Nine Lives: Stories from the Edge of Work and Home

Nine Lives is a collection of nine emotionally charged short stories that explore the fragile balance between duty and desire, ambition and burnout, silence and survival - and the moral ambiguity that exists between most decisions.

Set between 1990 and 2025, a period of tumultuous change in the lives of middle-class Indians, these stories chart a landscape where ambition bloomed like never before, but so did anxiety, loneliness, and quiet disillusionment.
Here, material success often meant climbing the corporate ladder - but not without cost.

From behind the glamorous facades of gleaming buildings, in quiet corners of corporate offices, middle-class homes, and the unspoken spaces in between, Nine Lives captures moments of great aspiration and great ruin.

From a dutiful husband buckling under the weight of expectations to a weary caregiver confronting the limits of love, each life portrayed here is painfully ordinary - and therefore, powerfully real.

With psychological depth and a keen sense of human frailty, Venkatachalam Viswanathan brings to light the untold truths of those who live silently, yet feel deeply.

If you've ever worked hard, loved quietly, or longed for something more, Nine Lives will stay with you long after the last page.