25 Strokes of Kindness by Nikita Singh | Book Review
I read the 25 Strokes of Kindness a week ago and did not get the time to write the review. Finished Animal Farm, and Elementals meanwhile, and have to write the review of those books too.
I am not getting enough time even to write a book review a week.
Well, to make it clear, the book has not written by Nikita Singh.
25 Strokes of Kindness is a collection of short stories, similar to the Chicken Soup type books. Nikita Singh and Orvana Ghai are the compilers and selectors.
The themes of the stories, as the name suggests, is Kindness. Most of the writers are students or people who love to write. There are few professionals, such as Preeti Shenoy, Sachin Garg, whom the story has been included.
But one may ask who a professional writer is?
You have to answer it yourself. Not here for that discussion.
So now I am going to review a book with 25 short stories in it. I am not reviewing each one as it will take a large part of my single off day of the week.
That’s why I am going to it in tabular form than I will leave my summarize review.
25 Strokes of Kindness Review
| Story | Author | Review |
| Ouroboros | Nanya Srivastava | Kid switching and the destiny interchanges. Later, the kid whose destiny has been stole help the thief… I just don’t understand that how that switch affect the story in any way. |
| Is It Kinder To Give Or Receive | Asfiya Rehman | The stories raise a good question. Who is the bigger man, the receiver or the giver. We will never know the answer, the world works in strange ways. |
| A Pack Of Parle-G | Himanshu Chabra | A kid helping the other kid. Good kindness, but from where the kid learning the values. His father does not seems one to have a kind heart. |
| A Ten Dollar Wedding | Arashitaa Sehrawat | Same old cliche. Helped the old man who turned out to be the millionaire. |
| Please Hug Me | Preeti Shenoy | Self petting by Preeti Shenoy because she spend a day with Aids kids. It deserves a mention surely. |
| Pentimento | Rafaa Dalvi | Musician picking up the orphan girl and finds a daughter in her that he never had. Is this from some movie? |
| Fifteen Minutes | Nikita Singh | Another good story. Nikita Singh did work. After all it was her project. |
| Saving of Life and Love | Parul Tyagi | A long lasting desires of servants to fulfill their responsibilities, even after the death of their masters. There is no out of this rooster coop. |
| Crossroads | Renuka Vishwanathan | Same old cliche. Helped an old woman, who turned out to be wife/mother of boss/millionaire. |
| Court Sentence | Naman Kapur | Man hit the girl, but its okay. He is rich. Girl’s love will change him. |
| A Piece of Contagious Kindness | Sakshi Budhia | She was getting sexually abused every other day, has not eaten for days, and there was not even clean water to drink. Force to beg from her childhood. But guess what? She was filled with gratitude that God has blessed her with a human life. |
| The Lost Girl | Arushi Pathak | ??????????? |
| Letters to Karka | Pernasi Malhotra | Girl talk to her neighbour. This is kindness,,, is not it. Talking to your neighbour… Then the neighbour give you the responsibility to raise his son. That’s why you never talk to your neighbours. They be like, now look after my son, I am leaving. |
| The Helping Hand | Ruchika Thukral | This was interesting. Somewhat different, and climatic. Though the climax was easy to predict, but still better. |
| The Photograph | Nikhil Khasnabish | Click a pic of girl getting abused, but then did not send it to publish. I could have send the naked pic of girl to publish in the newspaper, but I did not. I am kind. Nice. |
| The Collateral Emotion | Shomprakash Sinha | I will make this girl a tool to stop doing stupid things I am doing. |
| The Last One | Ishita Das | ??????? |
| Lessons Of A Father To His Daughter | Two Authors | Another cliche. The old man you give food sometimes returns the favour by donating the kidney. |
| Colours of Gratitude | Kalyani Manojna | I buy the balloons from the roadside kid, and instead of using it on drugs, like these roadside kid do, he used it help another person. Kindness is alive. |
| Reality Check | Anjali Kirpalani | Mom allows you to do the thing you wanted to do all your life. Such kindness. Thanks mom. |
| A Rare Sight | Namrata | It was an act of kindness. Donating your eyes or any organ is an act of kindness. You can be a reason to bring light to other person life. |
| Six Rupees | Husna Advani | Nice one. I could totally see a YouTube video around this story. It was good, and heartwarming indeed. |
| Love Thy Neighbour | Prity S | What a nonsense story. |
| An Act of Kindness | Sachin Garg | Teaching a boy how to pick up girl… Crap. |
| Santa for Christmas | Drishti Dasgupta | ????????????????????? |
????????????????? signifies that I was unable to finish those stories. Too boring for me.
Summaries Review
I understand that kindness is subjective. But some of these stories are just blatant self petting.
Are we going to lower the bar so much that even doing the right thing is considered Kindness?
I don’t think kindness is something you do consciously. It is in your nature, or it is not. Talking politely, not getting angry, buying things that you do not need so the person who is selling can take your money with dignity (not buying things in exchange of the item you need, and then calling it mercy), there are so many things.
There is no diversity in the stories.
Most of the stories are about how one person is helping another person.
Self-love is also kindness, animal love is kindness, and doing something you are not responsible for is also a type of kindness.
In the book, people were doing the right thing and writing it off as kindness.
Like telling the car owner that the driver is drinking.
Do I recommend 25 Strokes of Kindness?
There are no 25 Strokes of Kindness. There is only five and at maximum 7.
You can read it if you want to read something light or have too emotional heart to see through the stupidity.
25 Strokes of Kindness by Nikita Singh is a collection of short stories, around the theme of kindness. How kindness changes lives, and personal stories. URL: https://www.bookaapi.com/book-review/25-strokes-of-kindness-nikita/ Author: Nikita Singh25 Strokes of Kindness
2
