Author and former actress Twinkle Khanna says interacting with Malala Yousafzai left her teary-eyed. Twinkle interviewed Malala, the youngest Nobel Prize laureate and Pakistani activist, for her digital content platform Tweak.

"The interview with Malala was meant to be just an audio. Just as I set it up, it shifted to video. I hurriedly pushed back my hair, and managed to stab my eye with a kohl pencil in a hurry to look vaguely human. In the end it didn't matter because listening to her story made me all teary eyed and everything smudged," Twinkle told IANS.

The Malal interview is part of a series with achievers from various walks of life, including Vidya Balan, Tahira Kashyap, Chetna Singh Gala, Sudha Murty and Revathi Roy.

Twinkle has also interviewed her favourite author Ruskin Bond. Recalling her chat with the veteran author, she said: "James Bond is all about shaken and stirred but Ruskin left me moved. He just has an innocence, a quality unmarked by decades of living that makes you feel strangely optimistic about aging. He also makes the writing process look simple and it's clearly not the case."

In these days of lockdown and social media toxicity, does she think of the power of storytelling can help? "Ours was always meant to be a judgment free, optimistic platform. Something that seems necessary right now. We haven't had to make any pivots on that front. It's a choice readers and viewers have. If they give their biggest convertible currency -- attention -- to toxic platforms, they can't afford to complain about feeling suffocated," Twinkle signed off.

(Arundhuti Banerjee can be contacted at arundhuti.b@ians.in)