Growing up as the youngest of seven siblings, Khyrunnisa A says she had to turn to humour to hold her own in her family and, occasionally, get the better of them. Perhaps it is that “practical experience” that has helped her make a mark as a writer of humour with her best-selling book Tongue in Cheek, going into seven reprints. “You should have a funny bone to appreciate humour,” she says.
As her new book Chuckle Merry Spin reaches book stores, the award-winning writer sits down in her book-lined, comfortable study in Thiruvananthapuram to talk about her work, a candidly funny account of her first trip to the US in 2018. Khyrunnisa and her husband, P Vijaya Kumar, went to the US to spend time with their son, Amar, and his wife, Arpitha, and to attend Arpitha’s convocation.
The interesting part of the book lies in her delightful portrayal of the people she meets — taxi drivers, bus drivers, museum guides, passers-by, waiters et al, and the eye for detail she has while capturing in words her experiences in the US.
She had no plans of writing a book while on a holiday. During their trip, the duo, both retired college teachers of English and quiz masters, travelled from the East Coast to the West in the US, meeting up with friends, relatives and their wide circle of students. They visited six states — Illinois, Wisconsin, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and California. “I have a habit of jotting down mundane things in a diary like where we went, when to book a gas cylinder and so on. I certainly don’t bare my soul in my diary. But it is a record of what happened on a day,” she says.
Khyrunnisa A and P Vijaya Kumar
| Photo Credit: Christopher Francis
In the US, she continued jotting down the names of places she visited and what they did on a day. In California, Abdul Nizar, a friend, asked her if she was planning a book when he saw her writing in the notebook. “That was when I thought of a book on our misadventures and memorable experiences in the US. The more I thought of it, I felt it would be interesting to capture the thoughts of a first-time visitor abroad,” explains the author. Then she found that the notes kept getting longer and longer and descriptive as well.
When she mooted the idea to her publishers, they were enthusiastic about a travel account that would take readers to touristy places in the US and museums — famous and little-known, and so on. She talks about places and facilities that one would not find in travel brochures.
While she gushes about blue skies, clean streets and disciplined queues, she also talks about washrooms or rather the paucity of it, including the not-so-spic-and-span comfort stations, the motel with no heater and so on. But, throughout the book, she has retained the light-hearted tone of the narrative and provides laughs aplenty as we read about the food, people and places.
With a cover illustration by Priya Kuriyan, the book has been published by Pratilipi.
