It’s nice to be accepted for what you love to do, says Twinkle Khanna (2024)

Where did the stories in this book come from?

The stories in this collection have all appeared in some form or the other in my columns. I discovered Arunachalam Muruganantham’s story while I was researching for a column on menstruation. I met him and he’s a funny guy. He takes his mission and his work not as self-righteously as he could. So, it started with that.

The second story, Salaam, Noni Appa — I wrote a paragraph of that story when I was 18 — I have tried to tell it twice before and I failed. Third time lucky.

The first story, Lakshmi Prasad, came from my work with an organisation called Rastaa Chaap, where we paint dead trees, plant new ones and preserve trees; which is why you’ll see a lot of trees pop up in the book, including where a girl marries a tree. The story was in my head for a long time and I wrote it in one flow.

Mrs Funnybones is a bestseller now, but it wasn’t the first book you wanted to write. So how did that come about?

I wanted to write a pre-Partition story, about a Muslim family. But my editor told me that people were identifying with my columns and that the sensible thing would be to follow on this path first. In hindsight, she was right, it did extremely well. I’m called ‘Mrs Funnybones’ now — I exchanged one comical name for another. I prefer it, probably because I picked this one myself.

Two books down, what do you like the most about writing?

It’s nice to be accepted for what you love to do. My mother claims that she feels nice when she sees me sitting with my laptop now. I tell her, ‘you never told me that this was something I should do!’

What I do like about writing as opposed to doing interiors etc, is that at the end of the day, you’re not dealing with too many people.

Maybe my expectations from other people are high, but when you set out to do something and other people somehow get mangled in it, it can be very traumatic. Here, it’s me, my computer, and my editor and copy editor. It’s a smooth process.

You were reluctant to join Bollywood. What was the biggest revelation for you at the time?

It was very boring for me. There were no phones or iPads, so I was either reading or knitting. I made some dolls and purses.

I wanted to leave much before I actually quit. I was doing decently, I was making much more money than a girl my age could have; that was important to me. But I started doing other projects while I was till in Bollywood: the candle business, working under Hafeez Contractor as a site supervisor.

Would you call yourself political? Your columns seem to be.

We live in a world where a lot of things we can do or can’t do are governed by politics. If you live in a way that is a bit aware, then you’d have to be interested in what’s happening around you.

What irks you the most about anything in the world?

I think it’s regressive thinking and habits. It’s patriarchy masked as tradition.

Speaking of patriarchy, your Karwa Chauth piece goes viral every year.

This year, when it was being shared online, there was little criticism of the piece on the first day. I imagine it’s because people were fasting that day. After they’d eaten though, they retaliated.

Do you share the draft of everything you write with your husband?

Yes, more or less. I show him the columns. He’s sensible in ways I’m not. He’ll safeguard me from having a morcha outside the house. He gives me marks for every column.

I believe you love science-fiction. What draws you to the genre?

It’s wonderful to live in a world of probabilities. Everything that is happening today was written about years ago. You’d read about phones in people’s hands and it happened. They were talking about genetic engineering, the GMO food thing, that was predicted in so many stories. I’m waiting for science to break us down into atoms and transport us without planes.

Would you be interested in writing science-fiction?

I have an idea for a story about a dystopian future but I haven’t plotted it yet.