It took Twinkle Khanna close to a decade to complete ‘Jelly Sweets’—the last short entry in her new five-story anthology, Welcome to Paradise. The other stories took close to four years to come to life. Every morning, starting 4:30am, she puts pen to paper at her work desk, which is next to a balcony that looks out over the Arabian Sea. For Khanna, writing feels like getting drowned in the light-soaked view for hours on end.
At 48, she is out with her fourth book. The creative process, she says, still remains almost totally opaque to her. “There have been times when I have written 10 chapters of a book and dropped it. I do that often. I have many unfinished stories languishing in my folders waiting for daylight to strike them,” she tells me. We are in her office, and she—dressed in a loosely buttoned shirt with bent collars and cotton trousers—is sipping black coffee.
Khanna could have easily produced her fourth book without labouring much. It could have been Mrs Funnybones Part 2, a sequel and a compilation of her columns, all of which were already there; in fact, her publishers advised her to do it, but she turned them down. “I didn’t want to take the easy route. I would rather stab myself in the heart, and that is what I did with this book,” she says.
The five stories in Welcome to Paradise can be read in a go. The degree in creative writing she recently earned has, in a way, influenced her manner, style and form of writing.
Denne historien er fra December 17, 2023-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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Denne historien er fra December 17, 2023-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI