Madhureeta Mukherjee (BOMBAY TIMES; January 30, 2018)

Her pen is mighty, yet mirthful and her razor-sharp wit can slice and dice her words with ease. In a world of political correctness, she takes her chances with words, being playful, yet polite. Of course, also the fact that she’s an industry insider makes you guffaw in delight at her guts. Being in front of the camera was never one of her favourite things, so over a decade ago, she bowed out of her acting career, and years later, Twinkle Khanna flourished as an interior designer, and found her true calling as a columnist and author. While her hubby, Akshay Kumar’s filmi career is on a high, she steps into new territory as a producer with Padman, directed by R Balki. In a chat with Bombay Times, she talks about pads, parenting and pushing boundaries in the creative space. Read on...

Apparently, there were many people who were keen to make a film on Arunachalam Muruganantham’s incredible life, but he didn’t grant the rights to anyone, until he met you. How did you manage to impress him?
I was writing a column for The Times of India when I read his story and thought it was a unique perspective on menstruation. In India, we think that being proficient in English is being intelligent. But here was this man, whose intelligence wasn’t constrained or bound by his language skills or by formal education. That really struck me. From an uneducated man, he became an innovator because he saw that there was a need for it. I started calling him and chasing him, and for some odd reason he just wouldn’t answer my calls. Then I started emailing him and sending him text messages. When I set my mind on something, I am like this rhinoceros, I charge ahead without looking left or right.

I made it a policy to call Muruganantham every day, irrespective of where I was. Later on, I realised that he prefers messages and emails, as he finds it easier to comprehend. Finally, when I called him from England, he answered my call; I am guessing he thought that I was some foreign journalist. Soon after that, we met and he was open to the idea of a book, though he was reluctant to the idea of a movie. Perhaps, he felt he wouldn’t be portrayed well and would be shown in some item song in the movie. My intention was clear, I told him that I don’t know if I will make another movie, as this is not a career path that I have chosen, but this is a compelling story and I wanted to make it.

Apart from the fact that it’s based on menstruation, the film breaks many grounds; the lead role is being essayed by a man. This, in a country where most men don’t openly talk about menstruation...
Yes, that’s the idea. The conversation has started. Irrespective of how many people are going to watch the film, I want them to be aware of what we are doing. I am seeing that men, who would have never spoken about these things earlier, are doing it now. The other day, at a press conference I was asked, ‘What are you hoping to achieve with this film?’ I said, exactly this. The fact that you have started talking about it is what I am trying to do. Women are always talking about women’s issues, but are the men listening? Unfortunately, I don’t think that the men are listening. I thought that if we show an actor who is idolised by so many men holding a sanitary pad, a lot of taboos will be broken right there.

Was Akshay your first choice for the role? When you spoke to him about it, was he apprehensive at all?
At first, I was thinking of making the film with a smaller budget. Our cinema is divided between commercial and alternative cinema, so I thought I will probably make something in the latter space. Honestly, a documentary reaches only limited people and some film festivals. The point here is not to just educate the educated, but to also educate the uneducated. That can be done in two ways in our country, through cricket and cinema. I don’t know any cricketer, and they have their own pads, so I thought that making a movie was the right way to go ahead. I don’t think Akshay hesitated even for a moment. We didn’t even have a discussion about him wearing a sanitary pad in the film; maybe we talked about whether the underwear should be a pink-coloured one. I had written the first two-three chapters (of the story) before meeting Muruganantham, and I had spoken to Akshay about the story at that point. So, he had a fair idea about where the story was going.

Your sense of humour serves as a great writing tool, especially when you want to make politically-incorrect views palatable. Like they say, many a true word is spoken in jest...
Yes, it is the only way you can get away with saying so much more. Laughter and orgasms are two uncontrollable physical human expressions. If you can make someone laugh at something, it means you have gotten inside their brain. Hopefully, I have a penchant for cracking lame jokes, so that makes my work easy. There could be some people who don’t get the humour, but that’s okay, everyone does not have to understand everything.

Do you openly talk to your kids about various subjects, some that might be taboo or sensitive, too?
Akshay thinks I am excessively open with my kids while talking about all kinds of things. As I am growing older, I am realising that you can’t control things. You can’t control anyone, whether it is your kids, mother or husband. The only person you have any control over, that too barely, is yourself. The mind also has its own tricks to play. So, I keep channels open with my kids and crack jokes with them, as I think that it is an effective way of starting conversations. In our house, we don’t consider any subject as taboo. I crack jokes on everything from sex to drugs. Akshay and I have spoken to our kids about everything — homosexuality, alcohol, drugs and sex. Recently, I was talking to my son (Aarav) and telling him that in our country, it is illegal for people below 18 years of age to have sex. I explained to him that if a 17-year-old boy and girl have sex, the boy can be accused of rape and go to jail. He told me that it is not fair if it is consensual. So, whether it’s about consent or feminism, we have conversations about it. Nowadays, even in schools, kids are being gender-educated and they have such discussions with their teachers too, which is a great move.

Does Akshay ever censor what you write?
Yes, sometimes he censors what I want to write, and sometimes I listen to him. I talk to him about all my writing. I narrate my stories to him; I don’t think he has read any of my books, as he doesn’t like reading. He is the stabilising factor in my life and I think that’s why we work so well together. Marriage is teamwork; it’s like playing tennis doubles against the world, where you constantly lob these balls. So, when two people are different, one’s weakness is the other’s strength. What Akshay needs from me is to push him harder to step out of his comfort zone. For seven years, I pushed him to do different kinds of cinema, and at that point of time, he would tell me that this is what he needed to do. Then slowly, by his own evolution he started doing what we are seeing today and that is remarkable. You have to be relevant with the times and grow; you cannot do what you were doing ten years ago. Well, one thing that we have in common is that we both have a very strong work ethic, though we come from very different backgrounds. I think when both of us were very young we realised that if we didn’t work every day of our lives, we were not going to get anywhere. In fact, we laugh about it and say that if we both were thrown in a gutter, even then we would survive. That’s what we are and I am hoping this is something that our kids inherit from us.

It’s surprising you are saying this, given the privileged background you come from...
Life didn’t let me take it for granted. There was a big upheaval in my life when I was very young, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me; otherwise, I would have been a complacent child who ranked 35th in a class of 36 students, and sat and ate ice cream. But because of that upheaval, I went to boarding school and that’s when I realised that the only person you can rely on is yourself. It was something that changed the trajectory of my life.

Lately, there has been a general feeling amongst creative people that their freedom of expression is being attacked. Do you feel stifled as a writer? Being a public figure and the wife of a movie star, does it make it tougher?
I have been writing for five years and in the last two years, I definitely feel that even online you can sense a threat, where people want to rape you, kill you and do all sorts of things. I think that nowadays being politically correct seems important to most people, rather than genuinely going out there and doing something, achieving something or saying something. I think political correctness is taking over genuine human emotions. Yes, now I have to be more careful while writing and there is probably a lot more that I would want to say. For instance, a few days ago I was talking to Akshay about writing something on how certain things should be legalised in our country. He told me that for God’s sake don’t do it. He disagrees with me, but I will find my way to write it (laughs!).

So if you weren’t writing, what would you do?
Well, before I started writing seriously, I was doing interior designing. So that has always been there. I am always looking at doing interesting things. In our family, all of us can paint, knit, crochet and we are all voracious readers. In fact, when I was an actress, I would crochet on the set. Back then, there were no cell phones, so I would either be reading or knitting during breaks. My spot boy would tell me not to do it out in the open, but instead in the make-up van, as he feared that people would say, ‘Aap aunty type ho’.