Season 1, Episode 13

Woman of Many Genres with Kiran Manral

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Today’s Guest

In today’s episode I am speaking with Kiran Manral.

Kiran Manral is an award winning and bestselling Indian author, TEDx Speaker, columnist, mentor and feminist. She has written books across genres in both fiction and nonfiction. Her books include The Reluctant Detective, Once Upon A Crush, All Aboard, Karmic Kids, A Boy’s Guide to Growing Up, The Face at the Window, Saving Maya, Missing, Presumed Dead, 13 Steps to Bloody Good Parenting which she co-authored with Ashwin Sanghi and Raising Kids with Hope and Wonder in Times of a Pandemic and Climate Change. She has authored a short series called True Love Stories for Juggernaut. She also has published short stories in various magazines, in acclaimed anthologies like the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Have A Safe Journey, Boo, The Best Asian Speculative Fiction 2018, Grandpa’s Tales, Magical Women and City of Screams.

Her nonfiction book, Karmic Kids: The Story of Parenting Nobody Told You, was listed amongst the top five books on parenting by Indian authors in 2015 by the Sunday Guardian. One review called her the “Bombeck of Bombay.” The Face at the Window, released in 2016, was listed amongst the top 30 books written by women authors in 2016 by The Ladies Finger, as among the must read books by contemporary women authors by BuzzingBubs and received much critical acclaim. The Times of India stated that “Manral may have very well pioneered the “Himalayan Gothic” genre” with this book. Her novella, Saving Maya, was long listed for the 2018 Saboteur Awards, UK, supported by the Arts Council England. The Face at the Window was long listed at Jio MAMI Word to Screen and showcased at the Singapore International Film Festival.

In 2013, she was awarded the Young Environmentalist’s Women Achievers Award, and in 2016, the WOW, Women of Worth awards for Creative Writing. She was among the six women authors shortlisted for the Femina Women Awards for Literature in 2017. The Indian Council of UN Relations (ICUNR) supported by the Ministry for Women and Child Development, Government of India, awarded her the International Women’s Day Award 2018 for excellence in the field of writing.

An ex-journalist, she has been a columnist on sexuality at DNA, on gender issues with Tehelka, on parenting at yowoto.com, and feminism at SheThePeople.TV. She was also on the planning board of the Kumaon Literary Festival, a mentor with Sheroes and an advisor on the Board of Literature Studio, Delhi. She has co-curated Festivelle 2016, and the SheThePeople Women Writers Fest across city wise editions for three years. She has been a speaker and a panelist at most of the leading literature festivals in India, as well as at educational institutions like IIT Bhubaneshwar, IIT Roorkee, St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and prestigious conferences like FICCI Frames, Bangalore Tech Summit, etc.

She was part of the core founding team of Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month and Violence Against Women Awareness Month, two social media initiatives that ran for four years and a mentor with Vital Voices Global Walk 2017. She also initiated India Helps, a volunteer network to help disaster victims which worked on the rehabilitation of 26/11 attack victims.

 

If you love the show please leave a review on Apple podcast.

If you have a comment or question please reach out to me at malini@malinisarma.com or on Instagram @gladiatrixpodcast

Malini Sarma 0:01

Hi, Kiran, thank you so much for joining the show today. I'm really excited to have you on because your story is quite fascinating. So I'm really happy to have you on today.

Kiran Manral 0:12

Thanks for inviting me, Malini, I'm so glad you invited me. And it's an honor and

Malini Sarma 0:16

a pleasure to be on your show. Thank you. So I have kind of read upon your bio. You know, I've talked to you before I saw some of the books that you've written. So you were born and raised in Mumbai, and your mother is one of your very strong role models. Growing up, what were some of the experience that kind of, you know, shaped your upbringing.

