How India has evolved in the last 10 years and why Twinkle Khanna’s lens remains both funny and frighteningly relevant. How many social commentators in India can write as expansively about the Labubu craze as they make women think about leaking underpants? About geopolitics as about Gucci handbags? And erasing Pakistani actors from film posters as about the limits of AI?
A handful, if at all, among whom Twinkle Khanna stands out for her resilience and her retort-ready writing. Few women have used their power and position as wisely to call out nonsense in the public domain as loudly, clearly and concisely. And she does it from a position of empathy, of being one of us, rather than above us, on a diamond-studded podium, which she could easily afford.
"As Mrs Funnybones turns ten, my heart hums a happy tune for the enduring love this book continues to receive. I’ve grown older, and wider if not wiser, but this book is from a more innocent time, when a joke wouldn’t land you in jail and ‘war’ referred to fighting with the building society to get the lift repaired. Then and now, this book stands as proof of one stubborn truth: the antidote to despair is laughter,sometimes at the world, but mostly at ourselves"
How does one live a life of privilege and yet feel the pain of those who have less? How does one live in a bubble and yet step outside it all too often with grace and gravitas? How does one resist the constant blandishments of fame, its grotesque performative reality shows, its faux serious podcasts, and its 24x7 feeding of the feral social beast?
Taking a leaf out of Twinkle Khanna’s playbook for the last ten years gives us a way of alternative being. Of being true to oneself, one’s ethos, and one’s singularity. Through her books, columns, and interviews, she has consistently called out hypocrisy and hype, fake news and forged attitudes, the loss of common sense and the absence of honesty. Unfiltered, uncut and unmoveable, Twinkle Khanna’s observations have shaped our opinions and sharpened our thoughts.
Ten years of Twinkle Khanna have taught us there is space for a series of little rebellions, while also talking about the revolution, helping us live through the Age of Anxiety. In an era where fame is all too fleeting and trolls the great leveller, she remains the perfect emissary of originality and ingenuity, reinventing herself while retaining her core.
