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Girl, you're a woman now!

Halfway through the interview, she says, abruptly, "When are you going to ask me the questions?"
"What questions?" you ask.
"You know, the ones all the filmi journalists always ask."

She says this with a...um.. a twinkle in her eyes. Seated on a couch sideways, half-turned towards you, one foot crooked up, blue jeans and plain cotton black shirt, top buttons loosened to discreetly display the contasting creaminess of her...um, cleavage. Not coming on at all, just being comfy in the secure environs of her family home. But, like I said, there’s that twinkle in her eye.

"Which questions are those?" you ask, though you have a pretty good idea already.

The five questions
She holds up a hand, ticking the numbers off on her long, organ-player fingers (but no, she doesn’t play the organ, at least not the kind with ivory keys). "There are only five questions a film journalists asks film stars," she says.
And elaborates: "One: Who are you bonking currently? Two: Why are you bonking that person? Three: How does the person you were bonking previously feel about your bonking this new person? Four: How does the person you’re bonking currently feel about the person you were bonking previously? Five: Who are you bonking currently?"

As I jot them down hastily, she flaps her hands, alarmed. "No, don’t write that down! Not bonking! It’ll become, like, a whole big paragraph in the interview, and everybody will think I’m this big guttermouth!"

"Okay," I say, always ready to help preserve the pristine modesty of mischievous film starlets. "I’ll change it to fucking. But spelt with two asterisks, like f**king. How’s that?"

She hoo-haws like a cat on a hot tin roof. "No way! Are you crazy? Change it to...um..." Thinks frantically. I experience a moment of profound sympathy for her and others of her ilk. The things you have to worry about when you’re a star. Such as: Where’s a thesaurus when you really need one?

"Change it to ‘seeing’," she finishes. "Yes, as in ‘Who are you seeing currently.’"

I grin. "It’s not the same."

"Stars gossip, too!"
She shrugs. "Well, I’ve never made a big secret of my love life. If I’m going around with someone, I go out with him openly. To pubs, restaurants, hotels... I don’t believe in hiding my relationships. But I have to be careful what I say in print. You know how film magazines are."

But after a while, foot curled under her, comfy on the couch again, another steaming beer-mug of black coffee in hand, she admits: "Actually, it’s not just film journalists. They’re as human as any of us. You know what stars do on a film set all day? I mean, there’s a lot of waiting between shots, it can get really boring at times.

So we gossip. About who’s bonking ...um, seeing... whom, and why and when and all that kind of stuff. So we’re no different from anyone else, actually. We’re as obsessed with sex as any normal person."

Stars gossipping about other stars. The image of a thousand stars on a thousand film sets, huddled around beach tables under rainbow-striped beach umbrellas, dressed in full shooting make-up and costumes, all gossipping about who’s bonking whom, why and when and where...
The mind reels, it staggers, it faints. But there’s something comforting about it, too. It isn’t only film journalists who are after sleaze. Or film fans who love reading about stars' sex lives. The stars themselves enjoy it!

Why didn’t someone tell us this before? Well, maybe because nobody thought to ask the sacred and secret sixth question. The pinnacle of investigative reporting. The hallmark of great journalism.

Emboldened by the coffee, the slightly unbuttoned shirt, the comfy posture and the disarmed look of almost lazy relaxation, I go where no non-film journalist has gone before. I ask the question:

"So, um, like, who-are-you-bonking-currently?"

She shoots straight from the hip, tells it like it is, isn’t afraid to let the chips fall where they will, knows how to let her hair down and have a good time -- she goes drinking with her female buddies and is notorious for her "guttermouth", because she spouts the most horrendous things about even her closest friends after a few strong ones -- doesn’t brook fools and certainly isn’t one herself, isn’t sold-out to the film industry’s hypocritical ‘sati-savitri’ image game, doesn’t kowtow to industry politics and power games, enjoys her career but doesn’t worship at the altar of celluloid fame like some stars seem to do, and actually wants to have a real life outside of her movie career.

What’s more, you suspect she’ll go out and get that life she wants, once she’s put in her time and made her bucks. And hell, that’s more normal than most female stars would be willing to admit to being.

Six years ago, she stepped onto a chaotic movie set and was asked to say the most cliched lines imaginable. It was her debut film, Barsaat, and the line was: "I love you." She had a moment of utter panic—"I was shaking so much, I could hardly stand." And the fact that the director didn’t seem in control of the whole shindig didn’t really help matters at all.

Later, the director (Shekhar Kapur) quit and was replaced (by Raj Kumar Santoshi), and the scene was cut from the film. Her first day of filming that actually ended up on film went much more smoothly. And, with the film’s release, she and co-starchild Bobby Deol were out of the crease and scoring.

