Twinkle Khanna bags the Crossword Book Award for her book, Pyjamas Are Forgiving

Twinkle Khanna bags the Crossword Book Award for her book, Pyjamas Are Forgiving

Actress-turned-author Twinkle Khanna feels a writer needs an inflated sense of self-worth while writing. "I strongly believe in the power of being the moron. I wrote about it last week. People who think about their stupidity are often the most intelligent because it is only truly dumb who are convinced of their smartness. The ones who are secretly wondering if they are idiots are the ones who know that there is so much to know that they clearly don't know enough. If you have understood this sentence and if you are clearly a moron like me, you are a prime example of an oxymoron," declared Twinkle, while interacting with the media at Crossword Book Awards 2020.

She was accompanied by lifestyle coach and motivational speaker Gaur Gopal Das and philanthropist Sudha Murty at the event. At the event, Twinkle received the Crossword Book Award (Popular) for Fiction for the book, Pyjamas Are Forgiving.

Take a look at her post:

Sharing her thoughts on winning the award, Twinkle said: "I am thankful to Crossword for this award. I may not deserve it but I didn't deserve a name like Twinkle either (laughs). It's not that the names I have come up with since then have been any better — like Mrs. Funnybones and even Baba Twink Dev. Now I have to coin yet another monicker, if for nothing else then to say that I am following the path of Susan Swanton who said that ‘a writer has to be four people — a nut, a moron, a stylist, and a critic. Now nut comes easy to me. It's the path that dreams up all these ideas and then puts this unfiltered nonsense and regurgitates it on to paper which masquerades as my first draft."

Twinkle said a writer needs to have an inflated sense of self-worth while writing. "(Being a) Stylist is, I guess, the difference between using a word like regurgitate instead of vomit. (On being a) critic, this is the most important part because a writer needs to have an inflated sense of self-worth while they are writing, to feel that what they are saying is worthy of someone else's attention. Then they have to have the ability to put their ego aside, look at that work objectively and, yes, listen to the editors, take their suggestion, and incorporate them, because I think that is the most important (thing) a writer needs to do," she said.

Pyjamas Are Forgiving is a 2018 Indian fiction novel published by Juggernaut Books. The story is narrated by Anshu, a middle-aged woman who is suffering from a sleep disorder.

Late Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia's elder daughter Twinkle is married actor Akshay Kumar, They have a son, Aarav and a daughter, Nitara.

Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

With Smartness Being the In-Thing, What Can Quality Social Gatherings Do For Entrepreneurs?

Check out the Importance of building quality social gatherings for entrepreneurs with smartness being in

July 4, 2018 3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

With modern-day entrepreneurship treading towards uncharted territories with respect to yielding creative solutions, it is only vital that the younger community interacts with and learns from veterans who now believe that smart is the groovy thing in.

Now, learning from the smarter generation of entrepreneurs could undoubtedly be achieved through social gatherings, but even these gatherings would need the smartness factor as far as actually facilitating ideation and learning is concerned. With entrepreneurial gatherings (not conventional meetups) potentially showing tendencies of losing steam and diverting from their core agenda, the need of the hour is for young entrepreneurs to get a good platform which could facilitate entrepreneurial enhancement.

A smart group of entrepreneurs

“The learning principle for me here is that don’t try to do everything yourself. Do it with the help of other entrepreneurs possessing that skill or domain expertise and come together to become a big fish,” states, Saiju Aravind who is CEO at Edubrisk which strives at making teaching and learning smarte1r, to Entrepreneur India.

Aravind’s statement seconds the smart ideation concept wherein entrepreneurs despite having whacky yet potential ideas are allowed, to further their traits, through effective mentorship, guidance on basic aspects such as business scalability and to even aspects such as even actually conceptualising a startup out of entrepreneurial ideas.

“The first word is trust and the last word here again is trust. The organisers can work to bring together groups with carefully chosen synergies where they feel like Collaborators and not Competitors. That will bring in the first level of trust, opening up and sharing of ideas and involvement. Secondly, taking the idea of holacracy, start ups can sit and ideate and come together, ensuring total involvement,” adds Aravind.

“No idea is a bad idea’, each and every idea can be a put to use; one just needs to time it,” states Amin Rozani, Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Spartan Poker.

Hence, that smartness within ideas could potentially be explored through quality social gatherings by entrepreneurs. Now, t is worth noting that the smartness factor is what makes social gatherings in 2018 (and beyond) different from earlier years which were general traditional meetups.

Smarter amalgamation could create magic

With entrepreneurial smartness being the new in-thing, social gatherings could actually lead to a situation wherein issues plaguing society at large could get mitigated instantaneously, almost like magic, with a combination of effective ideas from participants (of the gathering). These could then be turned into actual business models and implemented real-time.