Kiran Manral 0:40

You know, Malini I grew up in Mumbai, which was then Bombay decades ago, and it is a very cosmopolitan city. So I think when grows up in a position of privilege, because it isn't quite as much of a struggle as it is for the rest of the young girls in different parts of the country. So Did you know go to school with college everything and I never really realized the kind of pressures that women do face in other parts of the country to just get an education or to be allowed to step out of the house or to you know, do what they want with their lives because that was never an issue. But

I think what what, what are some of the experiences that shaped my upbringing, I think I was very lucky to have a very

I think one of the earliest feminists I knew was my father. So he I lost him when I was very young when I was nine. But he was the one who brought me up. As son. I don't know whether that was a conscious thing because there was an only child or whether he was genuinely you know, sort of pushing the envelope on how you brought a girl back then. This was the early 1970s. So I was interested jeans and shorts and T shirts all the time I had a boy crop I played cricket I flew kites, I jumped walls, he taught me how to box, you know, so there wasn't at any point that I thought to myself that you know, you're a girl, you can't do that. And luckily for me, my mother was pretty much the same. She was quite happy to let me be and I never really got into the kitchen or did any domestic chores.

I thought to be a bit of a problem when I grow up.

Unknown Speaker 2:34

I still am an absolute dud in the kitchen, not taking care of the house. That's some that's life skill that you've unfortunately never picked up. So it was quite an unconventional upbringing, in that sense, and they were quite contented. Let me be into Let me read and let me do what I wanted. So I was less than that, I think. Okay.

Malini Sarma 2:55

So you have you had the freedom to choose what you wanted to do or what you wanted to study, or how you wanted to, you know, whatever you wanted to pursue was kind of you were given a kind of a free rein

Unknown Speaker 3:11

Absolutely and that was a blessing because you know how it is Malini once you get to a certain age, the parents, I I would like to talk about the girl who topped my batch in college, she was married off immediately. And in there was nothing like the option of a career for her. So in that sense, I think I was quite blessed that my mother really didn't pressurize me into thinking but you know, if I didnt well get married. You get married now and what is this career and journalism isn't for girls, you keep odd hours and all that kind of pressure never really bogged me down. I was free to do what I wanted and free to make my own mistakes as well. So

Malini Sarma 3:59

yep, that that's Really important making you being able to have the freedom to make your own mistakes?

Unknown Speaker 4:05

Absolutely. So I have a lot many things you think back in retrospect and you think Mom You should have you know, kicked me a little harder push me a little harder let me I dropped off quite a number of courses I joined them I dropped out I have this amazing, the terrible low boredom threshold so I don't end up not completing anything. And in retrospect, I think more you should have pushed me harder for the hell I was a grown child. Let me make my mistakes.

Malini Sarma 4:37

So when you went when you decide because you you love writing and you love words in so when you went to college, what were you studying? How did you end up in journailsm? Because you were you were not you didn't go to school to become a journalist Did you

Unknown Speaker 4:51

know I didn't, I didn't. Back then it wasn't journalism as a course wasn't something that you know people went into because you just drifted into journalism there were courses of course there was St. Xaviers, there was Sophia college there were courses that taught you journalism. I Oh, I think when I entered college I took arts because I wanted to get rid of science and maths. Mm hmm. Common story. Oh, yeah. And I remember Malini I had brought a pretty decent percentage at that point. It was distinction and above and when I chose arts I joined the college and I went to submit my form and the professor there looked at it and said, Why are you taking arts you can easily get into science with this there's no trouble at all with these kind of marks. I said the other marks are fine, but I hate maths and I'm not going to do it again. And for a week there was the house was like a you know, mourning house coming in and giving the condolences. Why did you let her take art? What will she do arts A great percentage of the arts aka, sorry, what will she do with arts there's no scope in arts. She you know, they just couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that somebody could get that much and then up to word for arts and not take science but mom was pretty cool about it and said, Do what you want and even in arts there was no kind of pressure to you know, do what would be possibly lucrative in terms of earning an income later that maybe psychology or economics or something like that. She was quite happy let me go fly free and take literature which was absolutely the most unlucrative option for me I majored with the BA honors in literature, English literature. And after, sort of, you know, Malini we just got into I was always freelance writing for various publications while I was still at college. So I just moved into writing for them. And then I went, there was an opening, you know, I heard about it, and people were kind enough to give me a chance. And that's how I got my first jobs. Hmm. And that's how it all happened. It wasn't

Kiran Manral 7:12

you know, it wasn't something I planned. But writing. So

Malini Sarma 7:16

that was all constant, you know, your, your, your writing was your constant. It didn't matter what kind of medium but that was your constant. Okay. So you you were you you're like women in media. And I think at that time, there weren't there were a handful, but probably not as many. Right? When you are anything you work for quite a few publications. Do you have a mentor that you kind of kind of took you by the hand and said, You know, this is how you should do or were you like a group of women that kind of, you know, fed off of each other and help each other out? or What was it like being in women in media at that time?

