Writing is my bid at immortality: Twinkle Khanna

When we flip through the pages of her second book Twinkle Khanna manages to make us forget the many roles she has effortlessly essayed Her latest a collection of short stories bears no traces of her life as an actor entrepreneur celebrity wife star kid columnist and mother The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad Juggernaut brings to life a diverse bunch of characters some set in a rural milieuKhanna looks smart in a semiformal cream jacket and jeans when she steps into her seafacing office in Juhu Sensing our serious tone she mocks us for not accepting anything except water instantly breaking the ice Soon we discover that while she is warm witty and candid much like her writing her biggest draw is a natural flair for finding humour in mundane situationsldquoI am in an interview and thatrsquos why I canrsquot abuse you right nowrdquo she tells her son Aarav who is on the phone asking her why shersquos being nice to him Her chat with us is interrupted twice more by phone calls from her mother and husband ldquoBe discreet Irsquom in an interviewrdquo she warns her actorhusband Akshay Kumar over Facetime When he asks her who shersquos being interviewed by she turns the phone camera to face us for a quick dekho Over cups of green tea she admits that she speaks faster than she thinks We find no reason to believe otherwise Excerpts from a chatHow did you decide to write fictionEven before we did Mrs Funnybones I had wanted to do a prepartition fictional story about a Muslim family My editor Chiki Sarkar felt that I was already being recognised for the Mrs Funny Bones voice and I should continue that in my first book So Lakshmi Prasad wasnrsquot a leap in that way I always wanted to do thisDid you plan on writing short storiesI had started writing the tenth chapter of a book At the time while researching for a column I was writing on menstruation I came across Murugarsquos story This is the last story in the book called the Sanitary Man Itrsquos a fictionalised account of his life I was obsessed with it for a long time and my mind could only focus on it Here was a man who was more feminist than many women and wanted to free them of the taboos of something that was intimate to them So I wrote five pages as you see it in the book where he is on a cycle and is passing by his town where he is ostracised You are in the middle of the story and donrsquot know why hersquos ostracised After writing it I sent it to my editor suggesting that this is what I felt compelled to write Next I started chasing him Hersquos an evasive character I chased him all around the world Finally I met him and conducted lengthy interviews and wrote it So I completed that first then Lakshmi followed by If the Weather Permits Salaam and Noni AppaWhat inspired the other charactersI knew a woman once who was in a bad marriage where she had to eat the leftovers of her inlaws plate That stayed with me The story of Lakshmi Prasad came from there Noni Appa Is an amalgamation of a lot of people I know so is Binny who is odder than her sister I have a wide variety of family and friends whose lives I pick instances from I had a friend whose grandmother had hearing aid that was a constant problem and she would conveniently not hear things when she didnt want toThe feminist angle is hard to missWhen you choose what to write about your attitude and your impression of life flow through it Its not like I go around with a signboard saying Im feminist but I am a feminist and I dont see why people shy away from the word Its the need for equal opportunities for both genders There is nothing beyond that theres just a fallacy that there is The choices Ive made in life like keeping my maiden surname was done 15 years ago when there wasnt much awareness about feminism Its how I grew upLakshmirsquos rural setting differs from your urbanvoiced columnIt is Noni Appa is more my voice like it is known Lakshmi is set in 1920 I did research on the kind of things available in that region what people ate during Chhath Puja what their homes would look like their apparel and other details of ingredients Then I plotted the story out and wrote it When I was writing it I knew it wasnrsquot the expected Funnybones voice I sent it to my editor who loved it instantly which was gratifying So I didnrsquot get into the stereotype of what people expected me to do When have I ever done that I wrote the stories the way they needed to be toldIs writing your callingWhen I was younger I had a file of bad poems and half a book at 18 In the story Noni Appa there is one para that is unchanged from that book I have tried to write the same story over a period of time and this is my third attempt I have always been immersed in a world of books with ideas quotes and characters running in my head as a reader I knew I would do this at 60 but Irsquom doing it now One day science will make everyone immortal and I donrsquot think Irsquoll be around that long This is my bid at immortality You achieve a bit through your children and the rest with workHumour has been your strengthFor my column I get away with saying a lot of things because itrsquos cloaked in humour I have also realised that the minute you give people a lecture they switch off With laughter your mind and body are lost Itrsquos an explosion You canrsquot preempt it When you make someone laugh they can never look at the same situation again without smirking at itDo you worry about offending peopleYes Writing is a blessing where I can refine my thoughts But while talking before Irsquove thought things have come out While writing I weigh my words I worry about hurting people unintentionally Am I worried about taking a stance that offends people even a majority NoDid you ever get into troubleI had written a piece once about a religious person and many of his followers got offended The piece was an analysis of a situation taking place of which Itook two lines and tweeted it Without context it may have been offensive I felt immensely pressurized then Religious sentiments seem most fragileIs your motherrsquos and sisterrsquos taste in books like yoursItrsquos very different My mom prefers nonfiction My sister reads books set in a French countryside where someone owns a pastry shop I donrsquot what to call this genre I read science fiction Their books also look more pristine while mine looks like my dog mangles them by the time Irsquom done Irsquom reading Music Room now and am trying to keep it in a good condition because its an autographed copyDo they like your booksThey read Mrs Funnybones and all my columns When I gave my mom the book and asked if she had read it she told me she kept it in the temple So I told her if God wants to read it hersquos everywhere so you can keep it anywhere We are not the kind of family where we let each other fly too high Recently we were at a bookshop in Delhi where a reader walked up to my mother and said ldquoYour daughterrsquos a good writerrdquo She pointed to me across the store and said ldquoWho This jungleerdquo I died of embarrassment I think my mom gets embarrassed when people say these things I canrsquot walk around with my nose in the air because my mom is always there to point out whatrsquos stuck up my nostrilWhats your nextI am working on an idea about the dystopian future in India Itrsquos been in my head for many months now but letrsquos see