Tikli and Laxmi Bomb: To Hell with Patriarchy

Two sex workers, Putul (Tikli), 22 and Laxmi, 40, decide to form a co-operative of their own and create a system of sex workers which is run by and for the women themselves. An anit-patriarchy story that takes on patriarchy at its very root.

"A Thelma and Louise-like vibe enters the narrative from the moment Tikli's first ill-advised outburst lands the pair into a spot of bother. Character development is the author's strong suite and it is obvious that he has carried Tikli and Laxmi inside his head for years. Laxmi, in particular, leaps off the pages, especially at the junctions like the first time she threatens a man with violence and all-important where the co-operative (or "our system", as Tikli and Laxmi call it) has its first physical confrontation with Mhatre's goons...

...Tikli and Laxmi Bomb is neither with fulfillment, feel-good literature nor a violence-fuelled revange story, although it flits briefly with the notion of being both. Thankfully, it sticks to what it is at heart: a gripping, no-hold-barred realist novel.

...it is rare to see genre fiction of this calibre coming out of India.

...Tikli and Laxmi Bomb, then, completes a formidible, intensively cinematic troika for Kripalani. Read to experience the agony and ecstasy of Mumbai."

- The Sunday Guardian