Kiran Manral's Blog, page 32
March 9, 2016
“We need to form strong networks of women,” An interview with me in Indusparent
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1.What are the three values that you got from your parents as a child that has made you the person you are today?
From my mother I got the discipline to get up, dress up and show up, no matter what the mood, the situation, the health issues. She’s a feisty thing, my mother, and if I could be half as feisty as she is, I would be happy with myself. She also taught me to always be honest, no matter how unpleasant. From my father, I learnt to be kind. I think these three values define me today.
2.Who was the biggest influence in your life to help your grow to be a successful woman?
I don’t know if I can quite call myself a successful woman, miles to go before being remotely worthy of that label. But my biggest influence, clichéd as it may sound is definitely my mother.
3.Where do you take inspiration from when writing about the characters of your book? Are they based on real life characters?
Different for different books, some are based in bits and parts on people I know, some come as fully-formed creatures in my head and need no further inspiration from real life. So I would think, it works both ways for me as a writer.
4.How do you maintain work-life balance and find time to spend with your family?
I only work when I am at my office, and once I am home I do nothing but domestic stuff and spend time with my son. I think it is important to shut oneself off from work once one reaches home, and to draw up very clear demarcations of what one is prepared to do or not. I don’t take work related calls post 6pm, I don’t work on weekends, I completely refuse to travel unless essential. All this helps to carve out time that gets eaten up from family time.
5.What are the three things that motherhood has taught you?
Definitely that I could put myself in the path of a speeding car without a moment’s hesitation if needed to save my son. Also that I can survive on zero sleep through a year of hourly feeds. And that I am infinitely more patient than I ever thought I could be.
6.You have donned so many hats? What keeps you going?
The fear of not doing enough.
7.What do you think about the state of women in India and what we must do for the betterment of women in India?
I think it begins with ourselves and extends to the women around us. We need to speak up for ourselves, for the women we come in contact with, change attitudes, call out everyday unthinking sexism, speak up when something is not acceptable at home or in the professional space.
And most importantly, we need to form strong networks of women, whether in the professional space or the personal space, we need to be, in our limited capacity each other’s safety nets. And this gradually spreads out across a community, a neighbourhood, a city, a country.
8. Any women’s day message that you’d like to give to our readers?
Women hold up half the sky, as Chairman Mao said. So don’t ever hesitate to stake your claim to the space you occupy. Be glorious, be confident, and reach out for whatever you want to be.”
Read the original here
At IIT Bhubaneshwar for their International Women’s Day Celebrations yesterday
Here’s what I did on International Women’s Day. At #IITBhubaneshwar’s Women’s Day celebrations, as the Chief Guest for the function. #PledgeOfParity
March 6, 2016
Because dedications are important
A photo posted by Kiran Manral (@kiranmanral) on Oct 3, 2015 at 2:03am PDT
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Some pictures from Lit-O-Fest on Feb 21
On the panel with me were Pooja Taparia of Arpan, Harish Iyer CSA and LGBT activist, Shunali Khullar Shroff, author and Koral Dasgupta, author.
I also moderated a panel on Escaping the Ramayana vector with Anand Neelankanthan, Shatrujeet Nath, Kavita Kane, Vineet Agarwal and Pervin Saket.
And of course, caught up with old friends Ashwin Sanghi and Meghna Pant.
All Aboard reviewed on the ElysianLiteratiBlog
March 6, 2016 livelygleelitworms
ALL ABOARD by Kiran Manral
It is an adventure the moment you step out of your fiction world to reality. Look at it as an adventure, a story you could tell when you get back to your senses. And so, this novel ‘ALL ABOARD’ takes you on this exotic Mediterranean cruise with Rhea after her obnoxious fiancé Samir dumps her unceremoniously leaving her with honeymoon reservations and trousseau.
➢ Damn his perfect features. The soft curls that made themselves evident if he skipped a haircut, and his pink lips that got petulant at the smallest thing. His way of carrying himself into any room with the confidence of knowing that he would be one of the best looking men there. Damn the women who looked at him when she was with him, making her wonder if she had turned invisible for a moment! May he rot in a hell where they had no cricket on television! She cursed him in her head—may crab lice invade his pubes, may his intestines be infected with a particularly virulent strain of antibiotic resistant flesh eating bacteria.
Some book titles are mysterious, some provocative, and some inexplicable but a few stories are true to their title and this novel is one of them. Everything with everyone happens aboard. Here Rhea brings out the sweetness, the hurt and the head-screwed-tightly-on-her-shoulders sensibility that is the pride of Indian middle class.
