with Shalini She starts college in Delhi where she falls in love with an MBBS student, Rohan, her roommate’s friend. After courting for a few years and they get engaged to each other. Meanwhile, this is also the time when Shalini starts discovering her passion and her ambition. Shalini agrees to take up a job promotion, which also means shifting base to London leaving Rohan devastated. He can’t fathom the ambitious Shalini, who is ready to keep her personal life aside for a job.They part ways and Shalini moves to London. Niki supports Shalini, while Simi questions her decision to choose career over love. Shalini flourishes in her career, in a foreign land, she is happy but soon starts yearning for a partner and a family of her own.
The story also deals with a friendship and social trials and tribulations that women often face in their lives. Shalini’s friend Simi’s conventional upbringing and her own conformist mindset comes in the way of her friendship with Shalini, who is constantly judged by Simi for her life choices, her ambition and her inability to find a suitable partner for herself. Besides finding herself a suitable life partner, another aspect that Shalini is pining for is to have a child. She wants to be a mother, but the desire is nowhere close to getting fulfilled as she isn’t seeing anyone and is approaching her late 30s. She decides to adopt a child. Shalini is happy in her small world, Myrah becomes the sunshine of her life. Shalini’s other friend, Niki starts frequenting London for work and meets Advait, who is singing at the office party. She feels the guy would be a great match for Shalini. She arranges to make them meet and secretly wishes for the rendezvous to work. It does! Shalini and Advait are attracted to each other, in their first meeting. Advait confesses his feelings to her and she reciprocates. He grows closer to Myrah and Shalini is happy that she finally has what she had been longing for. Initially, Advait’s parents are opposed to their union as she is older than him and a single mother! But Advait prevails and they are finally married on Shalini’s 40 th birthday, the day she discovers that is pregnant with Advait’s child.
The protagonist of the book, Shalini, is an ambitious and a career-driven girl, she is unapologetically so and even leaves love to pursue her dreams. She could easily be termed as a bad girl by the society but she is not as she has other fulfilling relationships – the one with her parents, her friends, her friends-turned-family and most of all with her adopted daughter. She builds her life in a foreign land all by herself. She yearns for true love and partner who, like her, believes in an equal relationship. She eventually finds him. He is kind, caring and a wonderful father to her daughter. They are an unconventional, yet a loving family. She lives her life on her own terms. Shalini is an inspiration for the girl’s of today’s age.
My Little Sunshine is a debut novel by Megha Manchanda who is a veteran journalist working with a prominent media group. Her work provided her the opportunity to travel across the globe, which in turn strengthened her world views. She has also travelled extensively within the country and written ground reports on general election and various government schemes. Her love for reading and writing can be gauged from her effort to make time for both her passions, along with her demanding work schedule.
