The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is a collection of four stories on feminism written by the Indian newspaper columnist, film producer, film actress and interior designer Twinkle Khanna. The book was published on 7 November 2016 by Juggernaut Books. It contains four stories: "The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad", "Salam, Noni Appa", "If the Weather Permits", and "The Sanitary Man of Sacred Land".
Story one is “The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad” which speaks about a girl who changes her village with her idea. The story speaks about society’s view on young girls.
Story two is “Salam, Noni Appa”. It is about relationships and finding love in old age. It speaks the wish of a person's heart is more important than the society's.
Story three “If the weather permits” is about women’s marriage. The story clearly states marry a woman only she is of perfect age irrespective of her wish or the society.
Story four “The Sanitary Man of Sacred Land” is about a man who produces sanitary napkins at a low cost. It is based on the true story of Tamil Nadu activist Arunachalam Muruganantham. In 2018, it has been made into a movie, Pad Man, directed by R. Balki and starring Akshay Kumar, telling how the sanitary man makes sanitary pads for his wife and solved the whole village menstrual problems at low cost.
The book was launched by Twinkle Khanna and her friend Karan Johar in an event hosted by themselves. Twinkle Khanna explained that her book is about feminism and the taboos of society. Twinkle Khanna said in an interview “I would say: People are reading many many bad books in large numbers, so read my book because it’s good!" [1]
The Times of India 's reviewer opined that "the book is a neat slice of life and we shall savour it till the end". [2] Hindustan Times took notice of the "sensitive, humorous and eminently readable stories". [3] Critic from The Hindu remarked that the book was "sprinkled with fine wit and represent great cultural commentary." [4] It reached second place in Amazon's pre-release list and several filmmakers contacted her to gain its film rights. [5]
Khanna won the India Today Woman Writer of the Year 2017 and Bangalore Literature Festival—Popular Choice Award for this book. [6] [7] The collection sold more than 100,000 copies within the first year of its release. [8] The Salaam Noni Appa story was adapted into a play with Lillete Dubey in the lead and The Sanitary Man of Sacred Land led to a film Pad Man , in which Khanna's husband Akshay Kumar plays the role of Arunachalam Muruganantham. [9]
Rajkumar Santoshi is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter of Hindi films. Having received several accolades including three National Film Awards and six Filmfare Awards, he made his directorial debut with the crime film Ghayal (1990), starring Sunny Deol, Meenakshi Sheshadri and Amrish Puri. Which was a huge critical and commercial success, it made Santoshi a household name in Hindi cinema. The film won him the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment as well as the Filmfare Award for Best Director.
Akshay Hariom Bhatia, known professionally as Akshay Kumar, is an Indian actor and film producer working in Hindi cinema. In over 30 years of acting, Kumar has appeared in over 100 films and has won several awards, including two National Film Awards and two Filmfare Awards. He received the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian honour, from the Government of India in 2009. Kumar is one of the most prolific actors in Indian cinema. Forbes included Kumar in their lists of both highest-paid celebrities and highest-paid actors in the world from 2015 to 2020. Between 2019 and 2020, he was the only Indian on both lists.
Twinkle Khanna is an Indian author, columnist, interior designer, film producer and a former film actress.
Dimple Kapadia is an Indian actress predominantly appearing in Hindi films. Born and raised in Mumbai by wealthy parents, she aspired to become an actress from a young age and received her first opportunity through her father's efforts to launch her in the film industry. She was discovered at age 14 by the filmmaker Raj Kapoor, who cast her in the title role of his teen romance Bobby (1973), which opened to major commercial success and gained her wide public recognition. Shortly before the film's release in 1973, she married the actor Rajesh Khanna and quit acting. Kapadia returned to films in 1984, two years after her separation from Khanna. Her comeback film Saagar, which was released a year later, revived her career. Both Bobby and Saagar won her Filmfare Awards for Best Actress. Through her work over the next decade, she established herself as one of Hindi cinema's leading actresses.
Simple Kapadia was a Hindi film actress and costume designer, who was active in her professional career from 1987 until her death in 2009.
Jon Sen is a British television and film director, writer and producer. After working as the executive producer of the BBC soap opera EastEnders from 2018 to 2022, Sen began working as the executive producer of the BBC medical drama series Casualty in 2022.
