DECODING LIFE BY VIKAS SINGHAL

ABOUT BOOK

Decoding Life is an anthology based on relations, love and human perceptions. The Taxi Driver depicts the emotions of a young lady on a thunderous night in Mumbai when she takes a local taxi driven by a fiery driver. A Rain Kissed Tuesday is a Hindu-Muslim love story where Aditya falls in love with Arisha on a rainy day. One of the stories, talks about the tension and the excitement of two people who are about to get married. Two states brings up the small environmental difference felt by two friends who are living in two different states.

This sparkling anthology covers a wide range of human emotions. This would make you feel good when you decode them one by one. The stories talk through silences and are very thought-provoking! Enjoy decoding the various codes of life we live.

ABOUT AUTHOR

Vikas Singhal is the Co-Founder of Ribbun Software Pvt Ltd. He is a mechanical Engineer working in a software company. He has been writing various short stories since 2010. His first eBook was published in 2014 and it was a huge success.

REVIEWS

REVIEW BY SUYASH KARANGUTKAR

Rating: 2/5

Story-in-Short: “Decoding Life” is an anthology based on relations, love and human perceptions.

‘The Taxi Driver’ depicts the emotions of a young lady on a thunderous night in  when she takes a local taxi driven by a feiry driver. ‘A Rain Kissed Tuesday’ is a Hindu-Muslim love story where Aditya falls in love with Arisha on a rainy day.

Mumbai

One of the stories, talk about the tension and the excitement of two people who are about to get married. ‘Two states’ brings up the small environmental difference felt by two friends who are living in two different states.

This sparkling anthology covers a wide range of human emotions. This would make you feel good when you decode them one by one. The stories talk through silences and are very thought-provoking! Enjoy decoding the various codes of live we live…

In my view:

The Taxi Driver

Happenstances around us, make us susceptible to doubt and we often end up stereotyping people. But every person isn’t as we perceive him to be. This story highlights the same. It is an experience a woman has with a taxi driver, and a lesson she learns. An affable concept that it has, it proceeds well to attract readers; reminds me of an advertisement going on television these days.

A Rain Kissed Tuesday

Lovers come closer and then they are dragged apart by some conservative mindsets. This story is an acquitted tale of two who fall in love unknowingly and then when they’re sure of it and about to endorse, something unwanted happens. Yet, will they stay together or will things shatter. Read to find more.

K.N.Laxman

Certain conversations and folks have something incomprehensible, which leaves an indelible mark on us. We do what we can to satisfy our quest to know the deeper meaning of it, but get it indirectly, nonetheless. Here’s a story of a one such person and an abrupt and unfathomable conversation.

Good You Met Me

A clear conversation, an interaction clears misunderstandings. It helps us discover mutual interests, likes and dislikes and many more. A conversation is the best key to explore an entire personality. This story is also about a to-be-couple and their interaction. A good read with subtle narration.

Switch It On

Many-a-times we misjudge people. We wrongly consider people and their suggestions, though their authentic intention is nothing but for our benefits. This story stands in conveying the same to readers. Well, this extremely short tale has deeper things to tell.

Mistake

One realizes the seriousness of a situation only when in it. Until then reactions and emotion of others in that situation, look weird and strange. This story is about two friends who come in a situation one by one and realize what they have to.

Two States

The story ends abruptly and its difficult to comprehend what the author wanted to convey exactly. It has characters, but it is vague and imprecise.

That Shy Boy

Shyness exists until one doesn’t try to get out of it or kick it away. It prevents one from doing or saying those things which one wishes to, from the heart. But as soon as one overcomes this timidity, doors of opportunity open up for him. The story has a good start, but ends subtly and brusquely.

The Train

This story is about two individuals who meet in a train and a beginning of a new relationship during the journey. This a well-written story and the author has expressed things pretty nicely. The narrative is good and strong enough to hold readers’ attention. Good one!

That Mystery Girl

This story is about a girl who befriends a boy during a shoot and then comes over to stay at his place, along with his friends. She mingles up with them pretty well and then something nasty happens with her. The story starts on an interesting note and the word mystery from the title hooks up readers only to be left disappointed.

