Tahira Kashyap Khurrana believes she is a storyteller at heart, the medium does not matter. The writer-filmmaker, whose latest book The 7 Sins of Being A Mother is being talked about, is now focusing on Sharmaji Ki Beti. The multi-generational story — featuring Divya Dutta, Sakshi Tanwar and Saiyami Kher — is her debut feature film after short film Pinni and a segment in Feels Like Ishq. “It took four years [to see the film through]. I fell sick, and then the two lockdowns [delayed matters]. But through it all, the thought of abandoning the project never came to me,” says the director, asserting that every hurdle “made my film better.”

Kashyap is currently riding high on the praise her book is receiving. Through the 145-pager, she talks about the unreasonable pressure new mothers face to get back in shape, the raging hormones, and underlines that mothers are not the superhumans that society expects them to be. “I am unapologetic while writing. I am done with the effort to be pretentious; I don’t want to be holier-than-thou. Whenever I write, my idea is that people should evolve. My way of conveying messages is through quirkiness and humour. When people laugh, the taboo becomes less of a stigma. When I write about how I forgot my baby at a restaurant, I am trying to reduce the judgment and make people realise it’s only human to slip. There is no correct version of being a mother.”

Is there a tendency to practice diplomacy in her writing, since husband Ayushmann Khurrana is a leading star? Kashyap says, “He reads all my material; I read all his scripts. But we don’t need each other’s permission or validation. We don’t impose our ideologies on each other.”

Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 11, 2020)

During the lockdown, Tahira Kashyap has completed her fourth book, titled The 12 Commandments Of Being A Woman. “It’s about the different phases of being a woman—from a child to an awkward teenager, from being in a relationship to having kids. Men will find it intriguing, while women will relate with certain phases,” she promises.

While she would have preferred the quiet of the hills, Tahira points out that there are a lot of things a woman has to take care of. “I am used to writing in the midst of chaos; I need it for my creative juices to start flowing,” she laughs, admitting that without the Coronavirus lockdown, it’d have taken her longer to complete the book as she’d have had to go for meetings and shoots. “During the last few months, I wrote every day. It’s a fun, light read.”

Meanwhile, the author is enjoying life in Chandigarh: “Keeping rules in mind, both Ayushmann (Khurrana) and I go out cycling. It’s our ‘me time’ and we take different routes. One day though, we explored the city together. Small things like this bring happiness.”

Board games like Monopoly also keep them together in these tough times. “One day, Apar (Aparshakti Khurana, actor and brother-in-law) bought aprons for all of us and the family divided into two teams. One made ice cream, the other baked cakes. We are really enjoying ourselves, something we missed during robotic times. We’re fortunate to have parents living in the same city who are happy and healthy,” she avers.

Tahira was gearing up for her directorial debut, but now isn’t too sure about when the film will roll. She, however, hopes that her novel’s quirky perspective will resonate with the audience.