Twinkle Khanna says Pyjamas Are Forgiving began as a short story and grew into her first novel. In a 2018 interview with Scroll.in’s Soumya Rao, she discussed the book’s title, her writing routine and its questions about women, age and the pressure to be perfect.
What is Pyjamas Are Forgiving about?
The novel follows Anshu at an Ayurvedic retreat, where she encounters her former husband. The Google Books listing for the 2018 edition identifies the setting as Kerala’s Shanthamaaya spa. The interview focuses less on plot detail than on how Khanna developed the story and what she wanted to explore through Anshu.
How did the novel begin?
Khanna told Rao that the book started as a short story. As she continued writing, it outgrew the shorter form she had first imagined. “It is the story that tells you what form it needs,” she said.
Before the novel, Khanna had moved from newspaper columns to books: Mrs Funnybones (2015), followed by the short-story collection The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad. Pyjamas Are Forgiving was her first published novel.
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What does the title mean?
Khanna described the title as both literal and figurative. Pyjamas appear in the story, but “forgiving” also points to the way a person can be too accommodating—letting too much pass or making too much allowance for others. The title thus connects an everyday garment to a question about personal boundaries.
How does Khanna write?
Khanna said she spent about a year and a half on the novel and writes something almost every day. Her attention can shift for a few days when she is working intensively on a column. She sees a shared discipline across columns, short stories and novels, while the time required and the space to develop other characters differ.
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She also discussed the craft distinction between showing and telling. A novel’s longer form gives a writer more room to develop characters beyond the protagonist; a shorter piece has less space for that expansion.
What questions about women does the novel raise?
Khanna said women and their place in the world recur in her writing. In this novel, she wanted to consider how society views a woman of a certain age who is single, and to question the assumption that an empowered woman must be infallible. Anshu, in her account, is empowered and fallible at once.
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Why is the ending ambiguous?
Khanna said she wanted an ambiguous ending, while seeing Anshu’s journey as complete. The distinction suggests that a character can reach an emotional or personal resolution even when the story does not settle every question about what happens next.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Which edition is the interview about?
The Google Books catalog identifies the novel as fiction published by Juggernaut Books in 2018. That edition is listed at 221 pages and carries ISBN 9789386228970 (ISBN-10: 9386228971). These details identify the edition; they do not establish present-day stock or price.
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Sources: Soumya Rao’s interview with Twinkle Khanna, Scroll.in, 10 September 2018; Google Books catalog record for Pyjamas Are Forgiving.
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