Twinkle Khanna and the art of Zen
Six years passed. A lot of films, a lot of songs and dances, a lot of water and sweat under the Bollywood bridge. Where is she at today, from the 18-year-old Barsaat debutante to the 24-year-old Joru Ka Ghulam (her latest release)?

"I wasn’t hellbent on films. It was more, ‘Let's try it. If I like it, I’ll go on.’ But I began enjoying it. Enjoyed making films. I didn’t bother about the repercussions. I wasn’t grown up enough to realise how other people would take it. Even today, until you asked me about Joru Ka Ghulam, I hadn’t even thought about it.

"Like, I know it’s a comedy and that’s a nice change from all the rona-dhona I did in Mela, but I haven’t thought about things like, ‘Will it be a hit or a flop?’ We give so much importance to what happens. Five years down the line, will we even remember today?"

Almost a Zen-like acceptance, a que sera sera attitude. From what we’ve read and heard of her, it would seem she’s a lot more calm and accepting since her first frenzied filmi years.

"Yes, I’m more chilled-out, learnt to deal with ups and downs. It bothers me at times, but doesn’t shake me up like it did before."

But even as a schoolgirl, she had that particular quality: "I put everything I have into something, whether an exam, a race or, now, a film. Once I’ve done my work, I relax. The day before an exam or the release of a film, no stress."

How much of this laidback, easygoing nature comes from her mother Dimple? All of it, probably.

"I was a real brat, a real star child until I was in std V in Maneckji Cooper school. Bragging to my friends, coming to school in a chauffeur-driven car, hogging on Black Forest cake every day... If I had gone on that way, I’d be one of those typical industry brats today, no question about it. But I was packed off to boarding school, New Era, in Panchgani. And that saved my life. I’d recommend that every child must go to boarding for at least a couple of years. It straightens you out."

Big egos, one friend
So how does she find the industry after six years? A home away from home?

Not really. "There are a lot of egos, very big egos. Unnecessarily magnified. It’s a creative field, so there are a lot of eccentric people around."

Then she describes a typical film set: "So many of us. All working together, sometimes for the first time... you do form a kind of a bond. But the moment the film’s over, everyone goes their own way. You come home and you’ve forgotten them all."

She puts the coffee mug down, arriving at a moment of profound insight. "In fact, in six years that I’ve been in the industry, I’ve made only one real friend. That I can call a friend. Just one."

Would that friend happen to be her Mela co-star, Aamir Khan? Her grin -- she doesn’t really smile, either grins or doesn’t, an all or nothing woman -- says ‘yes’: "It’s not what some people think. There was this rumour, I know. But like I said, I’m completely open about my relationships.

"Yeah, there have been guys I’ve been more than friends with. But Aamir is truly and sincerely just a friend. He’s someone I can really talk to, open up completely. He’s even had dinner with me and my boyfriend right here at home."

We aren’t asking if that boyfriend happens to be the much-rumoured Akshay Kumar. Because that would take us down the street of the five fatal questions again! Wiser to move on...

Wanderlust strikes
Her dark shoulder-length hair curls around her so-white neck and face as she bends to sip more coffee. Beautiful? Definitely. Sexy? Very. Not just in the physical sense, but in the sense of inner strength and attitude. But even if you just consider physical assets, she’s far lovelier than in films.

She loves to eat. Lives to eat: "Nothing fancy, I like the usual things, chicken, paneer, biryani. But I like to eat a lot. Everyone tells me I eat like a horse!" But she works out hard to keep those extra cals from showing up in the wrong places. Drinking black coffee before pounding the metal at the gym. And it shows.

She loves filmi dances. "Govinda’s such a treat to work with. He’s a great dancer, it’s really fun. And challenging." She draws "reasonably well". And, right now, she’s writing a children’s story that sounds intriguing enough to be publishable.

But what she’d really like to do, someday, is simply backpack through Europe, seeing all the places and sights she never had time to see while shooting -- "it’s always hotel-location-hotel." Which can be frustrating because she’s a real "outdoors person, love sports, badminton, sun-tanning, friends and laughter."

Twinkle's not religious -- unlike her mother and sister. She believes that "if you’re a good person and are good to other people, that’s what matters, you don’t need to prove it to God by going to the mandir every day." Doesn’t give a hoot about publicity -- it took an arm-wrestle from her sister to get her to agree to this encounter. She’ll be 27 on December 29, 2000. And loves knitting, making blankets, buying pretty furniture, clothes and jewellery.

Marriage? No plans. "It’s never been a priority, the way I was brought up. But maybe some day."

Don’t make that too soon, huh. And keep that twinkle in your eye, Twinkle!