'I Am Most at Peace When I Am Writing'

Author-columnist Twinkle Khanna on her new book, Mrs Funnybones Returns, using wit and sarcasm as armours, and why writers need to stay away from AI

- By KUNAL PURANDARE

Books have been an integral part of Twinkle Khanna's life. So much so that her friends in boarding school claim she often missed lunch because she was busy reading. “In that case, I would not be that size... I was big,” she says self-deprecatingly.

Ten years after her first book, Mrs Funnybones, was published, Khanna, 51, is out with its sequel, Mrs Funnybones Returns. It is based on and curated from the columns she began writing a decade ago. Over the past year and a half, she has revisited and rewritten them to put them in the perspective of a changing India and her own evolution as a writer-thinker.

Settling down with a cup of coffee in her cosy, beach-facing Juhu office—filled with books and movie poster frames—the author-columnist spoke to Forbes India about the challenges of writing, why stories of older women fascinate her, reinventing herself after quitting showbiz as an actor, hosting a talk show, Two Much, and why artificial intelligence (AI) cannot write for you. Edited excerpts from an interview:

Q Why did it take a decade to come out with a sequel to Mrs Funnybones?

I never thought I would do a sequel. After Mrs Funnybones, I did a collection of short stories and wrote a novel. And then I did my master’s and followed it with another collection of short stories. It was during that tour that I realised how much this book meant to so many people. I think somewhere, at least for me, maybe because I grew up reading literary fiction, I took the Funnybones voice a little bit for granted. The book has reached labour rooms, war zones, it’s speaking to people and giving them comfort. I realised there is tremendous value in it... in what I had not been seeing all this time.

Q What is the most exciting thing in Mrs Funnybones Returns for readers?