Ask An Author | Kiran Manral on Writing & her Latest Book, 'All Those Who Wander'
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Hello Kiran, thank you so much for joining in. I absolutely love the book. I think it's bursting with this spine tingling gorgeousness and complexity of time travel and non sequential lives. And the story of Ana, who's at a different age each time we meet her, I think is underpinned by the sense of yearning all through the multiple lives that Ana used to be and will be
Kiran Manral
@KiranManral · 1:59
And and the tough part was getting it all down in words, right? And that's what revisions and edits and rewriting is for. So I think there are multiple drafts of the book in my computer. I also reworked the final draft, I think, multiple times before I thought it was all the ends were tied up and everything was sorted
Thank you for sharing that, Kiran. Popular culture and the media are instrumental in propagating images of selfless mothers who sacrifice their time, energy, careers and even their individuality in the name of raising the next generation of good citizens. But in your book you have chosen to go against the mainstream representations of motherhood. The protagonist's mother is someone whose mothering experiences do not reflect conventional family models. Mandira's character is one that beautifully underscores the complexity of contemporary motherhood
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Kiran Manral
@KiranManral · 2:56
So I have always tried to explore motherhood and what the impositions of society are on motherhood and what happens to the mothers who don't conform to what is expected of them. I think Mandara is one such character that came off my observations of various different kinds of mothers around me and I'm glad she turned out as complex as she did
Kiran Manral
@KiranManral · 3:12
I don't dare get into specifics because I am not a medical person, but I do speak to a lot of people, people who have suffered with people who are grappling with mental health issues. I speak to therapists, I speak to family members, I speak to caregivers. I've been doing this. I started with Missing, Presumed Dead because my protagonist was suffering from mental illness, and I did a lot of secondary and primary research for that
Kiran Manral
@KiranManral · 2:06
You. So my writing always begins with the character. It always begins with a character in a certain situation. And then I like to explore where the character goes from there. So for the face of the window, it was Mrs McNally, this retired Anglo Indian school teacher, sitting in a cottage, writing the story of her life. And then and then there is a tap at the window, right? So that's where the character was and the story took off with missing, presumed dead
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