The secret exploded...and then, five women's lives changed forever.

Padmini is a respected and much-loved obstetrician and gynaecologist who has spent all her life living and working in Thandikudi, a remote tribal hamlet in the Palani Hills, South India. Shama teaches Women's Studies in a well-known college in Chennai. She shares a great relationship with her mother, Padmini. Muniamma is Padmini's trusted domestic help who knows more than she reveals. Malini, a contented homemaker, and her daughter, Dharini, still struggle to come to terms with the unexplained 'disappearance' of the most important person in their lives.

Who is this person who knits the lives of these women?

Light and Shadow traces the personal journeys of the five women as they struggle to make peace with their past and move forward.