Review: Welcome to Paradise by Twinkle Khanna

There’s a special contempt in Delhi’s literary circuit for those who call themselves writers but do not possess a network, public thoughts about other writers, a Twitter career, or lately, a degree from a foreign university. And yet, a couple of months ago, a journalist interviewing Khanna about Welcome to Paradise, her new collection of short stories, noted her “kohl-ed eyes and dishevelled hair – just like a writer’s”. Four published books in and Khanna is still “like a writer.” 224pp, ₹399; Juggernaut Back in 2016, a review in Newslaundry had pointed out “a thick undertone of intellectual snobbery when people praise Twinkle Khanna’s writing. And whatever goodwill the story collection had generated was destroyed by her 2018 novel Pyjamas Are Forgiving, which was called, among other things “painful blather.” At the glitzy launch of the novel in Mumbai, Khanna said she’s only interested in writing and not adaptations of her work. A single sentence can, wittily, sum up the atmosphere: as the family fight heats up, fighting over beef and pork and circumcision and which religion is superior, Khanna writes, “ lying three feet away and the extended family quarelling over pigs and penises.” The story contains so much more: the Indian son as the crown prince, drug abuse, teenaged daughters.