Once a famous Indian film maker after his first attempt of making an ad-film commented, “It is even tougher in the sense you have to portray a million senses in few seconds and the light never goes off.” He was true! It is always tough to be precise. The same goes true for the literary medium too. It is equally tougher to convey senses in a few pages of a short story. It is 
tougher to stay in reader’s mind with a lasting effect with only a few pages to its name. And, as a debut novel, attempting a short story anthology and authoring them all – is a commendable effort.
Emotions Unplugged by Vishal Anand is an anthology of 15 short stories spanning an wide range of emotions. The emotions of a doomed relationship. The emotions of first love. The emotions of a sudden outburst. The emotion of respect. The emotions of hope. The emotions of committed guilt.The emotions. The range is complicated but weaved simply. Quoting from all greats before each story commensurating with the theme – the writer gave an elated feel to the aura of the whole book.
The language used is lucid and simple. Though the author touched a wide of varied emotions in his stories, he never complicated the themes. Rather he was simplistic in many of his attempts. Though, to justify the emotional aspects in this age of emoticons – the simplistic approach is necessary to reach out, but over-simplification of events or chronicles sometime lose the punch the story needed badly.
The stories touched very common incidents of life. We see those events. We may sometime overlook those events. Those seem prosaic. Non-relevant. And, un-important. But, there are stories in each of them. We see the characters daily – in office, beside us in college, in-front of us in a line at the rail-way counter, or on the shores of marine Drive. And, the author, in a very honest way, depicted the prosaic incidents in his book, highlighting the emotions behind. The portrayal is decent. And, the presentation of the narrative is good. He never fumbled. Perhaps, it was a smooth ride. The stories waved on a soothing breeze of creative emotions all the way.
As the over-creative O&M raised the expectations from an ad film – same lies here with the short stories. Mostly, the famous quote stating that “the short stories end on a never-ending note” brings it with a baggage of expectation. The expectation of something different. Something that shakes you. Make you curl your toe. The punch. The punch that leaves a lasting effect on the readers. And, this is where, the author loses out. The book loses out. Ridden with numerous punctuation mistakes and laggard editing – the stories even loses out the effect it should have. The usage of vocabs also added to the same. A better proof-reading would have helped definitely.
But, it was the effort. It is rare. It is rare to stick to the theme of anthology. It is rare to build plots along the loosely based earthly incidents. It is rare to keep the page-turning syndrome high throughout. It never bores you. It may not have that punch you’d expect – but it makes you feel good. And, the author has maintained this feel-good factor throughout the book. And, feel-gooders have always been criticized as simplistics. Whatever, the book takes you for a breezy journey. A journey of simple affairs. A journey of simple souls. A journey of simple emotions. And, the journey is assured to feel good!
Book Details:-
Author: Vishal Anand
Publisher: Moments Publication
Cover: Paperback
Year of Publication: 2014
ISBN-13: 9788192692630
ISBN-10: 8192692639
MRP: Rs. 125
