Ranjeeta Nath Ghai is the founder and director of RNTalks LLP, an organization dedicated to lending support to people of every age who are stressed and demotivated in their lives.
She is a leading food blogger in India and runs a couple of more pro websites. An educationist and graphic designer, Ranjeeta Nath Ghai is also an author and motivational speaker.
Read on as Ranjeeta Nath Ghai talks about RNTalks, blogs, motivation, books, the importance of self-love, living life to the fullest, and much…much more.
1. Let’s begin with a brief introduction of yours and an overview of RNTalks LLP.
A mentor. A blogger. A published author. A graphic designer. An avid animal lover. A military daughter, a military wife and an educationist.
I have celebrated and lived life on my own terms. CHALLENGE is my game. RISK is my passion. HARD WORK is my occupation. SMARTNESS is my style. FRANKNESS is my policy. CONFIDENCE is my power.
I’m a passionate & optimist person who believes that imperfections are perfect because that is what makes us who we are. A complete being.
Since I am here, you know that I am Ranjeeta Nath Ghai, founder, and director of RN talks. I’ll just fill out the empty blanks now. I am a retired Indian Army Veteran’s wife and a daughter of 2 AMC War Veterans.
Life has been a wonderful journey with its highs and lows, ups and downs. I can proudly say that I am an army BRAT (Born Raised And Transferred) and I have lived my life to the fullest on my terms.
Giving up on my promising career as a graphic designer, I built a parallel career as an educationist. Now I am heading my own registered company by the name of RNTalks LLP.
Nothing in my life came easy to me; I had to work very hard to achieve everything but then that’s where all the fun was! I learnt from my failures and other failures too. The Poem DEFEAT by Khalil Gibran and the famous Song of Rabindranath Tagore is what I carry in my heart all the time.
2. What’s the motive of RNTalks and who is the target audience?
Our main motive is lending unconditional motivational and inspirational support to the children, youth, and adults who are facing stress issues in their lives. Motivation, personality development, and website development are our key areas.
We aid personality development via website designing and coaching to help interested individuals earn income and enjoy financial independence.
As an educationist, I had seen that the parents and children are getting stressed out due to exams, results, peer and societal pressure. In fact, as a mentor, I had the chance and the privilege to be talking to the parents and their wards and realized that it is not only the children who needed help. Sometimes even the parents needed counselling with their personal issues.
In fact, I was very fortunate to have the parents confide in me, which indicated that they trusted me with their problems and issues.
That is why I took premature retirement from being a mentor/educationist; I started RNTalks to help people by motivating and inspiring them to rediscover their SELF and be a better version of themselves each day.
Our target audience starts from a child who is three years old to anyone for whom age is not the limit means it could be a 60 to 80-year-old. Anyone who wants to do something in their life is our target audience. We believe in promoting common people to achieve uncommon goals. I believe that everybody has an individual personality, which is why we want them to develop.
3. Let’s talk about the books you have written and anthologies you have contributed to.
My book, ‘Mann Ki Aarzoo’ was selected and projected in the New Delhi World Book Fair 2016 and Chennai Book Fair 2016, respectively.
Besides Mann Ki Aarzoo (published book), my other Publications are Twisted Tales anthology of short stories, लम्हों से लफ़्ज़ों तक (काव्य संग्रह), संदल सुगंद (काव्य संग्रह), भाव कलश (काव्य संग्रह) and poems published on e-journal ‘Research Inspiration.’
‘Behind The Curtains’ & ‘Chandramauli- A Ray of Hope’ are awaited books in 2021. As of now, I am also editor of Kshitij Annual Magazine (English Section). The latest anthology, which I have co-authored, should be hitting the market in one month by name Cancer and Concern.
4. You also run a food blog among a couple of other blogs. Would you like to give a bit of background about these blogs?
Today I am a proud owner of one Personal Blog: Classical Poems, two professional websites Food All Time & excite submit.
I want to go back a little when I had launched my first book Mann Ki Aarzoo. After publishing the book, I realized that when you move into book publishing as a writer, before that, you need to promote yourself as a writer, and if you are a blogger, it helps immensely to build your audience.
I did not know what blogging was, so I read everything, all the matter that I could find online on Google, and then decided to take the plunge and open a free website for myself on WordPress.
From there, through lots of trials and others, I learnt what I should do as a blogger. Today what I am is because of the failures that I had faced. I learnt that just writing anything has no value. You have to cater to a specific niche. I was cheated, my account was hacked into and stolen.
I paid money for a .com domain to WordPress but even after a year, I got sweet nothing. It was then that I started learning things properly instead of sitting in crying over the spilt milk.
A friend who is also my mentor, guide, and critic asked me to introspect on what I was best at and then take things forward from there. The few things that I am best at are cooking food, influencing and talking to people, and being a language teacher; I am good with language.
