A Ticklish Affair and Other Stories-Sunil Kapoor & Sudhir Kapoor

Book: A Ticklish Affair and Other Stories

Author: Sunil Kapoor & Sudhir Kapoor

Publisher: Rupa Publications

A Ticklish Affair and Other Stories is a collection of 10 short stories that deal with a wide range of human emotions. Starting from the very first story, “Blackmail”, which talks about how emotions can get better of a person and how guilt is one of the major factors driving a person. The second story, “Let Me Soar High” is a social commentary on how women are objectified in the society and how they are subjected to crimes and how they are expected to bow down. This story shows how important is the support of family and peers for a person to come out of that abyss. The next story in the collection is “Masqueraders from the North” which talks about the problem of fake recruit agencies that are cropping up daily and take advantage of the innocent and gullible people. This story shows how things pan out and how the people realize they have been duped. The authors have also highlighted that it is not just the poor people who get duped, but even educated and wealthy people too get caught up in these people’s scams. Another story that caught my attention was “Rickshaw Faridabadi” which is a story of how life comes a full circle and how sometimes words spoken casually may come true and how they can haunt you. A romantic story, this heart wrenching account is the one that stood apart from all the stories in the book for me. Then we encounter the short story that gives the book its name, “The Ticklish Affair”. A flashback story, this one talks about the power of old love and how that can sometimes turn into a reason to stay alive and that sometimes the best wishes of the people can give you the strength to live. “The Kikar Tree” is the story that highlights the superstitious society that we live in and how our need to be pious is turning faith into a business. It is an eye-opener and deserves a special mention in this collection. The story titled “Agnates and Cognates” is a tight slap on the faces of the people who do not aim to serve their aged parents out of love but to get hold of their property and monies. This story shows how these relatives fight like dogs just so that they could get hold of the money, which wasn’t even rightfully theirs. “Tiger Trail” is a typical Bollywood-style story that shows 2 friends who run away from an orphanage, one turning to a life of crime and another getting a proper life and becoming an IAS officer. The climax of the story brings them face-to-face and how things unfold after this is quite interesting. In “Spark of the Divine”, the authors have shown how faith can move mountains and how everything that happens in our lives happens for a reason. The trials that the protagonist faces and how everything falls into place in the end is very touching. The last story of the book “A Lover’s Message” is a story that brings out the power that true love has. The story takes us through the life of the protagonist, how he falls in love with a girl, they plan to get married and how that plan takes a turn due to nature and then years later, it is nature itself that unites the lovers.

The stories in the book are crafted nicely. Each of the story is quite different from the other and that many human emotions are very delicately captured. The climax of the stories is well thought out and executed. Some of the stories are really engaging and can capture the essence of the reader, making them live the story. The one thing that I did not like about the book was the self-praise at the beginning of the story highlighting how that has been picked for a movie or a short film or what award the adaptation has won. Frankly, as a reader, that was a put off. Another thing that was unnecessary in the book is the photograph section in the book as being a book of fictional stories, that is just an extra appendix and could have been edited out.

For me, the book tickled, and 3 stars escape my shelf.