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Release: August 18, 2015
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Source: Amazon
Find it at: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle
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Good morning, it’s 6 a.m. and I am wide awake because the man of the house has decided that he needs to perform a series of complex manoeuvres that involve him balancing on his left elbow.
When I fell asleep last night, there was a baby lying next to me. Her smelly diaper is still wedged on my head. But aside from this rather damp clue, I can’t seem to find her anywhere. I could ask my mother-in-law if she has seen the baby. But she may just tell me that I need to fast on alternate Mondays, and God will deliver the baby back to me
Full of wit and delicious observations, Mrs Funnybones captures the life of the modern Indian woman. It is a woman who organizes dinner each evening, even as she goes to work all day. And she who runs her own life but has to listen to her Mummyji. A Mummy who worries about her weight and the state of the country. Based on Twinkle Khanna’s super-hit column, Mrs Funnybones marks the debut of one of our funniest, most original voices.
About the Author:
“Twinkle Khanna, aka Mrs Funnybones, crafts satirical stories and funny fables when she is not running a design business. And not selling candles or running in circles around her small but rather odd family. She narrowly escaped a gruesome tragedy when Bollywood tried to bludgeon her brain to the size of a pea. But she ducked at the right moment and escaped miraculously unharmed.
She is a popular columnist and is a regular contributor to The Times of India and DNA After Hrs. Currently, she is in the process of creating lame jokes like, ‘Why do all Hindu boys worship their mother? Because their religion tells them to worship the cow.’ She firmly believes that nothing in life is sacred except laughter.”
Mrs Funnybones Review:
This was a fairly quick read and I managed to finish it in one sitting. A few readers out there cribbed that this book is just a collection of published posts from her column. But I had never read her columns before so all these narratives were new to me. I enjoyed her style of writing, and I think she does have a good sense of humor in a sarcastic way. There are some instances which genuinely made me laugh out loud, like when her son says he can make anyone pregnant, . Or when they are travelling in the plane and smell dirty diapers, or when she talks about her weight issues.
Having said that, I feel Twinkle tries too hard to be funny at times. While there are some witty moments here and there, I felt like a lot of the anecdotes were put in to fill the pages. Maybe the humor is not my cup of tea, but I was rolling my eyes while reading past some of her stories, like how clichéd she makes Germans sound. And how she makes most of the Indian come across as illiterate fools for fun.
Also, there is also no consistency towards the tone of the book,. While one chapter is a quirky tale, but the following chapter talks about death and suicide. And other one does a flashback to her college days. If I had read her columns prior to reading this book, I would have given this a lower rating, for randomly throwing stories from your column, and publishing it.
Overall, the book is worth only 2.5 stars for its content. However I have to give an additional star for the cute illustrations scattered across all the chapters. Kudos to the illustrator for nicely animating this book.
