The Good News Reporter

Book excerpt: Pretty, dainty Sonal, Chitrangana's best friend and owner of Cuddles, the cutest cocker spaniel ever, knows what she wants to do for the rest of her life. She's going to be a television journalist. And not just any old reporter, but a good news reporter. After all, the media influences the way everyone thinks and behaves, so the more good people see happening around them, the happier and better people they are going to be. When her father's boss, the owner of Spark news channel, commissions her to produce five-minute children's specials for the channel, she straps Funky, the cool monkey with a hidden camera, around her waist and plunges into the mad, bad world of television reporting. There she finds herself battling Vimal, a nasty, ambitious executive out to hook her talons into her father; plunging TRPs; and neighbours disgruntled at the way they are being portrayed on TV. Then one day she stumbles on the story of Raju and his friends from the Gareeb Nagar slum. Can she, as a journalist, use the media to change their lives? Can she take on the city's powerful builder lobby and the villainous Sandy Khan and stop them from demolishing the children's home? And will Swapnalok Society bury its differences and stand with her in her hour of need?