Sonam Kapoor Ahuja is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. She has received several awards, including a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award, and from 2012 to 2016, she appeared in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list based on her income and popularity.
Lillete Dubey is an Indian actress and theatre director. She has worked in Indian and international theatre, television and films in Hindi and English languages. Dubey began her career with Barry John in Delhi and was the founding member of his group - Theatre Action Group in 1973. In 1991 she set up her own theatre company - The Primetime Theatre Company.
Radhika Apte is an Indian actress who works primarily in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi films. Apte has received several awards including an International Emmy Award nomination, thus becoming the first Indian actress to do so.
R. Balakrishnan, popularly known as R. Balki, is an Indian filmmaker, screenwriter and former Group Chairman of the advertising agency Lowe Lintas (India). He is best known for directing Cheeni Kum (2007), Paa (2009), Pad Man (2018) and Chup: Revenge of The Artist (2022).
Gaurav Khanna is an Indian actor and model. He is known for his roles of Neil in Jeevan Saathi, Inspector Kavin in CID, and Akshay in Tere Bin. He currently plays the role of Anuj Kapadia in Star Plus's Anupamaa, for which he won Indian Telly Award for Best Actor (Editorial).
Arunachalam Muruganantham (Padman) is a social entrepreneur from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, India. He is the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad-making machine and is credited for innovating grassroots mechanisms for generating awareness about traditional unhygienic practices around menstruation in rural India. His mini-machines, which can manufacture sanitary pads for less than a third of the cost of commercial pads, have been installed in 23 of the 29 states of India in rural areas. He is currently planning to expand the production of these machines to 106 nations. The movie Period. End of Sentence. won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the year 2018. The 2018 Hindi film Pad Man was made on his invention, where he was portrayed by Akshay Kumar.
Jayati Bhatia is an Indian actress. She is best known for her role as Nirmala "Mataji" Bharadwaj in Sasural Simar Ka (2011–2018), one of the longest-running Indian television series ever, that aired on Colors TV. She also played Geetanjali Gopichand Oswal in Sasural Simar Ka 2 (2021–2023).
Menstrual Man is a 2013 documentary film by Amit Virmani. The film tells the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham, an Indian social entrepreneur and inventor whose machines enable rural women to manufacture low-cost sanitary pads for their communities. It premiered at the 2013 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and was voted a Top Ten Audience Favourite at both Hot Docs and IDFA the same year. The film was nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Sargun Mehta Dubey is an Indian punjabi actress and model. She is the recipient of three PTC Punjabi Film Awards and two Filmfare Awards Punjabi for her work in Punjabi Cinema respectively.
Kumkum Bhagya is an Indian Hindi-language drama television series produced by Ekta Kapoor under Balaji Telefilms. It premiered on 15 April 2014 on Zee TV and it is digitally available on ZEE5. It formerly starred Sriti Jha and Shabir Ahluwalia. Currently, it stars Mugdha Chaphekar and Krishna Kaul as the second-generation leads. The concept of the show was originally based on Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility. The show was rebranded as Kumkum Bhagya: Doosri Peedhi in 2019 with a new generation appearing.
Mrs Funnybones: She’s Just Like You and a Lot Like Me is a 2015 Indian non-fiction book written by former film actress Twinkle Khanna and published by Penguin India. Mrs Funnybones sold over one lakh copies making Twinkle Khanna India's highest-selling female writer of 2015.
Chiki Sarkar is a book publisher from Kolkata born in 1979 . She is a co-founder of Juggernaut Books.
Pad Man is an Indian Hindi-language 2018 biographical comedy-drama film written and directed by R. Balki. It stars Akshay Kumar and Radhika Apte in the lead roles with an ensemble supporting cast. The film is based on the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, a social activist and entrepreneur from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu who made low-cost sanitary pads for women in rural areas. His journey was chronicled by Twinkle Khanna in her fictional story The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad.
Anurag Chauhan is an Indian social worker and founder of Humans For Humanity, a non-governmental organization (NGO) headquartered in Dehradun, India He is widely known for social work, particularly with regards to menstrual hygiene. The WASH project started by him has reached over 3.5 million women in over 6 states in last 5 years.