Living up to the expectations of her as superstars Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia’s firstborn, Twinkle Khanna danced and shrieked her way through Bollywood quite convincingly as an actor in the early ’90s in big-ticket films. Today, she is the antithesis of everything Bollywood, having “narrowly escaped a gruesome tragedy when Bollywood tried to bludgeon her brain to the size of a pea.”
But she averted the mishap by quitting the film business just in time to chase her artistic leanings — making candles with her mother, running an interior design firm, The White Window, and playing wife to Akshay Kumar and mother to their two children, Aarav and Nitara. Interestingly, marrying Kumar, a blockbuster force in Bollywood, seems to have worked out beautifully on the brain expansion front for her.
From batting her melting brown eyes at Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan on celluloid to straining them on her laptop typing out satirical columns, which have turned into the just-released-yet-bestselling book Mrs Funnybones, Khanna has evolved tremendously. As the rare glamour girl gone humorously nerdy — albeit inadvertently — Khanna is everything but a de rigueur star wife, with an identifiable and independent identity of her own as an extremely successful interior designer, columnist and author.
Even as she celebrated her husband’s 49th birthday on Thursday (he flew into Mumbai from a London film shooting to be with his family) and Mrs Funnybones topped the bestseller lists with a reprint in just under a month after its release mid-August, Khanna talked all things literary and more.
What is the most satisfying part of your artistic bent of mind — writing or creating magic in people’s interior spaces?
Both are equally satisfying, though the creative approach is completely different. Writing is a way of drifting within my own mind, almost a solitary process so to speak. I have to only deal with a laptop and at the most, an editor, whereas in the interior design business, it is people-oriented — from the beginning to the completion of a project — right from the client to the carpenter wherein you are trying to get everyone on-board with your vision.
Who would have thought you’d become a columnist with your take on everyday living, making readers laugh out loud in the morning, then turning it into a bestselling book. Do you think you are now the “write” jester for society at large?
I would have liked to be Birbal in Akbar’s court, but a court jester also suits me just fine.
Who thought up the name for your twitter handle, Mrs Funnybones, which became your book’s title too?
It was mere chance that it happened. I thought I was good at cracking a few lame jokes and my bones have always been rather odd as I have broken most of them. So one fine day I just became Mrs Funnybones. It wasn’t a thought-out process, but more of an organic one.
Are you in the process of writing another book to split open our sides with your sardonic and scathing wit?
Yes, I am writing and let’s see, shall we?
Do you think you have it in you to write an original piece of fiction and turn it into a series someday?
I haven’t thought as far ahead about a series, but as for the rest, my book is semifictional anyway, so it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch.
What do you like to read everyday and who are your favourite authors?
I read sci-fi short stories from websites such as Lightspeed magazine every night before I go to bed. I also subscribe to portals such as Brain Pickings and read all that’s there as well. I read a lot of science fiction books too — Asimov, Neil Gaiman, Ken Liu. Perhaps I identify with the aliens that float around in their worlds!
Did you enjoy reading your film scripts when you were acting? Would you act in a film adaptation of your own book?
Scripts didn’t exist during my time in Bollywood, or at least I was never given one. I don’t want to act at all, and am happy in my cave.
You don’t seem like a quitter, but you quit films for good. What was the defining moment that made you run away from the film business?
There really wasn’t a particular day as such, but I started realising soon enough that I couldn’t wait for my day on the film sets to get over so I could rush back home. Perhaps that was really all it took for me to quit the business.
Earlier, wives of Bollywood stars were dress designers, if they chose to work. After your successful innings as an interior designer, almost every star wife seems to have taken to the profession. Did you influence this movement towards interiors at all?
No, I didn’t. There was Zarine Khan way before me and Parmeshwar Godrej as well, so I can’t — and nor do I want to — take credit for this interior design wave at all.
You have an incredible sense of fashion. Given you’re always downplaying yourself, describing yourself as a tomboy who knows nothing about life et al, how did you metamorphosise into this fashion-forward, avant garde woman all on your own?
I just became less rebellious with clothes and today, I can slip into appropriate attire according to what the occasion requires, but off the red carpet, I am not that particular about what I wear, and comfort is my main priority.
Who are your favourite designers and how do you go about setting a look for work, everyday?
I do it all myself and I don’t have a stylist, but I do wish I had a personal shopper as that is the most boring part of it all. I like to go to one large department store such as Saks 5th Avenue when I travel and finish off all my shopping in a single day. I wear a lot of high street as well as a mix of designers — from Diane Von Furstenberg to Chanel and my favourite Zara.
You’re not big on the social circuit. Is that how you manage to play all your roles — mother, wife, businesswoman, author, columnist with ease?
I guess I save a lot more time due to my limited social commitments and I get up bright and early, which I don’t think is possible if one is a part of the party brigade in the city.
Akshay and you are perpetually on a diet, but do you like cooking for your kids?
I can’t cook, but my son, Aarav does a splendid job of it. He just made a carrot cake last Sunday.
You are a disciplinarian when it comes to your kids. How do you maintain a sense of normalcy and balance for them given you are both public figures — you more so with such a distinct voice that resonates loud and clear in your columns and now your book? How does your son take to his references in your columns?
Akshay and I both don’t take ourselves too seriously, nor are we into status symbols and we raise our kids in a similar manner. My son has a great sense of humour and I think he is secretly thrilled to be in the columns.
What is the best thing about being Twinkle Khanna?
The best thing about being me is the social and economic freedom to be true to myself.
— Rubina A. Khan is a Mumbai-based journalist and photographer
