Shilpa Gupta

Ananya Shilpa Gupta

'I took the test and prayed for the colour of the lines on the strip to stay as they were. But they did not. The test was positive. I felt my entire world come crashing down around me.' Meet Ananya Sharma, not your regular, teenage girl-next-door. Sure, she loves hanging out with her friends and engaging in whispered confidences at sleepovers, but when it comes to boys, she has competition on her mind rather than romance. At school, she is passionate about math and the sciences, and completely focussed on cracking the IIT entrance exams. But when distraction enters her life in the form of the handsome and charming Rohit, Ananya discovers love, longing and betrayal, all at once. Finding herself pregnant at the age of seventeen, she learns that the world is a very different place once you are on its wrong side. The discovery of the fault lines in her parents' relationship-which until then had seemed perfect to her-further breaks her. Will Ananya be able to reverse the downward spiral that her life has plunged into and find meaning once again? In this wonderfully stark and honest portrayal of a teenager's life, Ananya: A Bittersweet Journey has managed to encapsulate an entire generation's struggle of growing up in today's often troubled times.