‘Like birds that eat ticks off zebras’ backs’: Twinkle Khanna writes about marriage in her new book

8 am: Sipping on my first cup of coffee, I tell my sister, “You know I was so upset that I was sick last week, but now I look at it as a blessing. I didn’t have to go to any of those Mehta wedding functions, and I saw what they were all wearing on Instagram anyway. Loose motions is not a bad thing, by the way, it’s not just the perfect excuse to stay at home but also I have lost a few pounds.”

She is getting grouchy in her perimenopause years because she snaps at me, “Every week you give me an update of how much weight you have lost and gained! It’s not the rupee against the dollar that anyone has such deep interest in your 0.5 shifting parameters.”

11.45 am: After three hours of taking a guillotine to my new manuscript, I am saved by the bell. My newly single and more than willing to mingle friend walks in with two Frappuccinos and a bad mood. “This dating thing is frightening. In this day and age, you can’t send a single message without worrying that the whole world will see it! Bas, people now just take screenshots and out it goes,” she says.

I reply, “Well, if it’s really something explicit, then isn’t it better to just call instead of sexting?”

“People can also record conversations you know,” she adds.

I thank my lucky stars that my dating days seem to be behind me, have a sip of my Frappuccino and say, “All right, I have an idea, next time just call the guy, pant on the phone and hang up. If he ever records and plays it for anyone, you can always say you were doing aerobics.”

“You are really so uncool. No one does aerobics anymore! Oof, I really hate all this technology; it was so much simpler in the ’90s.”

I reply, “Arre be grateful! Weren’t you able to be part of the Ambani wedding? Thanks to social media, we are all attending weddings, some that we are not invited to, without even having to shell out for a halfway decent gift.”

3 pm: We pop over to my mother’s and find her head buried in Many Lives, Many Masters. I call out to her and she replies with, “Hi Endometriosis!”

Accustomed to her endless pet names like Diamond, Lady Diana and even Alfred, I am still taken aback at being affectionately called by a term describing a menstrual ailment.

When I protest, she cheerfully explains, “What’s wrong with it? In this birth you are my child, in another you can be a cyst, and in a third you could just have been endometriosis.”

And off she goes into the kitchen, leaving the twin pillars of Hinduism and karma shaking at their knees along with me.

3.15 pm: We are now being forced to try the khandvi that she has bought in anticipation of my nana’s overbearing cousin Champa Ben’s monthly visit. When I protest that I don’t like this particular dish – it’s slimy and makes me feel like there is a large yellow worm sliding along my tongue – she informs me that I have always had terrible taste and brings up the time when I rejected her advice and refused to wear an embroidered shawl as a cape. My defence, that I was going for a fashion show and it was not a shawl but a blanket she had bought in Manali, doesn’t seem to hold any weight in her court of maternal justice.

6 pm: Jamnagar making news on the global stage because of the Ambani celebrations had made Champa Ben’s heart swell like a pea-stuffed kachori. On the extended family WhatsApp group, not only had she posted pictures of the three Khans performing together on stage but also a video of Mark Zuckerberg gushing over Anant Ambani’s watch with a comment, “Amara Facebookwallah has also never seen such topeclass items.”

After dissecting the Ambani wedding once again at great length, Champa Ben decides to focus on us. “Kamaal che, even these modern girls like Radhika are changing their last name but you two sisters have still not changed.”

I laugh. “If I had to change my name, Champa Ben, trust me I would change my first name and not my last. We are married, not branded, you know?”

“Huh?” Is Champa Ben’s eloquent response. “Branded like a cow or, for that matter, taken over by a company. It’s not like Rinke and I are two small businesses that have been bought by Godrej, so now we have to change our brand name to theirs na?” I reply.

After fifteen years of being married, I wonder why people still ask me this question. Isn’t it odder that only one partner has to redesign their identity, wipe out their past, while the other one goes through the transition unchanged?

My mother has a sip of her tea. “Khanna sisters now and forever, these two keep saying. Pagal sisters would be more apt.”

Trying to save us from another of Mother Dearest’s lengthy lectures, my sister changes the subject quickly. “Did you catch all those Meghan Markle interviews? At first, it felt like a fairytale wedding, but after seeing all that royal family drama, I don’t think she has had it easy.”

“I guess it’s not easy being married at all,” I say. “We give up homes, jobs, names and bend over backwards to please, till a few years later we find ourselves lying horizontal on our backs, hoping no one walks all over us.”

I think about my younger one and wonder if, after she is married, she will change, add on or stick to her already hyphenated last names. How odd that these questions won’t even arise regarding the prodigal son. The same way that we have always been worried about our girls and not as much about our boys. Keeping the room door open when the tuition sir comes over; ensuring that the school bus has a female chaperone; making sure that as little girls, they were not alone with even men from the extended family; and, along with all this, trying to strike a delicate balance between teaching them to be on guard and yet not be frightened of the world.

My sister interrupts my meandering thoughts. “You are talking about last names, but what about all the taam-jhaam we will have to do? The bar is now set very high after the Ambani events. If no one else, then at least Champa Ben will judge us,” she laughs.

I reply, “Well, I can’t dance like Nita Bhabhi. The last time I tried dancing to ‘Tamma Loge’ during the pandemic, I think even God didn’t want to see my uncoordinated footwork because I immediately fell down and fractured my leg. My husband can barely stay awake after 10 pm, and we both get anxious about hosting dinner parties for over twenty people.” I pause for breath. “If my children really want me to be happy, then the best thing they can do is just elope.”

Champa Ben looks at me disapprovingly and then says, “Bou, pat pat na kar, here, eat something,” passing the plate of khandvi to me. “You girls have to learn to bend a little, Beta. Young people have no tolerance.”

“Champa Ben, tolerance is what a bacteria develops against an antibiotic, where both remain unchanged, indifferent to each other’s presence,” I say. “I think sometimes it’s better to chafe against each other and like a particle in an oyster, you may just grow a pearl. Or perhaps help each other, like the birds that hang out with zebras and eat ticks off their backs. But most importantly, you should support each other, have a great partnership like …”

And as I am racking my brains for the perfect pair, Champa Ben pops in again with, “Like apno Modi and Amit Bhai.”

That wasn’t exactly the pair I had in mind but I guess it’s as good an example as any.

Excerpted with permission from ‘Married Not Branded’ in Mrs Funnybones Returns, Twinkle Khanna, illustrated by Upasana Nidhi, Juggernaut.