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214 pages, Paperback
Published August 4, 2019


The novel dates to the year 1994, when a prank played by her classmates, forces negative character transformation of Shagun Mehra at an age of 11 years, for an entire lifetime. Consequently, Shagun commits her first ever crime of taking revenge on her innocent twin brother. Maybe had Shagun not received the unnecessary over-protective treatment from her mother thenceforth, she could have won her life-long battle with her internal demons, with flying colours.
The novel progresses by depicting the side-effect of childhood trauma taking a serious toll on the personal life of Shagun Seth née Mehra. The lack of much-needed psychiatric help at young age forces Shagun to gradually drift away from her own biological children. In fact, Shagun transforms from a caring mother to a living nightmare for her children at their tender age. Her drastically changing equation in personal life shattered her dream of being a successful actor, even before it takes off properly.
The novel projects the parallel life two female characters – Shagun, the Antagonist turned Protagonist and Supercop Ex-DCP MIli Ray, the sleuth detective. On one side, Shagun succumbs to her internal demons. On the contrary, Mili successfully combats her mental demons and emerges as a winner to seek justice on behalf of Shagun.
Mili has uniquely transformed from a successful DCP, who manifests terror in the
heart of dangerous criminals to a Private Investigator who hesitates to take up her second case after turning down more than 15 cases at a stretch within a year.
Unlike the perfect superheroes of comic strips, Mili needs to put up a strong fight against her panic attacks. She frequently loses her self-control over the inbound flood of premonitions. She needs to pop up pills every now and then to get a grip on her panic attacks.
In spite of her never-ending traumatic condition, Shagun counts on her other mother and thereby comes clean about everything to her one fine morning. But unknowingly, she got betrayed by her mother in the disguise of over-protection. This betrayal cum over-protection not only forced her to give up her dream career of dancing but gradually claimed her life along with her mother once and for all.
According to me, most striking part of the novel is towards the climax initiation, when Mili firmly accuses every individual of the surrounding society for the miserable fate of Shagun.
In our daily dose of rat race, we fail to take up the issues of child bullying seriously. This drawback on our part, results in fatal outcome to others in the long run. Bullying negatively transforms individuals like Shagun irrespective of their creative influence. Characters like Shagun usually remain eye-sore to their loved ones and only a few gets to know about their mental abrasions of young age.