India’s vanishing girls is theme of THE FORBIDDEN DAUGHTER?

To answer your question, Bonnie, yes I put myself in the protagonist’s shoes at all times to be able to put in the right amount of emotion. Since THE FORBIDDEN DAUGHTER is based in India, it is possible for me to do that.

I had an arranged marriage, but my husband and I are happily married for nearly 35 years. How does this happen? In the culture we were raised in, arranged marriage is the norm. We are programmed to accept it and make a happy life for ourselves. Many of the elements in my book, THE FORBIDDEN DAUGHTER, come from my own background, except the central theme – Gender-Selective Abortions.

Contemporary India is a country of contradictions – the modern and the archaic exist side by side. While technology and improved education have brought economic progress, the social world for the most part remains untouched. The practice of dowry is still rampant, making female children a burden for a lot of parents. So male children are coveted and girls shunned.

Some 25 years ago, ultrasound technology gave male-child-obsessed countries like china and India a new tool to detect the sex of a child before it was born. Since then selectively aborting female fetuses has become a regular practice for some couples and a lucrative business for a few unscrupulous doctors.

Although I have lived in the U.S. all my adult life, I was born and raised in India, and this seemingly shocking practice of destroying female fetuses in my home country is very troubling to me. I decided to write a romantic story woven around this hot-button issue of female feticide, hoping that it will bring awareness to American readers, and perhaps in some small way contribute towards eradicating it in the not-too-distant future.

Thus came about THE FORBIDDEN DAUGHTER, a novel about a young woman who refuses to abort her unborn daughter and unleashes a bizzare chain of events that turn dangerous. My goal is to not only entertain my readers but also inform them, give them an enjoyable read filled with romance, intrigue, and rich cultural detail.

Shobhan

www.shobhanbantwal.com