Featured Interview With Ratna Srivastava
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I thought I was born to be a teacher. I was wrong. I never thought I would be a writer. I was wrong again! Sometimes there is so much joy hidden when things don’t go as we thought. I am one example.
Originally, a kindergarten teacher, I was head over heels in love with my work and felt like a king in my realm. Although I had always been fond of writing, I had strictly kept it private. But one day suddenly changed it all. I was meditating when I saw images of Earth flashing in my head. Those images were so startling and so shocking that I decided to write them down so I could share them with the world. And that’s how I became a writer.
I live in Munich, Germany, with my husband and child. Reading and writing continue to dominate my life just like they always did, in addition to my deep love for nature, animals, children, music and Earth.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I think I must have been born with a book and a pen in my hand!
Since my very early childhood I had been into reading and writing.
No matter what I wrote, whether an essay, a letter, a comment, a blog post, anything; I noticed, it had some kind of effect on people, and they would always remark, ‘Wow! That’s very well written. You should be a writer.’
Once I posted a 7-10-sentences in a comment on a newspaper article, and several people wrote back to me, ‘You should be a writer!’
And I never took such comments seriously. Never.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love reading classics with romance fiction being my favorite most genre. Charlotte Bronte, Enid Blyton and Arthur Conan Doyle are my Gods! Fatty of Famous Five? My first crush! Sherlock Holmes? Don’t even mention. He’s my first and eternal love! Jane Eyre? I might be her reincarnation.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Do you know why I wrote Emit Eht?
Well, allow me to share a new perspective with you just for the sake of some fun and critical creative thinking.
Let us, just for one moment, forget how old is Earth, humanity and our civilisation. Let’s forget when was writing invented and age of artefacts. Let us do some time engineering: Remember it is just for fun.
We are significantly developed in science and technology, and Earth is reeling in chaotic climate change and environmental damages. Imagine, an asteroid (or whatever) rams in and humanity is finished (like dinosaurs) leaving sundry alive here and there.
In absence of human beings, their activities, consumption and industries, the earth starts recovering. All existing places and things are swallowed up and many years elapse.
The fun part is about to begin:
1. How long can/will it take for surviving ‘sundry’ humans to reach current level of advancement?
2. Can/will their technology be same as our current one?
3. How much of our current existence will be able to survive thousands of years in future?
4. Will future scientists, historians and archaeologists be able to discover accurately how we are living right now? Will they know we have 5G Internet, Facebook, Online bank- transfer, Insta-chat, Cable TV, Nano-technology, 3-D printing, space-exploration etc etc etc etc etc?
5. If future scientist found an Audi symbol of 5 rings (Or that of BMW) would they know it meant a car? They might think it means four continents, or three eyes or four suns and three moons…!
6. Writing (and what not) will again have to be invented and would be most probably only 4–6 thousand years old.
The funniest part is this:
Are we doing the same? What’s the proof we aren’t? Oh, there are proofs all right…Just look around at yourself now. Now, does Göbekli Tepe and Pyramids, Nazca Lines of Peru, Baghdad Battery, London Hammer, Stonehenge and the like, make some more sense than Historians are willing to tell us???
This is why I wrote Emit Eht. Deep sigh…!
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