Twinkle Khanna recalls relocating to London for Master’s degree in her 50s

Actor-turned-author Twinkle Khanna recently added a new feather to her cap when she completed her master’s programme in fiction writing from the prestigious Goldsmiths, University of London.

Sharing insights into her experience of moving to London with her daughter Nitara, she said that she ‘had to create a bio, stand up and introduce myself'.

When asked if anybody recognized her on the campus, the 50-year-old said, “I don’t think anyone in my class did. It was good because there were not any other Indians there, except for one girl with a Kashmiri background from Chicago. Like everyone else, I had to create a bio, stand up and introduce myself. I had to come up with a joke about my name, a literary one. Fortunately, Jhumpa Lahiri wrote The Interpreter of Maladies and there’s a character named Twinkle. That became the perfect joke.”

She added, “I was worried about who I would walk within the corridors and who I would have lunch with. When the professor assigned three of us a presentation, we decided to have lunch together. We quickly became friends, and from then on, I never ate lunch alone again. I made a lot of new and good friends.”

Interestingly, Khanna and her 21-year-old son, Aarav, had applied to the same college. “Strangely, my son Aarav and I had applied to the same college since we were both studying liberal arts. When we found out we were accepted to the same university, we were horrified at the thought of being on campus together. We made a pact that we would pretend not to know each other and hang out with our respective friends. Luckily, he got his first choice and opted for that university,” she said.

Last month, Twinkle had shared a video from the event on her Instagram account of her graduation ceremony. Reacting to the post, her husband, superstar Akshay Kumar Akshay congratulated her, calling her a “superwoman”.