Sharika Chauhan: Building a World from Imagination and Instinct
As a child, I grew up devouring adventure stories. I was the kid who vanished into literature, needing retrieval to reality. Stories gave me movement before I had money, and possibility long before I understood how limiting the world could be.
I rarely saw characters in the books who looked like me at the centre of those stories, whether it was leading expeditions, driving the narrative or being brave without explanation. I grew up as an ’80s kid, with characters from Enid Blyton’s books or with white characters called Biff and Chip. At the time, I didn’t question it. You accept what you are given. Looking back, I realise how quietly powerful that absence was.
I loved books and writing. But as I grew older, I did what many first-generation British Indian kids are quietly taught to do. I followed security, and with it, the money.
For seventeen years, my professional life unfolded inside financial services and private markets, on a career path built around security, credibility and measurable success. As a first-generation British Indian, that trajectory was not only encouraged but also expected and considered the safest option. And in many ways, it worked.
My career choice gave me confidence in complex environments. It taught me how organisations really function, how decisions are made, how money moves and how scale is built. It gave me financial independence and options. But it never quite felt like the full version of my life.
From the outside, it looked like momentum. Internally, I remember sitting on a late-evening leadership call, listening to forecasts and project deliverables, realising I felt nothing but distance from what I was helping to support. I could read every number in the spreadsheet, but I couldn’t see myself in the future it described. I felt a growing pull towards work that connected more directly with people, emotion and meaning. A different kind of impact.
My name is Sharika Chauhan, and today I am the founder of Maya’s Worldly Wonders®, a children’s travel-adventure, IP-led multimedia brand centred on a bold British-Indian girl who explores the world with curiosity, courage and compassion. The stories are inspired by my own real-life travels across more than 45 countries, many of them undertaken solo. The series now brings those experiences to life through books, interactive school and library workshops, merchandise and an animation project currently in early development.
Two years into building this business, having self-published five books and launched my first merchandise range, I can say with absolute certainty that this wasn’t a career pivot. It was my calling.
The idea for writing children’s books arrived far from any office or notebook. I was solo travelling through Malaysia, sitting on a winding coach journey through dense tropical countryside, gazing at mist-covered mountain tops, roadside fruit stalls and villagers going about their day beyond the window. Somewhere along that ride, the entire shape of Maya’s world formed in my mind. Not just a book, but a travelling Indian girl, real places, real cultures, emotional learning woven into adventure, and a much bigger vision for how stories could live beyond the page. By the time the coach reached its destination, I knew exactly what I wanted to build.
In 2023, I decided to volunteer with a reading charity for primary school children. During that time, I worked with a young girl who lacked confidence in reading and would close her book after every short paragraph, quietly sliding it back across the table. Her eyes would drift to the window and her shoulders would sink the moment the story failed to connect with her. Not because she lacked ability, but because she didn’t feel invited into the stories she was being offered. Representation, relevance and emotional safety mattered far more than I had ever realised.
The turning point came when I began reading my stories to children. I didn’t expect much more than polite engagement. What I witnessed instead was full attention for an entire hour. Children leaning forward, interrupting with questions, sharing their own stories and ideas about Maya’s adventures with a confidence I hadn’t anticipated.
They weren’t just listening. They were stepping into the story. That was when the brand stopped being a creative idea and became a mission.
At its heart, the brand is about creating stories that help children see both the world and themselves with confidence, compassion and curiosity. Environmental and animal conservation themes are woven naturally into the adventures, and difference is normalised rather than explained. A South Asian protagonist sits at the centre of each story, not as a statement, but simply as the hero. Just as importantly, the stories are designed to be participatory, not passive, through interactive reading sessions, workshops and experiences that invite children to speak, reflect and connect.
This work is deeply values-led, grounded in representation, emotional intelligence, cultural curiosity and sustainability. I am building the Maya universe as an IP-led business, not a side project. Alongside writing, I lead everything that protects and grows Maya’s future, from publishing and rights ownership to partnerships, licensing, marketing and how the stories reach children around the world.
My background in finance hasn’t disappeared. It underpins everything. It allows me to build creative work with structure, vision with discipline and impact with scale.
Entering the children’s publishing world as a self-published founder has not been easy. It is a deeply traditional and protected industry. My early errors involved relying upon incorrect business guidance, forcing me to go back and rebuild the business properly from the ground up. Learning about intellectual property, understanding ownership, setting up robust financial and operational foundations and protecting the long-term future of the brand has been a steep curve, but an empowering lesson. Because this is not simply about books. It is about building a world.
Today, that world is expanding into new directions. We are developing our first animation projects so that Maya can reach children far beyond the classrooms and libraries I can physically visit. We are designing merchandise and a Maya plush doll so children can hold the stories in their hands.
It is exciting. It is uncomfortable. It is exactly where growth lives.
The truth is, I am naturally decisive and instinct-led. Once something feels right, I commit. My research is meticulous, but I don’t allow analysis to paralyse me. I know myself well enough to recognise when hesitation is simply fear wearing a smarter outfit. That instinct is what prompted me to leave a secure corporate career with no job lined up. The same instinct that led me to join a startup at the very moment the world shut down during a global pandemic. And it is the very reason that led me to walk away from an industry where my skills were becoming increasingly valuable, to build something creative and uncertain instead. Without that instinct, I would not be where I am today.
What sustains me now is not ambition alone. It is the children. The parents who tell me their child finally wants to read. The teachers who watch confidence grow in real time. The librarians who see curiosity replace anxiety around books.
Creatively, I am constantly nourished by other storytellers. By films, by books, by listening to artists speak honestly about how difficult and non-linear creative work really is. Immersive worlds still move me in the same way they did when I was a child hiding inside a book. The difference now is that I am no longer only consuming stories. I am responsible for building one.
Having embarked on this path two years ago, I now gauge success differently. Not by a polished resume or hierarchical position. I measure it by whether the work I am creating invites children into the world more gently, more confidently and with greater imagination than I was invited in myself.
The Maya story is still evolving and finding its voice, but the intention behind it is unwavering. I am building a global storytelling platform that grows with its audience. One that proves women-led, culturally rich creative brands can be both meaningful and commercially ambitious. It enables children to view themselves not as supporting players on life’s stage, but as adventurers discovering it.
This tale remains unfinished and for the first time in my professional life, I am creating something not because it is logical on paper, but because it is intuitive in my bones.
If you would like to follow the journey, you can find my work at www.mayasworldlywonders.com, and on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook under @mayas.worldly.wonders.