Unknown Speaker 7:56

Um, what was it like being women of course there were al lot of very feisty women in media at that time. It wasn't like I was so one of the pioneers. They were wonderful, very strong, very brave journalists doing groundbreaking and investigative work. And one wanted to emulate them and follow in their footsteps. But I think I was a bit of a cowardly custard and I ended up doing soft features. And also I don't know I was more inclined towards the features part of it rather than the news journalism and the grittiness of news journalism. How did it work? There were a lot of mentors Of course, there was Rauf Ahmed, who was then the editor for Filmfare for who got me started free into freelancing for Saturday times and Sunday review. At the Times of India there was Sathya Saran who was the editor of Femina very kindly put assign me a college student articles to write and publish my short stories at the time. I was still in college back then. I remember I didn't have a computer at home when she would allow me to come into the office and sit at one of the computers there, banishing one of the staffers. You don't look at me very angrily all the time.

Unknown Speaker 9:15

To let me just key out my stories.

Unknown Speaker 9:19

It was a kindness I will never forget. And of course, there were other mentors as well along the line. But I think what really was a great influence was when I joined the Asian age, it was just being set up. They were there was a newsroom. There are young, feisty, fierce, young journalists who were just starting on fire in their bellies. And it was a wonderful experience. It was a wonderful experience working there. We all wanted to prove ourselves, we all wanted to to create work, we all want to, you know, have a bylines out there. And I think that was a very defining experience.

Malini Sarma 9:59

So with that, This was mainly women, or were the men and women and they kind of supported each other

Unknown Speaker 10:05

There were men and women, but I think my clan sort of happened with all the newbees of the women journalists who joined up then, and there were four or five of us and we bonded and it was a very, very lovely time that I spent in that newsroom.

Malini Sarma 10:24

So what happened after Asian Age

Unknown Speaker 10:27

After Asian Age, I went to, for a very short stint to a news channel that never took off. And then I joined the Times of India where I was there for a while. And The Times of India is a wonderful old institution, but like every old institution, it is like a bureaucratic government set up. You know, he actually had a department next to ours, which was so I forget what it was but they would actually put their heads down and take a nap for the lunch break.

Unknown Speaker 10:57

It was that governmental.

Unknown Speaker 11:01

I'm just picturing it in my head.

Unknown Speaker 11:03

It would have little cushions which they would take off from under their butts and put on the desks and go off to sleep. Like clockwork

Unknown Speaker 11:13

That's hilarious.

Unknown Speaker 11:16

While it was wonderful, and it was great exposure because it was The Times of India and your byline in The Times of India I was what 23 24 you know, it's going all over India. It's everyone knows you and but it was a for a point of time I did tell you a very low boredom threshold and that's what happened.

Malini Sarma 11:40

Okay. So, see you stayed Times of India for a while and then and then what happened.

Unknown Speaker 11:44

I moved to cosmopolitan Malini after The Times of India was features editor at cosmopolitan and in just before I had joined The Times of India I'd got married and I think That was around the time I decided to try to have a baby and I was having some issues conceiving. So I decided to take time off to, you know, focus on conceiving and then of course the offspring came along, and then I never really got back to full time work.

Malini Sarma 12:16

Did you meet your husband? Like, while you were in college, because I was reading somewhere when you were? I think there was some article they were talking about, you know, arranged marriages versus finding your own spouse and I think there was some discussion and you had mentioned you you had you had mentioned that there was no way you were going to be asked to marry somebody who you never you didn't know because just because the family agreed. What was that? What was that all about?

Unknown Speaker 12:45

How it is Malini You know, you're young, you're pretty attractive and all the way concerned, ready to start sending feelers that you go to, if or function in the family and people make polite enquiries And you know, things come along and somebody takes it upon themselves to get you settled because you're the spoil for child with no father so there'll be a little favor to the universe and take this up against a good karma. So some, some proposals, as they say, came my way and then I was supposed to meet those people. And then I think I sort of nixed it I did meet up with them because you know, an aunt was insisting on some friend of my mom's was insisting, but I would be very clear like, Hello, I'm not gonna be cooking and cleaning I cant cook to save my life. And, like, what I'm completely agnostics don't please don't expect me to follow any ritual or religion or anything. And I think it scared them because back then feminist feminism was not even a word.

