Ramendra Kumar (Ramen) is an award-winning writer, performance storyteller and inspirational speaker with 49 books. His writings have been translated into 32 languages and included in 26 textbooks and many anthologies in various countries. Ramen has written across all genres ranging from picture books to adult fiction, satire, poetry, travelogues, biographies and on issues related to parenting and relationships.
His writings have been published by the major publishing houses in India. His books brought out by National Book Trust (NBT), India have notched up sales of more than 4.9 lakh copies in just one year.
Ramen has been invited to several international literary festivals as well as Indian events such as Jaipur Litfest and seminars organised by Sahitya Akademi and IGNOU. The author has won a total of 41 awards in the competition for writers of children’s literature organised by Children’s Book Trust (CBT) over the years, which is among the highest by any writer.
Ramen was chosen as the ‘Author and Storyteller of the Year’ (2022), on ‘Talking Stories’, London, UK’s number one Radio Programme dedicated to the art of storytelling. He was nominated as a Jury Member for the Best Children’s Author Category of The Times of India’s ‘Women AutHer’ Awards, 2020. Ramen was also selected as a mentor for the Scholastic Writers Academy.
An alumnus of the prestigious Hyderabad Public School (HPS), Ramen is an Engineer & an MBA. He and his inspiration, his wife Madhavi, were General Managers at SAIL, when they took Voluntary Retirement to pursue their respective passions. Their children are bonsai celebrities in their own right. While Ankita is a youth icon and a travel blogger with an Instagram following of 296 K, Aniket creates cool Apps and designs covers for his dad’s books.
Ramen is now a Cancer warrior and an inspiration to many.
His website is www.ramendra.in and he has a page devoted to him on Wikipedia.
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Thanks for this thought provoking article. You are right; we are “getting our perspectives muddled up” and we need to “control the childish Duryodhana in each one of us and encourage the childlike Krishna.”
How very true about a child following “the language of his heart.” This reminds me of an incident about 2 years ago when Antarip the 5 year old nephew of my wife came to visit us with his mother and father.
In the evening, my then 6 year old child Anshula took Antarip to play with her friends. They had a great time and effortlessly communicated with each other, even though Antarip did not understand Hindi (he lives in Kolkata) and Anshula’s friends did not know a word of Bengali. They were listening to the language of their hearts.
Our biggest challenge, as you have so rightly pointed out, is we forget to enjoy the moment. We are more concerned about what has happened in the past or may happen in the future. The other day at lunch time we were soaking the beautiful sunshine at the roof of our office building. It is springtime here in New Delhi.
Instead of enjoying the weather my colleague was complaining that it is getting so warm in March. The months of May and June will be very hot; we will have a difficult time in summer. In peak summer temperatures in New Delhi go up to 45 degree Celsius.
The other challenge of course is unlike a child we do not trust or accept things easily – most of the time we are Doubting Thomases. We surround ourselves with walls of “fear, mistrust, prejudice, doubt and selfishness.”
After reading your article I am consciously trying to be natural and childlike, and not curb my impulses.
I look forward to more such thought provoking posts of yours.