Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna have been married for over two decades and share two children — son Aarav and daughter Nitara. In her new column for The Times of India, Twinkle spoke about how reading a book can help children. She narrated an incident, wherein a book helped her daughter after she almost gave up swimming due to a remark made by a relative, who compared Nitara's skin colour to that of her brother Aarav. 

Nitara wanted to be ‘the same colour’ as her brother

Explaining how a book 'acts as a navigational tool to guide us through this expedition called life', Twinkle recalled, "There was a time when my little one (Nitara) wanted to discontinue her swimming lessons. A tan had become her nemesis. ‘I want to be the same colour as bhaiya (brother).’ A chance remark by a foolish relative within her earshot had not gone unnoticed. ‘She is so cute but not as fair as her brother!’"

'White is a light colour, so it gets dirty fast'

Twinkle added, "I gave her (Nitara) Frida Kahlo’s illustrated biography. Gleaming skin of a shade not unlike hers, with eyebrows that met in the centre, a formidably talented woman as a role model. These days, she claims she doesn’t need to use as much sunblock as her brother. ‘White is a light colour, so it gets dirty fast like my T-shirt; brown is darker, so it doesn’t.’"

Akshay on Twinkle as a mom

In a recent interview, actor Akshay Kumar lauded Twinkle for doing her PhD at the age of 50, and said their daughter Nitara gets her intelligence from the actor-turned-author. Akshay said on cricketer Shikhar Dhawan’s chat show, Dhawan Karenge, “Main to anpadh aadmi hu, zyada padha nahi hu. Main gadha mazdoori karta hu, wo (Twinkle Khanna) dimag wali hai. (I am an illiterate man, I have not studied much. I do manual labour, whereas she is the one with the brain)."

He added, “I go to work and she has taken such good care of my children (son Aarav and daughter Nitara). I am surprised about how my wife looks at life even today. She is 50 now and still goes to study. She has finished her master's and is now doing her PhD.”

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