Review-Tales of Sunshine by Sundari Venkatraman

            Tales of Sunshine is a collection of ten short stories. Each story explores a different aspect of life.

            Tales of Sunshine is Sundari Venkatraman’s new release. Sundari is a well-known author, famous for her romantic novels. But recently she has also been trying her hands on different genre. Tales of Sunshine is one of her experiment.

Tales of Sunshine definitely has the flavor of Love, but of different shades. Not only does each story has love as a backdrop but also gives us an advice, each story, its title has a moral which touches the reader’s heart.

Tales of Sunshine explores love between two sisters, a mother and her kid, grandparents and grandchildren; so on and so forth. While reading you can feel an instant connection as most of stories depict our day-to-day incidents, which happen in every household.

For example in Exam Fever, Maya the mother is worried about her daughter Renu’s exam or in Breaking Free from the Mould, grandmother Gayatri is worried that her grandson Aarush is spoiling his future and will fall behind the rat race by choosing over languages instead of opting for some competitive exams.

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Bernard M Baruch

In Ray of Sunshine, Raj is worried not about losing his job but the removal of dozen other people working under him. He is upset about the difficulties they will face rather than his own. Life Goes Out of Control is a typical story of fight between ambition and fulfilling parent’s dreams. Preeti wants to become an artist. Her life revolves around colours, canvas and easel. But her parents want her to fulfill their dreams by becoming a CA (Mom’s dream) or an Engineer (dad’s dream). Neither of them is bothered to know what she wants to become or where her heart lays.

A Promise Given is a heart touching story of Sachin and Aparna. Both meet at rehab where they are trying to come over drug addiction. Sachin is a typical rich spoilt brat, who doesn’t want to recover.  Aparna, who inspite of having gone through severe pain since a very young age, is full of smiles and life and tries to help doctor in helping Sachin recover.

Rakesh Nath’s Recovery is a bit spooky story. As the name suggests it's about Rakesh Nath’s road of recovery. But the plus point of this story is it gives a valuable lesson to all of us who are busy in running race of life. While we are so into race of making money, buying house and settling down in life that we neglect the little joys which life has to offer. But by the time we realize it, it's too late. This story is one of my favorite from the collection.

Until Death Us Do Part, is a thoughtful, heart wrenching story of Rekha and Sagar.  I loved William Shakespeare’s quote

“It's not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.”

But what I didn’t like about this story is it gives a wrong message to masses. If Rekha wanted to end her abusive marriage, she could have considered other options. She was an educated woman, but the path she chose was not right.

Is Grandpa Home? is a story of tug of war a man faces when he has to choose between his wife and his father, also of a grandson’s love towards his grandfather. Day Dreaming Mercenary is a story of two sisters Rita and Reema. Rita who is a model feels Reema is just after her money as she does nothing but lazes around. One fine day when Rita follows her sister, she is spellbound when she sees what Reema does with her money.

Last but not the least, The Elephant in the Room is about two friends belonging to diverse financial background. Shruthi who has all the riches in the world and Nandita who belongs to middle class family. Shruthi likes to show off her riches and achievements to Nandita while on other hand she conveniently chooses to ignore Nandita’s achievements and hard earned success.

“Cutting people out of your life doesn’t mean you hate them. It simply means you respect yourself. Not everyone is meant to stay.” - Unknown

My take on book…. “MUST READ”. While some stories help us analyze our life and make it better while some make us sit back and set us thinking. What I loved the most is Sundari has revealed the suspense or important part at the end, which keeps the reader guessing.

Sundari, I am already a fan of your writing. I request you to keep writing and experimenting with different genre more often. J

Title : The Tales of Sunshine

Author : Sundari Venkatraman

Available on : Amazon Kindle  

Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of the book from the author in return for my honest review.