So, I started a food blog (now a professional website) by the name Food All Time, where I have been publishing various recipes, diet plans, and product reviews. We also have Instagram, and YouTube handles by corresponding website names.
My other website like RNTalks is the official website for my company. Excite submit is a question-answer forum like Quora and a content submission platform. Lastly, I have Classical Poems, where I generally write my Hindi and English poetry.
Quality guest posts are accepted on all the websites in the niche of food, motivation, personality development, mental health, child psychology, and poetry.
5. Please share with us about the awards you have won for your work. How do these motivate you for the journey ahead?
Talking about awards, I will let you in on a secret. As a student, I had never won an award and I was always the one in the audience sitting and clapping for others thinking “kash kabhi mujhe bhi kuch award milega.”
I was always the backbencher who ranked consistently at 21/22 rank in a class. Never a favourite of any teacher, I was an outstanding student(who was made to stand outside the class in punishment for not doing the homework) and the creme of the class, the so-called brilliant students, always used to look down upon us as we never measured up to their 90% grade status. So, in a nutshell, you can say that I was an underachiever and an underdog.
So when I first got an Ideal Teacher’s Award while teaching in Army Public School, Nasirabad, it was a big surprise for me because I was not earmarked for that award and came to know of it when the Principal herself called out my name from the stage.
Since then the awards have been pouring in at irregular intervals. Some of my prestigious awards are:
- Idea Teacher’s Award- Army Public School, Nasirabad, 2010
- ‘Pride of Women Award’- Aagaman, 2018
- 2nd runner up in National Level Poetry Competition ‘Jashan-E-Kshitij’
- Delegate Speaker and Awardee’ Purrfect Pawsome Philanthropist Poet & Author’ (Weaving Dreams Excellence Awards-2019) at ICDL, May 2019
- Harmony 2019 ‘Blogger of the Year’ award by RevUp Group
- ‘Inspiring Blogger of the Year’ award by MSTalks
- ‘Award of Honour’ by Kshitij
- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan award for 25 years of mentoring by MENTORx
- Best Educationist and Mentor Award by The Crazy Tales in Women’s Conclave & Awards 2020.
Related reading: “Along with poetry, Kshitij will soon step into field of fashion & motivation” – Ranjeeta Ashesh
6. As a life coach and motivational speaker, please share some practical tips on how to stay self-motivated and the art of recovering from failures.
As a life coach and motivational speaker, I would say that one should first start to love oneself. We always love everybody except ourselves. We are always caring about others but ourselves. We always think about what others will say rather than ask our SELF what we want to do. We always want to become what others want us to become rather than becoming what we want to become. So, we have no core identity.
As a life coach, I would counsel people first to learn to love their SELF before placing others a priority. Stop people-pleasing and learn to be comfortable with yourSELF. Be proud of yourSELF. Only then will people learn to value and respect you.
Remember, this will not come very easily but then who wants something that comes easily, right?
As a motivational speaker, I would say “बद रहो, बदनाम रहो, पर गुमनाम न रहो” meaning Be conspicuous or controversial but never Anonymous/nameless. It doesn’t matter if you are known for the wrong things or the right things, as right and wrong is just a matter of perception.
Something that might be right for somebody may be wrong for the other person. Remember the idiom, ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison’?
To stay self-motivated, we have to welcome failures. I will give you a small example of myself. Once I was trying to board a DTC bus in Delhi. As I ran towards the bus, I tripped on a protruding stone as my focus was on the bus and fell. People started laughing at me, but they all stopped the moment they saw me laughing at myself along with them.
I understood that day that if I can laugh at my follies, I accept where I have failed. Then people will stop preaching to me and making fun of me. Over the years, I have realized that I am not a football for people to kick me around at will.
I am an entity by myself. I do not care about what people think or say about me behind my back as they are already behind me. As a focused person, I focus on what lies ahead and how to get to my goal. Rest is all history.
Also read: 39 Best Chetan Bhagat quotes about Life, Success, Youth, and Love
7. We found that you are an animal lover and possess lifetime membership of many animal NGOs. What’s the catalyst behind this and the impact it has on your life?
Frankly speaking, I find it easier to communicate with animals than with humans. Animals issue warnings by growling and snap when angry. They don’t attack unprovoked or when not hungry. Unfortunately, this is not the case with humans.
In our country, an animal’s life does not matter. We just celebrated our 72nd Republic Day but our Govt had only Rs 50 as fine for animal offenders guilty of animal cruelty. People convicted of crimes upon animals regularly get away with only giving a paltry Rs 50 fine, which was the highest penalty for a first offence under The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
Only this week they have proposed 5 Years Jail, Rs 75,000 Fine For Cruelty Against Animals. It has taken 60 years for our government to realise that animal lives matter!
