A journalist, a TEDx speaker, an entrepreneur, a researcher, an environmental activist - the feathers are unending on Kiran Manral’s cap. Ahead of Prime Day, we sat down with Ms. Manral for a heart to heart on many of her upcoming projects.
As a recipient of several awards such as the Women Achievers Award by Young Environmentalists Association and the recognition from Ministry of Women and Child Welfare, GoI, for excellence in the field of writing, Ms. Manral is no stranger to the spotlight. So when the spotlight was on her ahead of Prime Day, she chose to raise her voice for an issue that is critical to our entire generation.
Ms. Manral’s upcoming project revolves around climate change and pollution, which are two pressing issues of the modern day world and also happen to be her interest areas. As scientists estimate our inevitable doom inching closer day by day, we are now more than ever required to dwell on the impact we have in our daily lives on the environment. Ms. Manral says that she has written a few dystopian short fiction pieces which are based on the climate crisis, along with a series of reports on how pollution is impacting our health.
I worry about us, on this planet. I can see, year on year, how things are changing, how we are slowly tipping over. And I worry for our children.
An ardent lover of fiction, Ms. Manral says that “reading fiction helps you develop imagination, empathy, allows you to time travel, and live other lives”. She also dwells on the importance of non-fiction reading, which helps one widen their knowledge and assists in developing analytical skills. But above all, Ms. Manral takes joy in how “reading gives you words to put your thoughts into even when you speak or write”.
An award-winning writer herself, Ms Manral outlines the editor’s role in making sense of her ramblings and says how she is thankful to editors for deriving coherent sense out of long pieces at times. We are happy to have Ms. Manral’s writing as part of the Prime Reading program, and would recommend our readers to read her work Raising Kids with Hope and Wonder in Times of a Pandemic and Climate Change.