The cover of the book is well-designed and the title is captivating. The book posses stories on life and the lessons it teaches one, with deeper insights. The concepts aren’t really fresh, but yes, the sparkling effect of the stories keep readers hooked to them.

But somehow, the book fails to hold one for a longer time as the stories become dull and extremely lackluster. The plot, characters and the narratives as a whole don’t have that charisma to keep one stick to the book. Also, those usual concepts and consistent notions are not promising enough. Some stories start well, but move ahead only to be tickled, while some start on an unnerving note but proceed to end perfectly. The stories are all in haste and lack most of the essentials. Grammatical errors add up to these flaws.

The author should have extended stories to make them factual and explicit. The messages put-forward are good, the idea of writing them is fine, but these don't appeal if the narrative is lackadaisical and uninviting. The narratives deserve a thorough contemplation. The stories need to be explicit and not abrupt. They genuinely require vigor and allure to appeal readers.

Having got very little to praise about the book, I am rating it with 2/5.

REVIEW BY SMITA SALINS

“Decoding life” by Vikas Singal, is a short story anthology. It has been published by Gargi Publishers, no compromise on the quality there. The cover, designed by ‘Amol Karambe’, is pretty interesting and unique.

Coming back to the stories. We have 10 stories here, all varied. Some sad, some romantic, some a little thrilling. Let me give a story-wise analysis.

Story 1: (The taxi driver):  This is the story of a girl (Pooja) and her frightening experience one stormy rainy night, on her way back home in a cab, with a scary looking driver. This story did get a little gripping at times, but the end failed to amuse me much.

Story 2: (Rained kissed Tuesday): It’s a sweet, simple, romantic and yet sad story of 2 people  who fall in love, and yet had to separate due to their different religious backgrounds. Well-written story. It’s one of my favorite one in the book.

Story 3: (K.N Laxman): A story of a guy whos genuinely nice to all persons he works with, including his contractors, particularly a contractor named K. N Laxman. The story is about how Laxman initially doubts his good motives, but later realizes that he was absolutely wrong. According to me, this story would have been better if written as a second person.

Story 4: (Glad that we met): An arranged marriage situation, where the girl and boy are fixed up by their parents; how they meet and what transpires between them, how they ‘click’. Nice story, trying to highlight that arranged marriages need not be bad.

Story 5: (Switch is on): It’s a ‘moral’ story, portraying the fact that everyone in this world is not selfish, and there are still some good people out there who genuinely want to help.

Story 6: (The mistake): This is a story of a beautiful friendship between two boys- Jatin and Nikhil, and how their friendship turns sour because of a silly misunderstanding. Nice read.

Story 7: (2 states):  Mukesh and Pulkit are two friends- one from Delhi and one from Mumbai. Their thoughts differ being from different states and all, but yet, it’s this very difference that brings them closer as friends. It goes to show that friendship is not bound by religions or states or anything for that matter.

Story 8: (That shy boy): It’s a cute tale of an introvert boy (Ravi), who is shy even in front of the girl he admires and adores, but when the time comes, he bravely stands up for her and fights to protect her.

Story 9: (The train): This is a typical bollywood kind of story of two co-passengers, Peter and Patricia. They get off on a really bad start initially; but later, this hatred slowly transforms into a sweet friendship once they get to know each other. This is another of my favorite stories in the book.

Story 10: (That mystery girl): A story of a girl (Riya), who is smart, bold, beautiful and very forward. She happens to stay as a paying guest with a few other guys. These very guys think of her as a slut just because of her carefree attitude. This story focuses on the typical dirty Indian mentality, that if a girl is ‘bindaas’, she has to be a whore. A nicely written story.

A good attempt by the author, but could have been even better.

My rating for this book: 2.8/5

REVIEW BY SONAL

Writing Style: 4/5

‘Decoding Life’ is a short story collection by Vikas Singal. There are ten short stories in it which are woven around our daily life. They are simple yet affective in language. You would be able to relate many of the stories in some incidents of your life.