Kiran Manral 13:59

So I Never heard back from any of

Unknown Speaker 14:01

you knew what to say to scare them off?

Kiran Manral 14:07

Absolutely. Not my mother. She sort of she was, she said you will find your own partner. She had found her own partner. So she wasn't really panicking about it. So in the last month of college I, he might I met, so to speak my husband, but we went to college together for those years, but somehow parts that never crossed, and we dated for a while for six years and then got married. After that.

Malini Sarma 14:37

Your mom was happy, I'm sure. I mean, she there was no issues at that point.

Kiran Manral 14:40

Oh, she was pretty cool. She was just very worried because, you know, I hadn't had a boyfriend for all the years that I was in college and she found that very abnormal. So one day she sat me down and she asked me, sweetie, you know, darling, if you don't like boys, tell me about,

Malini Sarma 14:56

you know, for somebody to for a mom to ask. At that time, I'm just thinking to myself to that going back to do you even say you don't have a boyfriend? You know, you don't like boys. I mean, that is really, really Oh shall before. Yeah, that's really forward. I mean, she's so forward thinking that's amazing.

Unknown Speaker 15:14

That's cool. And in fact, I think when I hit my teens in my early teens, she handed me a book, everything you wanted to know about sex, but was afraid to ask and she said read it. Wow, I read it from cover to cover. And it was a very, very scientific very, you know, it was there was nothing erotic about that book. So I knew technicalities about everything.

Malini Sarma 15:42

I wish I had got that book when I was that age, I think a lot of things a lot of us that, you know, found out a lot of things much later and there's nothing like what they say in the romance novels or movies. It's nothing like that.

Unknown Speaker 15:57

So I ended up having a video cut and dried approach to everything. And even now when my son's a teenager I'm explaining things to him in a very cut and dried manner. So i dont think

Unknown Speaker 16:08

he quite likes me for removing all the fun from everything

Unknown Speaker 16:11

before. Did you give him the book too?

Kiran Manral 16:14

Oh, no, unfortunately, no, I think the book was loaned out to my niece after that. Never got back.

Malini Sarma 16:23

Okay, so so so after basically after you got married, and then you had your son, you pretty much stayed home. You didn't go back into corporate but then you started. You were kind of dabbling, and writing but then you seriously started writing? Only recently, like, probably about 10 years ago.

Unknown Speaker 16:42

Uh, no, actually, Malini that's not what happened when I quit to have my son. My husband was also quitting. He was with LG Electronics and he quit to set up an advertising agency. Okay, so I joined up with him in terms of, you know, handling the creative department of the agency. So I was handling for quite a long time even also the time my son was little, but it wasn't, you know, a full time. I mean, it was our own agency. So right it was something I did. And pretty I mean, I was at work every day, but you know you I don't really count that as corporate work. It was my own.

Malini Sarma 17:22

You had the freedom to come

Unknown Speaker 17:24

and go and do what you needed to do. Okay, I do. And then we shut the agency down. After which I joined up, I began remote working. So I worked with Gartner Iconocultrue US as their India lead for trendspotting for around 6 years. In trendspotting, I did some research work, I was always freelance writing. So writing continued, but it wasn't, you know, for any specific organization. I was freelancing and doing a lot of writing in, across you know, across mediums I can go there was corporate writing brochures, press releases that kind of writing. There's feature writing, there was web writing. And I did start blogging as well. Okay during that interval

Malini Sarma 18:11

okay, when you're when your son was little right

Unknown Speaker 18:13

when he was little, that entire or 10 years, I would say I spent doing my riyaaz for my books.

Malini Sarma 18:22

Yep, they are. They always say everything that you do is a is a practice for the next big project. So,

Kiran Manral 18:27

yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I think the blogs became my practice for my next big project because the blogs were the ones that got me the readership.

