Kiran Manral's Blog, page 5
May 29, 2021
The Week: ‘More Things in Heaven and Earth’ Mixing memory with desire
(And the first review is here. Be still my beating heart!)
The plot, straddling a guilty past and an ominous present, is craftily spun
By Jairam N. Menon
The mind does not readily accept the passing of a loved one. It recoils, rebels, and
in desperation, reimagines all that has happened – a hundred different keys to
open a slammed door that will not budge. When nothing works, it seeks refuge in a
fragile but deeply felt universe where deaths can be undone. Kamla Malik,
protagonist of Kiran Manral’s More Things in Heaven and Earth often exits the
world where she lost her husband in mysterious circumstances to inhabit one
where he is there to smile at her, pat her, pet her and call her ‘moonface’. It is not
an easy migration for the young woman, however, because as Eliot had put it,
memory mixes with desire. In Kamla’s case, the emotional vortex curdles into an
intoxicating, almost inflammable brew.
As a heroine battling to prevent herself from tipping over into the death spiral of
insanity, Kamla holds your attention. She claims to look for closure but could well
be seeking continuity. There is a past she cannot erase and a future she will not
enter. She has friends aplenty and at least some parts of a caring family but all they
do is accentuate her loneliness. That leaves her in her own space and her own time
zone. It is neither here nor there, neither now nor then.
Apart from a heroine, alternatively assertive and vulnerable, there’s a lot going for
More Things. Fear stalks the pages. When you get acquainted with the cast of
characters, you do not try to figure out their age but rather speculate how long it
will be before they die. Horror of different shapes and shades is everywhere – from
the attic in their hillside home, congested with family skeletons to an entire upper
wing in a Goan villa where ghosts have taken up permanent residence. Even when
the sun shines cheerily on contented palm trees or when lovers arch into each
other’s arms, you know it’s only a matter of time before the sinister gains the upper
hand again. The plot, straddling a guilty past and an ominous present is craftily
spun, and borne along on Manral’s lush prose.
Here is a filigree artist whose medium is words. While there is a story to tell,
Manral also has pictures to paint – of the place, the people and of the labyrinth
inside her mind. She is fastidious about detail, even if it means venturing into
beguiling byways that take the plot off the road. Riveting as these digressions are,
they come at a price. When you have an obsessive miniaturist in charge of the
narrative, the story cannot be rushed. Impatient readers may want out.
Well, it’s Kiran Manral, and this is her trademark style – whether she is tickling
your funny bone, or sending chills up spines. For those who prefer journeys to
arrivals and do not mind digressions before getting to destination, ‘More Things…’
is well worth the ticket.
More Things in Heaven and Earth
Publisher: Amaryllis
Pages: 290
Price: Rs 399
Read it here
April 30, 2021
A short story for you: The Two Faces of Radha
As promised, here’s another short story for you. This I wrote for Verve many years ago, also triggered by my daily commute into office when I ran the creative department of our (now closed) advertising agency. My previous short story on Wattpad, The Man With The Placard, also came about through observations on my daily commute. Come to think of it, it did take a couple of hours, but it did provide me with a lot of fodder for thought. 
Do read The Two Faces of Radha here.
And there’s last week’s micro fiction, Breathe, a futuristic sci-fi, which I published on Earth Day, (first published in Cosmopolitan many years ago) about the possible toxicity of a future Earth, that has quickly climbed to a star and ribbon impressive achievement on Wattpad. Read it here. 
Of course, the first story I published, The Man With A Placard, is also up, and with a ribbon and badge all its own. Do read it too, if you haven’t. 
If you haven’t yet, do follow me on Wattpad here. I promise you a new short story every Friday.
And yes, my new book is now finally live on Amazon. It is my third release this pandemic, the first was the e-book, How To Raise Kids With Hope And Wonder In Times of A Pandemic and Climate Change published by Amazon Westland (yes, I know that’s a mouthful of a title, but it is a lovely read even if I say so myself) and the second is the absolutely hilarious The Kitty Party Murder, published by Harper Collins India which was out in November 2020. This one, More Things on Heaven and Earth, is a very different book. It is surreal, haunting, lyrical. If you’ve read and enjoyed The Face at the Window and Missing, Presumed Dead, you will like More Things in Heaven and Earth as well. 
This is what it is about:
“When Kamla Malik’s husband Nihar dies of a heart attack in Goa, she’s devastated. Haunted by the lack of closure, she tries mediums, séances, and Ouija boards to help her establish contact. All she wants is a final goodbye. She tries to find him in the twisted labyrinthine worlds that he now inhabits, but does she really want him back, and worse, if she finds him, will he let her go? Or is she, as the doctors believe, living in the tunnels of her mind, making it impossible for her to distinguish hallucination from reality? Coincidentally, her eccentric and ailing maternal aunt invites her to visit at her splendidly isolated and crumbling villa in Goa. Here, Kamla meets Victor, her aunt’s stepson. He stakes his claim over the villa and with it, over Kamla. While she accepts that Victor is her here and now, why does Nihar continue to torment her? Is she doomed to be forever haunted by him? An exquisitely sinister tale of bereavement and the grey lands between the dead and the living, both within the mind and outside of it, More Things in Heaven and Earth is the horror of what happens when love, obsession and betrayal collide.”
I do hope you read it. Available on Amazon here: tinyurl.com/ar5rv6cu
I hope you are staying safe, and you and your loved ones are all well in these trying times. Don’t forget to double mask, sanitise and stay away from crowds.
