On a breezy morning in her sea-facing Juhu residence, Twinkle Khanna settles down to discuss her latest book, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad. Sipping her second cup of coffee for the day, she plumps up the cushion behind her and rests against a yellow wall. Her carefully blow-dried hair shows little sign of the chaotic start to her day. From receiving her son Aarav at the airport to deciding the lunch menu while juggling her interviews for the day, the actor-turned-writer’s recollection of her morning seems to be right out of her debut book, Mrs. Funnybones . Sure enough, Khanna seems to have enough going on for a second dose of her brand of humour. Instead, the columnist has chosen to take a different route and explore her favourite literary format: short stories.
Published by Juggernaut Books, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is a collection of four short stories. Advocating female empowerment in rural India, the first narrative follows the feisty Lakshmi Prasad who stands up against patriarchy. The second story is of Noni Appa, a strong-headed woman who dares to find love in her twilight years. Sharing the same over-arching theme of rebellion, the third story traces the life of Elisa, who looks for love over multiple marriages. The last and the longest story in the book is a fictionalised account of the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, inventor of low-cost sanitary napkin machines.
Exploring a new format
The switch from writing non-fiction to short stories wasn’t a strategic decision. “We don’t have control over what our mind wants to do, or where it goes,” says Khanna, who wrote ten chapters of a novel right after Mrs. Funnybones . But while she was researching for her column, she stumbled upon the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham, or Muruga as she fondly refers to him. Inspired by his passion, grit and determination, Khanna wrote five pages on him and sent it off to her editor. After receiving an approval, she chased Muruga for an interview. “He wouldn’t respond to my emails and phone calls. That got me worried,” says Khanna, who persevered and met him for the first time in London. She later spent a few days interacting with him in Coimbatore, and in the process abandoned her ten chapters to tell the story of “the sanitary man”.
So why didn’t Khanna write an entire novel about Muruga? “Because somewhere, I have attention deficit disorder.”She explains she is accustomed to telling stories at a fast pace. While writing, Khanna focuses on the plot and characterisation than the setting. “I don’t sit and describe a dust particle and the way the sunlight went through it.” So the short story format seemed the most apt for the writer, who didn’t want to restrain herself to just a single story.
The feminist gaze
Be it fighting patriarchy, menstrual taboo or finding love at an old age, all four stories in the book strongly advocate for women’s rights. Identifying herself as a feminist, Khanna says, “Anybody who is afraid of using that word is being silly, since the idea is simply about seeking equal social and professional opportunities for women.” However, she clarifies that being a feminist does not translate into writing a book on feminism. “But the topics you think about, the ideas that interest you come through in your writing. Your attitude to life has to flow into your writing.” Khanna says she aims to cloak social messages with humour to steer clear of sounding preachy.
For the entrepreneur-cum-writer, the story of Muruga sends out the most important message: breaking menstruation taboos. “Yesterday, the nanny was taking my baby to the temple and they told me don’t come in because you could be menstruating,” recalls Khanna, adding that discourse is the only way to alleviate taboos, which triggers substantive action. In that stead, she holds Muruga in high regard. The social entrepreneur was awarded the Padma Shri for spreading awareness against traditional unhygienic practices around menstruation at a grass-root level.
Reflecting rural India
Two of the four stories in Khanna’s book are set in rural India, while the other two are based in Mumbai. As part of her efforts to bring authenticity to her writing, Khanna visited the town of Maheshwar in Madhya Pradesh and walked around the city taking copious notes. She then travelled to Kerala by herself and spent a few days soaking in the culture for one of her short stories.
Apart from varied settings, the stories also take place in different time periods. While Laxmi Prasad’s tale is set in the ’20s, the story of Noni Appa takes place across the ’80s and ’90s. “The biggest stumbling block for me was that I didn’t know what an ICU looked like back in the ’80s, so I had to find that out,” says Khanna who enjoyed researching for her stories as much as writing them. She went around with two diaries in which she scribbled her findings. “One of the cover says ‘Girl Boss’ and the other has ‘ khao piyo maja karo ’ and then says below, ‘shut up fatty’. I didn’t buy either of them, they were gifted to me,” chortles Khanna.
Juggling several roles
Unlike most authors, Khanna says she seldom faces a writer’s block. Grateful for her three years of experience in writing columns, Khanna thrives on strict deadlines. “They are the best wrecking ball.” While writing The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad , Khanna first charted out the plot points and then fleshed it out over numerous rewrites. “I don’t write one perfect paragraph after another, unlike others.” She finished writing the manuscript in ten months.
The 42-year-old writer gifted one of the first copies of her book to her mother Dimple Kapadia. “She has kept it in the temple though. Maybe she wants God to read it first,” says Khanna, with her typical wit. She proudly adds that her son regularly reads her writing. Although when it comes to her husband, actor Akshay Kumar, she has to narrate her stories to him. “Because he does not read.”
Being an entrepreneur, columnist, writer and mother, Khanna often finds herself multitasking. “When you do so much, some things have to take a backseat,” says Khanna, who runs an interior designing store and a small candle factory, two ventures she couldn’t devote attention to while completing her book.
Now that her book has been published, one would expect the writer to lay low and celebrate. “But I feel a void,” says Khanna, informing us that she is already planning to write a book set in a dystopian future in India. But unlike her previous attempt at writing a novel, she hopes not to abandon this, and sail through like the resolute characters in her collection of short stories.
The Legend of Lakshmi Prasadis available on the Juggernaut app and in bookstores.
