Chandigarh
23 May 2022
DIVYA AZAD
Prabha Khaitan Foundation (PKF) organized an interactive session – ‘The Write Circle’, with award-winning author Kiran Manral, on her book ‘Rising 30 Women Who Changed India.’ The Ehsaas Women of Chandigarh collaborated with PKF to hold the literary event.
Writer, poet, and blogger Sharmita Bhinder who is an ‘Ehsaas Woman of Chandigarh’ and founder of EmPower NGO for special children interacted with Author Kiran Manral. Kiran Manral decoded her ‘Rising 30 Women Who Changed India’ journey in the engaging one-on- one with Sharmita.
It is noteworthy that PKF, dedicated to socio-cultural welfare and humanitarian causes, is a non-profit trust founded by Late Dr Prabha Khaitan in the early 1980s. Based out of Kolkata, PKF is dedicated to promoting performing arts, culture, education, literature, gender equality and women’s empowerment. It collaborates with caregivers, committed individuals and like-minded institutions to implement cultural, educational, literary and social welfare projects in India.
On the other hand, ‘Ehsaas Women of Chandigarh’, comprises Sharmita Bhinder, Manisha Jain, Rishma Gill, Shalu Goel and others, and is an initiative of Prabha Khaitan Foundation. It is a conglomeration of women from all walks of life who come together to promote and support the society through a slew of activities which focus on women empowerment.
Talking about her book ‘Rising 30 Women Who Changed India,’ Manral said: “It has stories of 30 amazing contemporary Indian women. It explores what shaped them; the challenges they faced; the influences they had; the choices they made and how they negotiated around or broke the boundaries that sought to confine them, either through society or circumstance.”
Manral, whose novella ‘Saving Maya’ was long-listed for the 2018 Saboteur Award supported by the Arts Council of England in the UK, said that by hailing from diverse backgrounds, different generations, the women in her book have risen through their sheer grit, determination, bolstered with passion, and are, today, names to look up to, to hold out as examples to the next generation of young women and girls, giving them courage to reach out to their dreams.
Manral informed that her book ‘Rising 30 Women Who Changed India’ features the stories of much celebrated, fabulous women like Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit, Fathima Beevi, Mahasweta Devi, Amrita Sher-Gil, Amrita Pritam, Sonal Mansingh, MS Subbulakshmi, Chhavi Rajawat, Karnam Malleswari, Shailaja Teacher and Hima Das.
Shree Cement supported the event and Hotel Taj was the hospitality partner. The event was attended by many well known personalities from Chandigarh’s literary world who came to listen to and see the highly interesting interaction. A question and answer session with the author also took place.
