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“Sometimes, your heart needs time to accept what your mind already knows.“

An unexpected Gift is a touching story by my fav author Ajay K Pandey. Next to “You’re the best wife”, this is my personal fav from this author. The one thing, I always pointed out in his works are the fluid way of narration simple language embedded with emotions of each character.

“An Unexpected Gift”focuses on the unconditional love, dad-son bond, sacrificing dreams, the innocence of a child, friendship, single parenting, and the life of transgender.

This story revolves around the life of Abhay, Sheetal, and Ayush. Abhay seems struggling with the grief of losing his wife Kanika. He is unable to cope with his job and the care of his toddler son. Later, Sheetal enters into their life, applying for the job of looking after Ayush, he is thrilled. All Sheetal has ever wanted, even as a child, is to be a mother. Sheetal can be the best mother and instantly bonds with the kid except that she’s a transgender.

Later, Abhay finds out that Sheetal is a transgender woman and then, he sacks her for the reason that he felt his trust was betrayed. However, once he is over the hurt, he realises that alshe was making a good impact in Ayush’s life and hires her back. Then, he began to support her. As time passes Sheetal proves to be a source of motherly love and cared Ayush more than any woman can.

As usual, the established notions of our society wasn’t in favour of a young, transgender woman trying to work in the house of a young widower.As the pressure mounts on Abhay to let Sheetal go, he faces the hardest decision of his life… Will he be a hero that his loved ones want him to be?

“Life is stranger than fiction”.

Today I read this book, oh no.. I wasn’t reading it… it was journey through the minds of Sheetal, Abhay and little Ayush. When other writers in the contemporary bend their pen towards the interest of majority readers, Ajay turn his mind and pen towards internal struggling of minority class. This is such a story depicting the struggles of transgenders in our society.

On this reading this book, I found an attitude transformation within me – towards transgenders. It light up my mind which was previously not ready to treat transgenders equally. Being an aspiring writer, I have lot to learn from this man- Ajay K Panday. Really! Really ! Reading this book was great experience.

“A true hero is one who smiles through silent pain and fights battles nobody knows about. “

Don’t hesitate to read this book, if you are looking for a feel-good, sensitive book and has 1 – 2.5 hours of reading time on your hands…
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Akshaya Thulasi🦋