Ticklish affair is a collection of short stories both real and fictional. Most of them were adapted into movies and short films.
A Ticklish Affair and Other Stories by Sunil Kapoor and Sudhir Kapoor
The first story Blackmail is the story of the two worlds. How the influential overpowers the underprivileged. The story implicitly tells that once you lose everything, nothing can break you. The plot is quite complicated yet crisp. But squeezing it into a short story was not a good idea. A novel on this plot could have a better chance of establishing. Let me soar high is the story of how a rape victim puts herself together and tries to fight her way out. Nonetheless, the fact that she didn’t get justice, pricks even though it is the sad reality in the current scenario. Masqueraders from the North tell the story of how innocent farmers are misled and cheated into giving up their land offering them high-paying jobs from abroad. It is realistic but the narration seemed amateurish. Rickshaw Faridabad is one of my favorite stories. It is the story of a girl who falls in love with a Rickshaw driver. They get separated and years later, they meet in a very unwelcome circumstance. Their love for each other is palpable and depicted in such a way that the readers will be hooked to the book. The Ticklish Affair is yet another story that shows the finesse of the authors. It could be degraded as a mere extramarital affair story but the story has a wider angle that could be viewed beyond it. The Kikar Tree is an eye-opener about the pseudo-Godmen who try to use any situation to their advantage. Agnates and Cognates are a reflection of contemporary society. It is about how people fight over money and materialistic things. Tiger Trail is a fiction based on a real-life poacher. It has the frame of an action thriller which could be developed into a novel or movie. The Spark of the Divine tells the readers about the pious authors who unilaterally portray their god-fearing souls. The Lover’s Message is a short and simple story to end the book with.
The dark undertone of ‘blackmail’, the power of belief in ‘Spark of the divine’, the forbidden romance in ‘ticklish affair’ or the eternal power of love in ‘rickshaw faridabadi’, this collection of stories is sure to move readers to tears of sadness and joy at the same time.
Overall the book seems to have been written in different timelines because the style of narration and the finesse of depiction is different in different stories. Some are exceptionally good and some are amateurish. But overall the book is a good read. The abstract in the beginning could have been omitted and added in the end because it distracts the readers and also gives the abstract in the beginning somehow spoils the suspense especially since it is a short story.