And the

I, I don't know how to what to call it. But you know, I got people knowing people knew about me, and they knew or familiar with my style of writing and when I was finally ready, and wrote my first book I had already made cheerleading base material, the first book on all my readers of my blog,

Malini Sarma 19:01

That's awesome. So you've already built a fan base. And that's how that's how actually how I met you because my sister and you are big bloggers. And then because when, when I was asking her if she was you have to talk to Kiran, she is just, and I'm like, Oh, so how do you know her? And she goes, Oh, I haven't met half the people that I keep talking about, because I just, I read all we're all big bloggers, and we just like talk, you know, read each other's stuff. And we have our own styles. And we really appreciate how you know all of us write. So

Unknown Speaker 19:33

yeah, I mean,

Kiran Manral 19:34

very interesting story about your sister.

Malini Sarma 19:37

Oh, yeah, please tell me.

Unknown Speaker 19:38

So I lived in this complex and Malad, gated suburban complex, and there was this little boy who would come down every evening with them with his maid, and he would be playing and my son would play with him and he was tinier than my son. And I would play with him, I would call him gunda, very affectionately and So one day, his mom came down, and she was a pretty girl with, you know, lovely eyes and she was hugely pregnant. And she's, you know, are yo u Kiran? And I say, yes I am. But my son calls you Gunda aunty. And I read your blog. And that's how she recognized me because I think it was a picture of my son on my blog or my pictures or something. And she suddenly realized that this Gunda aunty and her son had been talking about all this time was me, blogger.

Malini Sarma 20:32

Small world, right, you don't even realize who your readers are, and how close they are.

Kiran Manral 20:38

Absolutely. So that was how I met him. I Oh,

Malini Sarma 20:43

that's really cool. So So when did when did you? When was your first book published? Like 10 years ago?

Kiran Manral 20:49

It was December 2011. Okay. Published December 2011. So I think next year, I will celebrate 10 years of being a published author. Wow,

Malini Sarma 21:00

congratulations. It's been a decade of writing. That's, I mean, not not a decade of writing for you, but decade of writing for books. So, I'm so so then once you started the first book, because I think in your case, you have every I think they're I don't think there's any two books of yours that are in the same genre. Is there I mean, I was looking through some of the topics but you you write in multiple genres, it's not like you stick to one is that your threshold boredom threshold that forces you to do that?

Unknown Speaker 21:39

Absolutely. I think I don't think I can write on the same theme or same in the same genre twice. But there may be similarities and since I may write humour or I may write chick lit or I may write romance but they'll always be something a little different from the previous book. There may be horror or there may be a psychological thriller, but it won't be the same thing I can't write the same thing over and over again. And I have great admiration for those who do and stick to their genres. It makes me very difficult to you know, market I'm sure my publishers all tearing their hair out. Because I don't go on any shelf and the readers just don't know what Kiran is gonna come up with next time. This be a nice, big or lucky romance or something else scared.

Unknown Speaker 22:27

Whatever out of me.

Malini Sarma 22:30

That's it. That's a very interesting position to be in. Because I think like you said, most authors tend to stick to one genre. And so people kind of expect, okay, we know what the next book is. But in your case, you have a different genre, or you don't know so how, how does that process come about where you decide or do the characters just pop in your head and then you start, you know, it develops and then it comes into a book. I mean, how does that process how does it come about and how long does it take?

Kiran Manral 22:58

It's different for different books. Malini you know, for instance, the first book that I did the reluctant detective that's very funny, humorous take on a suburban housewife and I think I've drew a lot for my own now. The space I was in at that point. I was a suburban housewife living in a gated complex and everything I wrote about her what I was seeing around me, and even the location where things happen that she finds dead body and things like that. It was all around me. So I just drew from experience. And that book happened very quickly. I wrote it in a very embarrassingly short time. But anyway, came out and there I was a published author, and the next book so I think I, I went for the character. I, the characters come to my head first. That's always the protagonist, who will pop up fully formed in my head and say write me. I'd like to think of it that way. Unless I can visualize my protagonist. Completely flesh and blood, and with all her Her I see because all my protagonists have been women so far. Okay?

Malini Sarma 24:09

That's a feminist in you that makes that happen?

