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ABOUT THE FILM

In 2015, Aditya Kripalani explored the lives of two Mumbai prostitutes in his third book ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’.

The book was launched & released in Singapore and soon after it received honorable mentions in reputed book festivals around the world like the London book festival, Paris book festival, Amsterdam book festival & Great South East book festival.
By January 2016, Aditya decided to make a film on his third book because he believed that story should reach a wider audience and turning the book into a film was a way to do that.

‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’ has been one of the most talked about films in India in the Independent film space. The film has traveled to multiple film festivals around the world and won awards like Best Feature Film at the 9th Berlin Independent Film Festival, Best Film Gender Equality at the 20th U.K. Asian Film Festival, Best film-Festival choice  at the New Jersey Indian & International Film Festival, June 2018, Best Non- English Speaking Film and Supporting Actor at the Out of the Can Film Festival, UK, July 2018. The actor Chitrangada Satarupa won the Best Debutante Actress award at the Jaipur International Film Festival, January 2018. 

Apart from these, the film was part of the festivals like Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, August, 2018, Indian Film Festival of Cincinnati, Ohio, Sep 2018, Not Just Bollywood, Manchester, UK, Sep 2018, Split Film Festival, Croatia, Oct 2018, Federation of Film Society of India, National Film Festival, 2018, Kolkata International Film Festival, October 2017, New Zealand Asia Pacific Film Festival, October 2017, Calcutta International Cult Film Festival, August 2017. 

SYNOPSIS

Laxmi Malwankar is a sex worker in Mumbai working for nearly two decades. She’s 40, jaded and at some level has a deep seeded loyalty towards Mhatre, the pimp, who takes care of all the girls on that street.

Putul, 22, hails from Bangladesh and Mhatre has brought her to Laxmi to be taught the ropes.

Putul is full of questions about how this system works and why all the men in this system of prostitution profess to provide protection but then end up becoming predators themselves.

For Laxmi this is how the world works & her only advice to Putul is to quickly adapt to the ways of this world of men.

Over time Putul is able to convince Laxmi that things need changing. Laxmi though still not convinced enough to take it up as her own cause decides to stand by Tikli thanks to a sequence of irrefutable events that occur on the street.

Together they get to be known as Tikli and Laxmi Bomb and start off this mini revolution in which they set up a system for women, run by women, in which the final customer is a man but women run it the way they want

How far are they able to go in this endeavor? How tall is their new organization able to grow before it becomes too big a threat for patriarchy to let it exist?
Are they able to make a change that is permanent or another flash in the pan?
Living in the strata of society that is most oppressed by Patriarchy, as it doesn’t even officially exist in India, can these girls actually forge a new path for sex workers in the country?

directors note

This film was made to make a viewer who is either a woman or a man with a strong feminine, angry. So angry that one really wants to do something to make it all better. That was the intention. But it was also to talk about Sex workers in a light that one doesn’t see them often enough; as people who know how to enjoy life despite the hardships, as people who know the art of being merry amidst strife and as people who know what the deepest joys of sisterhood are. A sisterhood that is a force field against all adversity. Sisterhood above all, is the theme we set out to talk about. 

Tikli and Laxmi Bomb opens up a whole new world and then just blows it away. I was mesmerized by its unique universe that stayed with me long after the film was over.
Sanjay Gupta, Director of ‘Kaante’, ‘Kabil’, ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala’.

Aditya’s directorial debut is sensational, poignant, and disturbing in equal parts. It is a must watch- –Nikhil Mahajan, Director ‘Pune 52’

Tikli and Laxmi bomb is a long overdue fist on the chin of patriarchy. The characters are so uncompromisingly real, the dialogue as if plucked from the mouths of walking-talking people and the ambience gritty…so the film almost gives you the feel of a documentary. But that is a compliment..for the gutsy, ballsy women in the film and the revoloution they imagine and live out is what we would all wish for
– Rekha Nigam, Writer- ‘ Parineeta’, ‘Laaga Chunari Mein Daag’

 

 

 

 

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