April 21, 2021
Wattpad: Breathe-A very short story
Read it here
#Dystopia #ScienceFiction #ShortStory
April 18, 2021
More Things in Heaven and Earth- On pre-orders now
If you’ve read and enjoyed The Face at the Window and Missing, Presumed Dead, here’s More Things in Heaven and Earth. My third book of the pandemic. It feels rather awkward to release a book during the pandemic. I feel apologetic to even put out requests to pre-order on my whatsapp, social media. Everyone is struggling right now, there is illness, death, grief that is choking us, as a people, as a country. But I do owe it to my book to talk about it. It is a strange book, it is dark, it is twisted and I promise you it will haunt you.
I cannot thank my editor at Amaryllis Manjul, Rashmi Menon enough for taking these chances on me, and my strangely disturbing books. Thanks to Amaryllis Manjul, Vikas Rakheja and Manoj Kulkarni for the trust and faith they place in me. To Mishta Roy at Drawater for this haunting cover. To Ankita, at Manjul who is getting this book out into the world. To you, my readers, who will read it, and hopefully find it thudding with your heartbeat, who will talk about it with other readers, who will gather it to you and make it yours.
On Pre-orders Now
April 14, 2021
On parenting, feminism and raising sons : All Indians Matter podcast by Ashraf Engineer
Feminism is about ensuring all people are equal, regardless of gender. It is about women having power over themselves, about getting rid of dominance. In this context, parenting assumes great significance. Kiran Manral – author, TedX speaker, mother to a 17-year-old son – speaks to All Indians Matter about the role of parenting in relation to feminism – especially when it comes to raising sons.
https://www.saavn.com/…/Parenting-and…/U8IgwmLvmSw_
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1yOMAcmuBwnEHCd42LNQaJ…
https://podcasts.apple.com/…/all…/id1527740349…
https://castbox.fm/vd/373156579
Website: https://www.allindiansmatter.in/audio-podcast-author…/
The podcast is also available on Gaana, Google Podcasts and many other platforms.
April 1, 2021
#NewBookAlert & Cover Reveal: More Things in Heaven and Earth
Yes, that’s the Bard of Avon’s line, one that has always resonated with me.
“And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Hamlet. Act 1 Scene 5 lines 187 188.
There are indeed more things in this world than we can explain, and we struggle to fit science and rationale to these.
#COVERREVEAL
— Amaryllis (@AmaryllisManjul) April 1, 2021
Our bestselling author, @KiranManral is back with a brand new brilliant novel, ‘More Things in Heaven and Earth’. It is a story of love,loss,deceit,betrayal and all the lands that lie between the two, both within the mind and outside of it.
Cover Design: Mishta Roy pic.twitter.com/Czx8vLKRJQ
This is among the books I’ve written that walks over quietly to the dark side, the one with no explanations, no definitions. The other two are The Face at the Window and Missing, Presumed Dead, all three have been books that have clawed themselves out of me. Dark, disturbing and emotional.
My third book out this terrible pandemic, and coincidentally my third book with my fabulous editor Rashmi Menon at Amaryllis Publishing, the third wonderful cover Mishta Roy of Drawater has done for my books by Amaryllis. (She’s done The Reluctant Detective and Once Upon A Crush earlier, and then The Face at the Window and Missing, Presumed Dead).
The book will be out soon. It is tough to get a book out in the pandemic, you can’t do the usual rounds of promotions, book shop visits, offline events, so I am hoping this book will find the bookshelves it so deserves.
I do hope you read it, love it, recommend it. It’s taken over four to five years of my life to write and a couple of years to make it to print. And do tell me what you think of the cover.
March 15, 2021
Do vote for The Kitty Party Murder: Nominated for Popular Choice in the prestigious AutHER awards
I have been holding my breath for the past few days.My most recent book, The Kitty Party Murder, published by Harper Collins, has been nominated in the ‘Most Popular Fiction’ category at the prestigious Auther Awards by the Times of India Group and JK Papers.The last time I had a book on a book prize list, was way back with Saving Maya which made it to the Saboteur Awards, UK longlist. This is a prize supported by the Art Council England, so you can imagine, I was rather chuffed about it. And this nomination for popular choice at the Auther Awards makes me rather chuffed as well–given that it is my constant endeavour to keep reiterating that we need to given humour the importance and the platform it deserves in the arts. The Kitty Party Murder is a book that is close to my heart and I am so overjoyed to be part of the shortlist with dear friends like Koral Dasgupta, Preeti Shenoy, Sumana Roy, Anuja Chandramouli, Nirmala Govindrajan, Jahnavi Barua, Shuma Raha as well as authors I admire like Namita Gokhale, Shobhaa De, Kalpana Swaminathan, and others.
This is a category that you get to decide who wins, and yes, this post is to request you to please vote for The Kitty Party Murder, if you’ve read my book and enjoyed it. Today is the last day to vote, it will barely take you a few seconds. And earn you my undying gratitude forever and ever. Serious. Cross my heart.
Here’s the link to vote or copy paste this in your browser:
https://autherawards.in/public-voting/
Thank you!
February 21, 2021
The Kitty Party Murder on Bookasur
“What Kiran Manral is doing here is that she is creating a new genre.”
“This kind of a setting for murder mysteries hasn’t been seen. There isn’t too much of this upper class, city dweller, apartment complex in modern day writing. Kiran Manral captures this world really, really well. She understands these people, she’s seen these people up close.”
“…a book that is so much fun to read and that achieves so many remarkable things in terms of Indian Writing in English.”
When a generous review from a kind book reviewer makes your morning! Listen in to what Bookasur aka P.K. Nissim has to say about The Kitty Party Party Murder. And if you haven’t read it yet, well….
January 30, 2021
#TheKittyPartyMurder in The Guardian UK
Bestillmybeatingheart.
And thanks Ashima Jain for this. And Sanchita Jain for the gorgeous cover that helped get it there.
Read the article here
