Mrs Funnybones: She’s definitely like us!

When the first page of the book started with “Nothing in life is sacred except laughter” I knew something good was on its way. It followed up with “Nothing in life is free except bad advice” and I couldn’t stop counting the instances when I received bad advice and maybe even gave away some (#guilty).

Mrs Funnybones: She’s Just Like You and a Lot Like Me, came out in 2015 but I got my hands on it just now. I had seen positive reviews all around and thus I didn’t pay much effort looking up more. As the name suggests, I assumed it to be a funny/satirical take on the situations a woman faces everyday, mostly drawn from her personal life. And it was but wasn’t just it all. Here and there were bits of these absolutely heart touching life lessons woven into the narrative so effortlessly that it makes your mind wander.

My favorite ones are below in no particular order.

I want to be a child again, to climb up hills and roll down the other side; only because the hill exists and so do I.

We come from darkness, live for a short while in a blaze of light and sound and go back into darkness. Yet day after day, we go on pretending that we and our loved ones are immortal.

Life is just like flying a kite. Sometimes you have to leave it loose, sometimes you have to hold on tight, sometimes your kite will fly effortlessly, sometimes you will not be able to control it, but even when you’re struggling to keep it afloat and the string is cutting into your fingers, don’t let go. The wind will change in your favor once again. Just don’t let go.

As my eyes are shutting, I think about the word ‘love’. It is multilayered, convoluted and as imperfect as all human emotions. It is not your heart beating fast when you look at him or constantly wanting to be with the other person. Love in any relationship, family or an intimate friendship, is only about putting the other person’s needs ahead of your own, and that, my friend, is just as simple and as complex as you make it.

Growing up in a Punjabi household, how could I miss these out?

Sometimes you have to eat till you burst the same way that you need to laugh till tears roll down your eyes.

A punjabi mother, her son and food form a triad as sacred as Brahma, Mahesh and Vishnu, and cannot be interfered with as I learnt in the early years of my marriage.

Our little satellite reached Mars because it was called MOM. If it was called DAD, it would still be circling the Earth, lost, but not willing to ask for directions.

But the one that took my heart away was:

I ask him, ‘What will you do if something doesn’t work out?’
He says, ‘I will keep trying and never give up!’ and I tell him, ‘No, remember, the only person you can ever change is yourself; after you have done that and you are the best you that you can be, let go. There is always another job, another woman, another best friend. Each day that you persist in a situation where you are miserable is a day wasted on the path that would lead you to happiness.’
He looks at me and says, ‘So you are saying I should take the easy way out?’
And I say, ‘No, I want you to know the difference between trying and holding on.’

Trying and holding on are complicated and challenging things, but the most difficult thing in life is to love fiercely and then let go.

Mrs Funnybones, aka, Twinkle Khanna has been admired for the thoughts she’s bringing to the world for quite some time now. She’s been hailed as a feminist icon though I read somewhere that she doesn’t like being labelled an ‘icon’. Doesn’t that make you like her even more?