Like the girl of ‘The Taxi Driver’, many of us feel unsafe while travelling in autos or taxies during late nights and yes the story is eye opener in certain way but yeah, for knowing it you must read it.

People started following particular person’s beliefs and thoughts in ancient times. With passing of time these people formed in groups and these various groups are known as Religions. Religions divided people and are deeply rooted in minds of people that everything is divided in name of religions. Same is in case of Love and here is what the second story ‘A Rain Kissed Tuesday’ says to us.

‘K.N.Laxman’ is a story which perfectly depicts our mentality. If someone is being very nice to us then we start thinking that there must be some hidden benefit of the person I doing so.

‘Glad That We Met’ will bring the feeling of Déjà vu to those who are in arranged marriage.

’Switch it On’, ‘The Mistake’, ‘Two States’, ‘That Shy Boy’, ‘The Train’, ‘That Mystery Girl’  are also the stories with same gist. Wonderful stories taken from life around us. Many of you would have feeling of Déjà vu, while enjoying them.

Wish to read more works from Vikas Singal in future.

My overall rating for this work is 4/5.

REVIEW BY MEGHANT PARMAR

Ten short stories, decoding life's frivolous and strong connections and one common aim to rebuild the faith in humanity. It's up to the readers how much they want to accept the harsh truth of life and up to what extent they want to take this forward.

The stories no matter what try to build a relationship with the readers and leave an ever lasting impression. Some through emotions and some through barriers, yet circumventing the exact nature of human hypocrisy or ideology. There's a method to approach the tiniest of the drama and what better than life and it's lessons to exaggerate and present it through the medium of short stories. Some bitter truths and some untapped emotions also pass through the eyes and mind of the readers through the medium of this book.

The book lacks a solid punch as many stories fail to gather the momentum. Grammatical mistakes too are part of the book which needlessly spoils the entire setup. Then there's a lot of unsaid and unfinished type of stories which though try to make you feel like the best judge but with their mediocre presentation don't give the impetus to the genre.

All in all the book could have been explored in different horizons with more vividness. From where it stands the ground is shaky barring few momentous applause. There's a lot of promise in the book but the author fails to find the right mix to put it through to the readers. It's an average performer under rigorous conditions.

REVIEW BY ABHILASH RUHELA

This is the second work of Vikas Singal that I have just completed reading. 3 months back, I had read the e-book released by him which comprised of 3 small love tales. I had a complain that his stories were too short to communicate anything and I'm bit happy with the progress he made in this anthology named "Decoding Life". It comprises of 10 short stories which are based on different topics and it's surely better than his first attempt. Generally, with anthologies, you find that they aren't edited well but I congratulate Singal's publisher- Gargi who have assured that the book isn't badly formatted and grammatically incorrect.

The first story, Taxi Driver, shows how out of fear a girl runs away from a taxi driver when he halts for a few minutes. Later, author shows how all men are not the same. For me, the best story is "A Rain Kissed Tuesday". The emotions that this story carries is almost similar to what many Indian authors are doing with their 225-pages book. Author managed to do it in few pages itself. K N Laxman is another good story in the book which shows how people think everyone is selfish even if few people are genuinely good and caring. Glad That We Met is another story which will make you smile at few scenes. The Mistake serves its conclusion well. Two States is the worst attempt according to me. Author could not link the two situations together perfectly. I was expecting little masala from The Train but it ended being too sweet. Book ends with That Mystery Girl which is quite similar to Taxi Driver where author tries to tell how every girl isn't flirty and date-friendly.

The attempt by Vikas Singal is honest and you can find the same in every story. To release a book with 10 short stories by a single author is a wonderful idea but then it should be taken care of how many stories are par excellent. I found almost 70% of the stories mediocre. I was expecting little more length from the stories even this time. Author had a conclusion in his mind and he wanted to reach to it in as less words as possible. He should attempt long version of short stories now. But I genuinely liked 2-3 stories and they shall remain in my mind for days. My favorite is A Rain Kissed Tuesday, The Train and The Mistake. I give the book 2.5 stars out of 5.

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