By skyforbes 
I launched my first book at 44
My daughter launched hers at 11 — published by Pais Friends Library, Dombivli.
And somewhere between those two milestones, I discovered that sometimes children don’t just follow our footsteps… they show us new paths.
That revelation came to me through The Day I Stopped Watching Reels, the debut story by my daughter, Vira Gudhate. When she handed me the manuscript, I expected innocence. But what I found inside those pages was something far more remarkable — a small, steady wisdom, wrapped in the bright voice of a child who sees the world exactly as it is… and exactly as it could be.
The story opens in the familiar chaos of modern childhood: screens glowing, thumbs scrolling, reels spinning endlessly like tiny whirlpools of attention. Aarav, the young protagonist, is a boy we all recognize — the one who knows thirty different cat videos by heart but forgets the time he promised his mother. He’s endearing, imperfect, and painfully relatable. You don’t read Aarav; you remember him.
Vira writes his world with a surprising sensory clarity — the warmth of a Saturday morning sun, the sting of a mother’s disappointed silence, the jingle of a grandmother’s…