Although I work with them on a virtual platform I am a virtual and a real-time parent to many strays too. There are 4 cats and 3 dogs (all strays) feeding at my house other than my own 2 furry buddies. They make me a better person each day. Their trust and love motivate me to be as good as the person that they think I am. Never ever being judgemental they are my stress busters.
8. What are your thoughts on being a perfect or imperfect person in life?
Well talking about being a perfect or imperfect person I would say that we all are living in a world we have created for ourselves. We are all imperfect people who are judging imperfect people for being imperfect.
I think I am the most imperfect person God has created. I often joke that the day God created me he got so frustrated that he broke the mould in which he made me so that no other imperfect person like me is created.
See I’ll tell you how imperfect I am… I trust very fast. I am not a hypocrite (that is another minus point as I cannot stand people with two faces. Moreover, I can’t laugh and say I am ok when I am not. I am quick to make friends, but again, I have very limited close friends. My friend circle is so small that I can count them on my fingertips.
I am an immense animal lover who cares for animals, and willing to fight for them. So and again, I am imperfect because animals in our country are the least important on any agenda. I prefer to talk to a dog than people.
I don’t lie, and can’t tolerate lies. People who lie to me don’t get a second chance, ever. So again, I am an imperfect person because even though I try diplomacy, it is not my game. I call a spade a spade and have zero tolerance to cruelty. Have you met a person as imperfect as me?
9. What are some of your favourite quotes/lines written by you?
There are so many but since you have asked I’ll share that are the closest to my heart.
Escape the world’s prison. Enjoy your life; not conforming to rules and limits that binds your freedom. O’ Woman, learn to love yourself. Truly and Madly
– Ranjeeta Nath Ghai
I’m glad, I’m ‘ME’. Original. Unadulterated. Uncompromising at times. But I’m ‘ME’
– Ranjeeta Nath Ghai
My haters are my strength. The more they hate me the stronger I grow.
-Ranjeeta Nath Ghai
Negative people are like waves. They’ll always try to drown you. Remember to keep your floaters of confidence on you when you go out to swim with them.
– Ranjeeta Nath Ghai
For each drop of dew that falls at night, a vapour rises in the sunlight.
-Ranjeeta Nath Ghai
Be humble when you plead. Be ashamed when you beg. Be cautious when you ask for a loan. But be bold when you fight for what you have earned.
– Ranjeeta Nath Ghai
Must read: 50+ Best Rupi Kaur Quotes & Poems To Cross Your Heart
10. A Quick-fire round:
– Luck or Hard Work, what do you think weighs more in defining a successful person?
I want to say LUCK, but, however, luck doesn’t always work however hard work definitely pays off one way or the other. Luck is a pure chance but if you work hard at least you will sleep at peace knowing that you have given your hundred per cent. So my theory is to give your best and be prepared for the worst.
– What are your other passions in life?
My other passions in life are writing poetry. I have a huge huge collection of perfumes (not the desi ones but french perfumes). I love to drive and can drive the whole day without getting tired. A lover of good instrumental/classical, I am a foodie and love watching theatre whenever I get a chance. Also, I love to paint.
– If you had all the money in the world, what would you do first?
If I had all the money in the world then you would not see a single stray animal on the road die under a truck, car or passing motorcycle. They would all have shelter on their heads and they would all be sleeping with full bellies. All the strays and castaways would all have a home.
– One song that you always hum?
There are many songs depending on the mood but one song that I have lived my life by one song that motivates me always to move ahead in my life is Rabindra Sangeet which was also sung by Amitabh Bachchan lately.
‘Ekla Chalo Re’ (Jodi tor dak shune keu na ashe tobe ekla cholo re) which translates to ‘If there is no-one responding to your call – then go on all alone’. You have to listen to the whole song. I used to sing this in school choir back in 1980 and it has since then moulded my life and beliefs.
– What is that dream goal you want to achieve before you die?
My dream goal before I die is to take RNTalks and FoodAllTime to greater heights. Before I die I want to do everything that my heart ever desired. I don’t want to die tomorrow with regrets of what I could have done but didn’t do.
I could have bought and I did not buy, I could have helped somebody and I did not help because I did not have the courage because “log kya kahenge!’. People will talk like that is their job. I take my life with a pinch of salt as it comes and really does what my soul desires to do. even if it means streaking my hair, using different coloured eye lenses.
11. What’s next in the roadmap for Ranjeeta Nath Ghai and RNTalks?
My roadmap is to live my life to the fullest and make RNTalks a national brand if not international. There are a few other projects lined up but that’s a secret. Someone wise had once told me don’t put all your cards on the table and don’t talk about your plans. Just go ahead and do it and surprise the world.
Thank you so much, Virendra for having been here on the Burning Desire platform. It was indeed a pleasure talking to you very candidly about what I like and what I don’t like and thank you so much for listening patiently.
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