Nandini: When Midlife Becomes a Beginning

Synopsis of Nandini -

Forty two year old Nandini Bhat wakes at 3:47 a.m. certain the world no longer needs her. Once the bright centre of every room, she is now a hollow outline—ignored by a contemptuous husband, abandoned by fair weather friends, and bankrupted by a training venture her spouse allowed to fail . Teetering on a ninth floor balcony she decides against the leap when her daughter coughs in the next room, choosing—for now—to endure.

The novel unfolds in three braided timelines that reveal how this quiet annihilation began. In childhood, Nandini’s image obsessed mother wielded praise only for show, while her father remained a polite stranger. Under constant criticism she learned to make herself invisible . At twenty four she escaped into a seemingly adoring marriage with Sagar, mistaking his possessiveness for love. Years later he registers their new company without her name, uses her savings, then banishes her voice—an erasure that finally exposes his long running manipulation .

A second thread revisits her student days, when fellow technologist Abhijit worshipped her brilliance. She applauded his move to England but buried the admission letter meant for both of them, ending the relationship by phone the day he departed . Twenty years later Abhijit returns for Diwali with a wife and child. One moonlit encounter reignites his obsession and tempts Nandini toward an affair, but she refuses to duplicate the betrayals that shattered her own life .

The present day narrative tracks Nandini’s crawl back to herself. After a rain soaked breakdown she enrols in a government tech programme, where she meets Shweta—an entrepreneur whose steadfast kindness offers the first taste of unconditional friendship, and perhaps something deeper . With Shweta’s help Nandini secures a trainer’s post, regains financial footing, and discovers a voice no longer willing to whisper.

The emotional climax arrives when Sagar demands yet another favour; Nandini simply says “No.” In that single syllable, the power dynamic reverses, and the man who once controlled her can only watch as she steps into a life of her own choosing .

The final chapter, tellingly titled “A New Life,” finds her detached from past roles—wife, saviour, prodigy—and walking into an open sky, ready to define worth on her own terms .

Blending intimate interiority with vivid Indian settings, Nandini is contemporary women’s fiction (approx. 27 K words) about the slow dismantling of self—and the fierce, ordinary acts required to build another. It will resonate with readers between the age of 35-50 who have seen enough of life to know its pains and trials. They will get a portrait of a woman who learns that the door to freedom was never locked; she simply had to turn the handle.