Born in
Mumbai on 22 June 1971, Manral studied at Duruelo Convent High School in Mumbai and graduated in English from
Mithibai College in 1991. After working as an advertising copywriter, she joined the news service at Mumbai's DSJ TV and went on to work as a feature writer for
The Times of India and
Cosmopolitan India. In 2000, she became a freelance journalist and, from 2005, a blogger creating "Thirtysixandcounting" and "Karmickids". At their height, both were considered to be among the most popular blogs in India, before she closed them down in order to devote more time to motherhood. She then turned to writing, publishing
The Reluctant Detective in 2011, which received generally positive reviews.
Once upon a Crush which followed in 2014 describes the romance experienced by an office girl who constantly runs into misfortunes. Manral comes up with another romance in her
All Aboard (2015), set on a Mediterranean cruise ship. The same year, Manral published her first non-fiction work,
Karmic Kids, describing her experience of bringing up her spirited son from childbirth to age ten. One calls for the book "to be read by everyone", not just mothers. Set in the
Himalayan foothills, her novel,
The Face at the Window, is described as "a dark brooding story of mysterious, concealed identities." Her novella,
Saving Maya, was long listed for the Saboteur Awards UK, supported by the
Arts Council England. She published
Missing, Presumed Dead, a psychological thriller in 2018. The Times of India called it "a must-read for everyone who knows a dear one battling mental illness." In 2019, she published
13 Steps to Bloody Good Parenting which she co-wrote with author
Ashwin Sanghi. She has also written the
True Love Stories series and ''A Boy's Guide To Growing Up'' for Juggernaut, an app-based reading platform. ==Publications==