“There could be a marketing team who may be a part of the same program but they are facing the customer, there could be the development team, not at all facing the customer, but they are the ones who create magic at the backend. Now all these different enablers can come together for the purpose of making this gigantic dream come true. So it is always synergy that works out here,” adds Aravind.

Holistic collaborations is yet another side-effect of quality entrepreneurial gatherings. Even if your ideas have been rejected by traditional industry experts, these could find acceptance in the entrepreneurial community when there are conducive platforms.

“, Any idea has the potential of bringing groundbreaking change if it is molded/conditioned/fine-tuned in a suitable manner,” re-iterates Rozani.

Real smartness comes from knowing yourself

Vishal Jacob’s new book, Connecting with Yourself, was written to help people understand themselves and explore the many reasons why we think, feel and act the way we do. Vishal has over 17 years of experience in the field of digital marketing, communication planning and consumer behaviour. YS: What is the key theme of your book?

Vishal Jacob: Most of the larger problems that we face tend to be people related. But we need to realise that the term ‘people’ is not just about others but about ourselves too! So we need to begin by understanding the reasons behind our own thoughts, feelings and actions. You need to learn how to truly connect with yourself. The ideas in the book rely heavily on concepts from neuroscience and psychology.

Knowing yourself is the first step towards leading a balanced life YourStory: Can even smart people remain unsuccessful if they don’t know themselves?

Well both “smart” and “successful” have many interpretations. Knowing oneself well and living a centred and balanced life is important. Let me illustrate. Consider one person who as per our current societal norms is considered smart – for example, he has excellent verbal and reasoning skills. His skills would have resulted in him taking up more technical options in his higher studies and career, reinforcing our society’s norm of him being “smart”. He may end up reaching great heights and be happy with his “success”. Alternately he may reach great heights, yet feel trapped – maybe he has the riches and comfort, but some areas of his life feel incomplete to him. He is not centred.

Now consider another person who was not considered smart in the societal sense. Instead he was smart in another intelligences, like music, sports, acting or something similar. If this person succumbs to societal pressure and ends up in a corporate job, do you think he will consider himself successful, irrespective of how others may regard him? He may not consciously be disappointed. But it is a fact that 75% or more people dislike their jobs. So this disappointment will catch up with him maybe 5 years or 10 or 15 years later.

As you see in both cases, it isn’t smartness (they were both smart) that is important. It is whether they stayed connected to who they were.

YourStory: What is the best way to adapt to change? 

VJ: Change is constant, which is why adapting to change must also be a constant process. 

You should learn newer skills or unlearn old lessons that are no longer valid in the new and changed circumstances that you are in. Learning new skills is the easier of the two and can be achieved with time and effort. Unlearning older lessons is often more difficult as these may have become ingrained habits. These are possible to change too, but go beyond the mere application of will.

YS: How do you develop a new habit?

VJ: A habit is a compulsive process and can only be formed as long as a strong sense of gratification is felt upon performing that action. 

Research has shown that as much as 45 percent of all our daily actions are habitual. Therefore, it is through our small daily actions that we can define a life of our own making. So cultivating the right habits, giving up the habits that jeopardise us and learning to change the ones that need to be bettered are the crux of leading a productive life. Any success we hope to achieve lies here.

YS: How can we overcome procrastination?

VJ: Procrastination is one form of a weak will. Habits are mostly honed over years of repetition and conditioning. This makes changing even one habit very difficult. Habitual procrastination pervades many different areas of our life. As a result, its effect can be debilitating. It is therefore extremely important to learn to control it. To control procrastination, you need to understand the methods that strengthen the willpower and the methods you can use to tame habits.

YS: How do you lead a balanced life?

VJ: I have tried to advocate the need to live a centred and balanced life. Life throws challenges at us mainly in four key areas of our lives - work, finance, health and our relationships with the people who matter to us. It is important to balance all four equally. If one or more of these elements go out of hand it will cascade into other areas as well. If we address them, we live a fare more centred life by staying connected to ourselves.

YS: How did you learn to connect with yourself before writing this book?

VJ: I believe this journey of looking inward and connecting with yourself is a never ending one. For me it started at a very young age. As a child my parents used to have long conversations at home with my school principal. The three of them were friends, all working in the field of education, though in different schools. The conversations often turned to philosophy, spirituality, and life in general. I used to hide behind the balcony door and listen to these conversations. Some of these talks had a lasting impact on me and especially the way I looked at life. Years later, I noticed that the major problems we all deal with are basically people related. Every challenge that I managed to overcome helped me understand myself better.