"We're failing our children in education.” Twinkle Khanna talks about her journey to feminism in this interview with Algebra Conversations.
📹: Algebra Conversations
📹: Algebra Conversations
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00I would say sharp things about Rahul Gandhi but then he's already doing it to himself.
00:05When I failed as an actress, and I failed miserably as an actress,
00:08so how does Akshay survive you? Does he do the Mahamrityunjaya every day?
00:15A hundred times? He's a very patient man.
00:30When you look around you today, you know, just in a kind of hierarchy of concerns,
00:48what are the things that really trouble you about what's going on in the country?
00:52What troubles me? It troubles me that Asian Paints has just announced the color of the
01:02decade and it's blazing saffron. No, but I'm really again not, I don't really write
01:22about particular, you know, politicians or parties. I mean, I would write equally,
01:30sort of, I would say sharp things about Rahul Gandhi but then he's already doing it to himself
01:36because, you know, at the velocity of Jupiter apparently was one of his quotes, so I don't.
01:46And the rest of it, again, I like to address in a humorous way and I have been all along.
01:54I was just talking just in terms of concerns, you know, that in a hierarchy of concerns,
02:00what would you just, apart from the color saffron. I would say there are a lot of concerns. One is,
02:06of course, that we seem to be a nation that is being geared towards being, you know,
02:14as sort of everyone should have a smartphone but we're not gearing towards having a nation
02:19of smart people. We're failing our children in education. We're spending more on, I would say,
02:27war efforts than we're spending on health. We are building statues which are like 2,000
02:33crores and above. We have, we seem to be heading towards polarizing in terms of
02:40communalism and religion. We also seem, I mean, there are lots of problems at this point of time,
02:48so it's an endless list right now. But I don't think that this is something particularly in
02:54every situation with every party. There are different problems. Whoever's in power,
02:58you just have to pick those and you have to sort of voice your concerns about that.
03:02When you say you're a feminist, what do you really mean by that? So, I think being a feminist has
03:05been sort of, I've had to walk backwards because for a very long time, I lived in this house where,
03:12and I grew up, you know, with a mother who made it very clear to me right at the beginning
03:16that she didn't, we never had these conversations. We never spoke about feminism or equality or
03:20anything, but it was very clear that there was absolutely no need for a man, you know. It would
03:26be very nice to have a man, like you'd have a nice handbag, but even if you have a plastic bag, it
03:30would do. You know, it's just something that you keep your stuff in. But, so I grew up with that
03:44notion and for a long time, I really didn't feel that, you know, that there was much use for them.
03:51Even a gynecologist will tell you that if you have a premature boy compared to a premature girl,
03:56the girl will survive because she's stronger. Then, you know, it's a fact. And then, I mean,
04:03also it's very sad. I mean, they're weak by nature. They start losing their hair,
04:07then they wrap four strands round and round their head. And then, oh no, they all hate me.
04:16You see all the men looking at me. Then, luckily for most women, they die 10, 15 years before us.
04:28So, you know, I mean, you have to kind of feel a little sorry for them also.
04:32But then, they spend their life with this swagger, like they're invincible.
04:37So, I had to walk backwards and feel that maybe we are not superior, maybe perhaps we are sort
04:42of equal. So, that has been my journey to feminism. So, how does Akshay survive you?
04:48Does he do the Mahamrityunjaya every day? A hundred times? He's a very patient man.
04:57And again, it's… So, once I wrote him a very bad poem. And the poem was,
05:03why would I want a man just like me? What would I learn from him? What would he learn from me?
05:08Two peas in a pod died of inertia. And he said,
05:12what's inertia? And I said, well, that's why I went different pods.
05:19But I think it works out perfectly well, you know. I talked to him about the theory of
05:25relativity and he thinks I'm Einstein and it's a great thing.
05:31But again, I seem to have a slightly different notion about marriage or perhaps the world has
05:37it. They always keep thinking that, you know, two people have to be in alignment, that they
05:41have to stand for the same thing, that they should have the same political views. And if that was the
05:48case, then why do women have the right to vote if we're anyway going to be in alignment with
05:52our husbands? So, there's one thing that I've always tried to make clear that the only person
06:00whose words and actions I'm responsible for are mine. The only person I'm bringing on this table
06:04is me. And if that's not good enough, then so be it. But that's it. This is not McDonald's happy
06:09meal where you get a hamburger with French fries. You get the hamburger and that's it.
06:13And I think that that is the way to be. But I don't think that life should be this couple's
06:19only dinner party, you know. And you have to make your own path as an individual. And that I think
06:24is something that most women sort of learn along the way. Could you share some sort of, you know,
06:30incidents, episodes in your life when you've really had to go for your spine, you know, when
06:36you've had a difficult choice to make and you've made it? But my whole construct is such that I
06:43don't look at difficult things as difficult. And if they are difficult in my mind itself, I have
06:49already negated it to something that I can laugh about. That is the way I'm made, you know.
06:54Whatever for me, every time I've seen an obstacle or what you are calling difficult, I look at it
07:03that if I have an obstacle, I have to leap higher. If I'm falling down, it just means that I have to
07:09succeed at something else. So when I failed as an actress and I failed miserably as an actress,
07:14I didn't fall into some deep pit of depression because I just said, well, now I have an
07:18opportunity to succeed at myriad other things. And I got up and I did so many other things. And
07:23I'm here today. So I don't really, I'm not someone who likes to talk about the
07:28tough part of life because I don't look at it as tough.