Kiran Manral 24:12

No, it's I think it's a lack of competency as a writer, I should be able to write both genders equally, that I need to work on that. So, once that is in my head, that person is in my head, and I have to sit and write the story. So some stories don't take very long, they might take some months. Some stories might take years, for instance, the face of the window and missing, presumed dead, which are very, both very dark books and the forthcoming more things in heaven and earth. It will take like four years, three years, four years to write the shorter books once upon a crush and all aboard have taken maybe five months, six months, or whatever. So it just depends on the genre and the kind of book and nonfictions take their own sweet time, like the one I'm working on right now is a nonfiction, or commissioned nonfiction on 30 most iconic women of India. That's time.

Malini Sarma 25:10

Yes. All the research,

Kiran Manral 25:12

research research and trying to get interviews with some of the women and that's taking a lot of time. Okay, so it just depends on the kind of book.

Malini Sarma 25:22

So do you write multiple genres at the same time because you some of your books are taking four years and some are taking six months. So do you write like a chiclet kind of thing in between just to kind of get your head off of, you know, the heavy stuff, or do you wait until you finish one before you do the other?

Kiran Manral 25:38

No. I am writing parallely

Unknown Speaker 25:41

so you are?

Unknown Speaker 25:42

Yeah, yeah, that's the low boredom threshold.

Malini Sarma 25:46

Okay, start something different. Yeah, but it probably helps also with the building of the character and the story building, right. moving from one thing and then coming back gives you more perspective.

Kiran Manral 25:56

I don't know I wish I had the kind of focus to stay with one Story long, but I bore myself if I'm sticking to one thing too long, and I need to serve, I'm writing something like I'm doing this book right now, which is very research intensive and very heavy. And in between I just released a book today, an ebook today on raising children, times of climate change in the pandemic, which is more of a personal essay, long essay. So I like the way the pace and the mood and the tone of what I'm writing. I like to keep switching back and forth between things I think it gives you I like to think I maybe I flatter myself that it gives your writing the kind of agility and the fluidity that you know, otherwise you might be because my voice also does change Malini. My voice in the Chiclets and the humour books are very different from the voice in my more serious books.

I think it's like an exercise for me. It's a limbering up, it's a workout, going back and forth. You know,

Malini Sarma 26:59

I think, I think That's good kind of exercises that writing muscle right doing different things. So he said You said your your your latest project is you're writing about the iconic women of India. You said that as a commission project. Yes. When do you expect that to come out? Is that or is that a long term? Oh.

Kiran Manral 27:19

I am still writing it. So it's gonna take some time. Okay.

Malini Sarma 27:23

Yeah, a couple years, or is it like something that we can expect to see next year? Yeah, next year?

Kiran Manral 27:31

I hope so. Yeah. I should be done with it in the next couple of months.

Unknown Speaker 27:38

production.

Malini Sarma 27:39

So looking back, I mean, you know, so far as your journey you started writing you were a journalist, you kind of been in that writing field the whole time. Now you're a published author, you know, one of probably one of the most prolific writers in India, because you write in so many different genres. So anything Knowing what you know now, you know, was there anything that you would have told your younger self or anything that you would have changed about yourself?

Kiran Manral 28:11

I would have told my younger self that you are perfect. Please don't agonize about the way you look, or that thinking that you're fat, you're ugly, you're not enough because you're fine. Please don't let all these expectations of what you're supposed to be like weigh you down. And know that you are good at what you do. Don't keep doubting yourself too much. I was always too hesitant about myself for this to or you know, embarrassed to put myself out there. I still am. It's a fatal flaw and learning how to push myself I'm really learning the day I have a book launch like today to put it out there and to talk about my work. It's something that you know, I find very difficult but it's a necessary evil and I have to do it. So I I think I would have told myself to be more confident about my abilities. And to trust myself I think as women we are always taught to not take up space, you know, is it either physically or you know, virtually so to speak.

Right. take up space, I would have

told her

Malini Sarma 29:20

Yeah, so take up the space right? Put put yourself out there. You also you also gave a TED talk, didn't you? I did.

Kiran Manral 29:29

I did. A couple

Malini Sarma 29:32

Yeah. Okay. And then how did how did that go? How did that How did that come about?

