Description

SUNDAY GUARDIAN

“It is a fallacy to think that the raison d'être of genre novels is restricted to cheap thrills. When you think about people like Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie or Stephen King, you’re dealing with plot-driven fiction that – over and above its obvious strengths like pace and the ability to hold your attention – tells you something about the human condition, asks difficult questions and initiates a conversation about vital issues.
Unfortunately, genre fiction of this calibre is a rarity in India, no thanks to Monsieur Bhagat and Herr Ravinder Singh. Into this void steps Aditya Kripalani with his third book, Tikli and Laxmi Bomb, a remarkably sensitive novel about two Mumbai prostitutes who start a cooperative of sorts to protect the interests of their fellow sex workers.
Tikli and Laxmi Bomb is neither wish fulfilment, feel-good literature nor a violence-fuelled revenge story, although it flirts briefly with the notion of being both, at various points in the book. Thankfully, it sticks to what it is at its heart: a gripping, no-holds-barred realist novel. As I mentioned earlier in this review, it is rare to see genre fiction of this calibre coming out of India. And although this book only has a tangential connection to his earlier novels Nikita, the protagonist of Front Seat and Back Seat, is name-checked in a scene towards the end of the book, it is what is often referred to as a “spiritual sequel”.
Tikli and Laxmi Bomb, then, completes a formidable, intensely cinematic troika for Kripalani. Read it to experience the agony and the ecstasy of Mumbai.”