Read the original here
February 28, 2016
The Face At The Window in The Telegraph
Some go to the hills for rest and leisure; some for ghostly stories. At least that’s the experience of Kiran Manral. The idea for her fifth book, The Face at the Window, published recently by Amaryllis, came from a holiday in the hills. “There I began wondering how people could live such isolated lives, and that’s when the image of Mrs McNally, my protagonist, popped into my head,” says Mumbai-based Manral, the author of three earlier novels and a parenting book. The new book is part dark, part scary. But don’t say Boo!
Read the original here
February 21, 2016
“Confession: I haven’t switched off my bedroom lights since.” Rupa Gulab, Author and Columnist, on The Face At The Window
“Age is not the only devastating thing that catches up with retired school teacher Mrs McNally – old memories, family secrets and a malevolent ghost make her gasp for breath – and make the reader gasp too. Rest assured no sweat will be generated while reading this book, because you flip the pages so fast to get to the bottom of things and stir up a gust of wind. And just as Mrs McNally has to keep a light on her bedroom after the ghost makes its first appearance, the reader will probably have to do the same too. Confession: I haven’t switched off my bedroom lights since.”
-Rupa Gulab, Author of Girl Alone, Chip of the Old Blockhead, The Great Depression of the 40s, I Kissed A Frog, Simi’s Mum’s Diary and Daddy Come Lately.
The Face at the Window on Book Blogger Vishal Bheeroo’s blog
The Face At The Window Info Sheet
Title: The Face at the Window
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Amaryllis Publishing House
Author: Kiran Manral
“ Brilliant atmospherics, with everything unfolding urgent and languid all at once, and an ending that sates even as it chills.”
Shinie Antony, award winning writer & co-founder, Bangalore Literature Festival
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In the whole welter of romance, intimate secrets and heady cocktail of emotions, experimenting with different genre of story- telling is always a refreshing and a welcome change. Journalist, columnist and author Kiran Manral has always believed in upping her game by brushing shoulders with various genres.
From The Reluctant Detective to Once Upon A Crush, All Aboard and Karmic Kids, here she surprises you with her next novel, The Face at the Window. It was during one of my blog interview that I recollect that Kiran shared with me last year what ‘The…
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February 19, 2016
February 18, 2016
An interview in Verve and an extract from The Face At The Window
Text by Huzan Tata. Compiled by Natasha Sahjwani
Here is an exclusive glimpse into Kiran Manral’s new work of fiction releasing this month…
The author’s fifth book is a work of fiction that explores themes of identity and belonging. Verve talks to Kiran Manral about her novel, current reads and happy endings.
1. Tell us something about The Face At The Window. Have the characters or events been inspired by people or incidents from your life?
“The book is completely fictional, but while growing up, I did hear my mother speak a lot about the schools she taught at in the hills up North. My mother-in-law also comes from there, and from her I heard stories of the people, of life in the region, of ghosts and chudails and bewitchments. The region has always fascinated me, and when I went there for the first time few years ago on holiday, the actual experience coagulated into The Face At The Window, a story about a lady searching for herself at the end of her life.”
2. Which character was hardest to create?
“I think it would be the main protagonist, Mrs McNally. I had to crawl into her skin and feel and be her, in order to write her – she is nothing like anyone I know. And she has a mind of her own, she has done things I never expected her to do, and she wanted her story to be told.”
3. Your last two books were romance novels. What has the shift to a new genre been like?
“This book actually was written before I wrote All Aboard. It just kept going through revisions. I’ve written humour, romance, chick lit, non-fiction and parenting books before this. I don’t think I really think about a genre when I’m writing but leave it to the world to assign one to it.”
4. Do labels affect you in any way?
“In terms of labels, there is that scathing dismissal of me being a ‘chick lit’ writer, which I’ve now developed a thick skin about.”
5. How important is a happy ending in literature?
“In romance, yes, a happy ending is essential, because the very genre demands hope and catharsis. I think a story that moves you and makes you wonder is key, and how it ends plays a large part in how a book makes you feel once you’ve read it. Some not-so-pleasant endings can also provide emotional catharsis, as can happy ones.”
6. You’re currently reading…?
“I just finished Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy, The Grownup by Gillian Flynn and The Private Life of Mrs Sharma by Ratika Kapur. I tend to be a peripatetic reader who reads three to four books simultaneously. So also on my bedside are Dark Things by Sukanya Venkatraghavan and Ashoka the Great by Wytze Keuning, which is a massive tome. In the midst of all this, there’s also Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, both of which I am rereading.”
Read the original here
