"It would be very nice to have a man like you'd have a nice handbag.” Twinkle Khanna talks about her “backward” journey to feminism in this interview with Algebra Conversations.
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00:00I seem to have a slightly different notion about marriage
00:03or perhaps the world has it.
00:05They always keep thinking that, you know,
00:07two people have to be in alignment,
00:08that they have to stand for the same thing,
00:10that they should have the same political views.
00:12If that was the case,
00:14then why do women have the right to vote?
00:15When you say you're a feminist,
00:17what do you really mean by that?
00:18So I think being a feminist has been sort of,
00:22I've had to walk backwards
00:23because for a very long time,
00:25I lived in this house where,
00:26and I grew up, you know, with a mother
00:28who made it very clear to me right at the beginning
00:31that she didn't, we never had these conversations,
00:33we never spoke about feminism or equality or anything,
00:36but it was very clear that
00:37there was absolutely no need for a man, you know?
00:41It would be very nice to have a man,
00:42like you'd have a nice handbag,
00:44but even if you have a plastic bag, it would do.
00:46It's just something that you keep your stuff in.
00:51But, so I grew up with that notion,
00:59and for a long time, I really didn't feel that,
01:02you know, that there was much use for them.
01:09Even a gynecologist will tell you
01:11that if you have a premature boy
01:12compared to a premature girl,
01:14the girl will survive because she's stronger.
01:16Then, you know, it's a fact.
01:19And then, I mean, also it's very sad.
01:22I mean, they're weak by nature.
01:24They start losing their hair,
01:26then they wrap four strands round and round their head,
01:29and then, oh no, they all hate me.
01:33All I can see are the men looking at me.
01:36Then, luckily for most women,
01:38they die 10, 15 years before us, so.
01:45So, you know, I mean, you have to kind of
01:47feel a little sorry for them also.
01:50But then, they spend their life with this swagger,
01:53like they're invincible.
01:57So, I had to walk backwards and feel
01:59that maybe we are not superior.
02:01Maybe, perhaps, we are sort of equal.
02:03So, that has been my journey to feminism.
02:07So, how does Akshay survive you?
02:08Does he do the Mahamrityunjaya every day?
02:13A hundred times?
02:15He's a very patient man.
02:18Again, it's, so once I wrote him a very bad poem,
02:21and the poem was,
02:23why would I want a man just like me?
02:25What would I learn from him?
02:27What would he learn from me?
02:28Two peas in a pod died of inertia.
02:31And he said, what's inertia?
02:33And I said, well, that's why I went different pods.
02:39But I think it works out perfectly well, you know?
02:44I talked to him about the theory of relativity,
02:46and he thinks I'm Einstein, and it's a great thing.
02:51But again, I seem to have a slightly different notion
02:55about marriage, or perhaps the world has it.
02:58They always keep thinking that, you know,
03:00two people have to be in alignment,
03:01that they have to stand for the same thing,
03:04that they should have the same political views.
03:07And if that was the case,
03:09then why do women have the right to vote
03:10if we are anyway going to be in alignment
03:12with our husbands?
03:14So there's one thing that I've always tried to make clear,
03:18that the only person whose words and actions
03:21I'm responsible for are mine.
03:23The only person I'm bringing on this table is me,
03:25and if that's not good enough, then so be it.
03:27But that's it, this is not McDonald's Happy Meal
03:29where you get a hamburger with French fries.
03:31You get the hamburger, and that's it.
03:35And I think that that is the way to be,
03:36but I don't think that life should be
03:38this couple's only dinner party, you know?
03:41And you have to make your own path as an individual,
03:43and that, I think, is something that most women
03:46sort of learn along the way.
03:48Could you share some sort of, you know,
03:50incidents, episodes in your life
03:52when you really had to go for your spine,
03:56you know, when you had a difficult choice to make
03:58and you've made it?
04:01But the whole, my whole construct is such
04:05that I don't look at difficult things as difficult,
04:08and if they are difficult, in my mind itself,
04:11I have already negated it to something
04:13that I can laugh about.
04:14That is the way I'm made, you know?
04:18Whatever, for me, every time I've seen an obstacle
04:22or what you are calling difficult,
04:24I look at it that if I have an obstacle,
04:26I have to leap higher.
04:28If I'm falling down, it just means
04:31that I have to succeed at something else.
04:33So when I failed as an actress,
04:34and I failed miserably as an actress,
04:37I didn't fall into some deep pit of depression
04:40because I just said, well, now I have an opportunity
04:42to succeed at myriad other things,
04:44and I got up and I did so many other things,
04:46and I'm here today.
04:48So I don't really, I'm not someone who likes
04:51to talk about the tough part of life
04:53because I don't look at it as tough.
04:55So when you look around you today,
04:56you know, just in a kind of hierarchy of concerns,
04:59what are the things that really trouble you
05:01about what's going on in the country?
05:06What troubles me?
05:08It troubles me that Asian paints
05:10has just announced the color of the decade,
05:14and it's blazing saffron.
05:17I...
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05:35So when I seelow generations or parties,
05:38I mean, I would write equally sort of,
05:42I would say, sharp things about Rahul Gandhi,
05:46but then he's already doing it to himself
05:47because, you know at the velocity of Jupiter apparently
05:53was one of his quotes.
05:54So, so I don't.
05:58And the rest of it, again,
06:01I like to address in a humorous way,
06:03And I have been all along.
06:05I was just talking just in terms of concerns,
06:08you know, that in a hierarchy of concerns,
06:11what would you just, apart from the color saffron.
06:15I would say there are a lot of concerns.
06:17One is, of course, that we seem to be a nation
06:20that is being geared towards being, you know,
06:25sort of everyone should have a smartphone,
06:27but we're not gearing towards
06:29having a nation of smart people.
06:31We're failing our children in education.
06:34We're spending more on, I would say,
06:38war efforts than we're spending on health.
06:41We are building statues which are like 2,000 crores
06:45and above.
06:46We seem to be heading towards polarizing
06:50in terms of communalism and religion.
06:54We also seem, I mean, there are lots of problems
06:57at this point of time, so it's an endless list right now.
07:02But I don't think that this is something particularly
07:04in every situation, with every party,
07:06there are different problems, whoever's in power.
07:08You just have to pick those and you have to
07:11sort of voice your concerns about that.