Kiran Manral 29:38

The first one was an invitation from IIT Roorkee. Okay. And it was very strange because it came and then they sort of went to sleep. And I agreed to it and then I was waiting for a confirmation and nothing came through the assumed it and the confirmation so like a week before that. They messaged they mailed into To see what about your travel details? Hello.

Unknown Speaker 30:05

Are we on?

Kiran Manral 30:08

And it will also a very hectic week because I had multiple events and conferences. So I ended up traveling from Bombay to Delhi for another conference and then the next morning from Delhi to Roorkee and traveling back from roorkee that very same night back to Bombay, that is Roorkee to Delhi to Bombay in the same night and Wow. So that was my first TED talk.

Malini Sarma 30:29

What was the topic about

Kiran Manral 30:31

the topic about was about surrendering to your muse, and so on. I think it's something that most creative people would understand that we do push ourselves to write, to produce to be creative, but it's only discipline and it's only letting the Muse work through you that really get the good stuff out. Otherwise, you're just you know, borrowing from the same well that everyone's borrowing from you Right.

Malini Sarma 31:01

And your second TED Talk, Where was that?

Kiran Manral 31:04

That was an online one that just happened a

few days ago is that the video is not yet up. It also, it was about boredom and how to embrace boredom for, you know, for creativity to truly come true because we're constantly filling ourselves with information with doing stuff with being busy with being on social media. So the subconscious is totally taken over. And whether it's creativities springform, it does bring from the subconscious, right? Unless we allow ourselves that space and that vacuum, to let the subconscious come forth, then we don't got to be creative in order to be innovative.

Malini Sarma 31:49

Okay, don't wanna and I think that's valid. I can totally see that. So I'd be pleased to share the link once it does. Come out.

Unknown Speaker 32:02

I'm a huge Ted. I'm a fan Ted fans for that way. I'm always looking for topics to, to listen to.

Malini Sarma 32:13

So, one last question I had for you was your raising, you have your one child, your son, and you will kind of just, you know, you had the privilege and the freedom to chase your dreams, do what you needed to do fall flat on your face, make your own mistakes. You know, figure out what your niches in, work your way through that. What would you want to tell your son? You know, he's watching you as, as as you are doing your thing. And you kind of always spoken your truth. So would you want him to learn from you?

Kiran Manral 32:57

That's a very interesting question. Malini, I have never really thought about what I wanted to learn from me. I would like him to find his own truth. And to stay true to that truth, whatever it is, I would like him to know that

you know, I've raised him in a way that

he can sometimes Tell me, Mom, you're being sexist, you're being racist your being whatever. So when he calls me out in certain things, subconscious biases that maybe I am not aware of, and at speaking, I'm glad of it. I'm glad that you know, he is perceptive enough to call me out and to point out my flaws to me spaces where I mean myself need to be really looking at my own attitudes and my own beliefs. I go we've been raising, you know, Gloria Steinem said that wonderfully, we are raising girls to be more like boys but we are not raising our boys to be like girls so, yeah, so I think I would be very happy if my son grew up to be a worthy partner of any girl, or any boy, whatever he chooses, that's up to him completely, to be a worthy partner in life to whoever he chooses.

Malini Sarma 34:22

Well, I hope he's listening. And

Unknown Speaker 34:27

and I'm sure he'll give you a scorecard too, if you asked him. But no, that's

Malini Sarma 34:36

that that. That's great. But thank you. Thank you so much, Kiran. I really appreciate your taking the time and speaking to me, I'm looking forward to the your latest TED Talk. And I've actually ordered your books because my sister actually said you got to check these out. So I'm like, okay, so I do have them on my reading list.

Kiran Manral 34:55

Lovely, I hope you do. Hope you enjoyed it. And thank you so much for inviting me for this Malini. It was lovely chatting with you.

Malini Sarma 35:01

Yeah, good talking to you too. Thank you. I

Unknown Speaker 35:05

have a good day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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About The Show

This podcast showcases women, predominantly women of color, who in spite of their fear, are forging ahead, chasing their dreams and becoming stronger.

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Malini Sarma

Malini Sarma

Your Host

Hello. I am Malini. I am a dancer, world traveler and storyteller. I am a hard core fan of chai and anything hot. I am always looking for new adventures and would rather be outside than inside.

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