‘1 More Than 8’ review: On humanity in nine shades

Maths rarely makes for good fiction, but author and psychologist Sheila Kunjur Srinivas’s debut anthology, 1 More Than 8 and Other Stories: Exploring Navarasa - The Nine Emotions, relies entirely on an equation.

Now the sum, of course, is nine—a direct nod to the Navarasas in Indian aesthetics—but it is the significance of the one and the eight that slowly dawns on you as the pages go by.

Crafted with clinical precision, the book drags out the nine emotions into the vicissitudes of ordinary life, rather than keeping them hidden behind tough concepts and verbose language, as in the Abhinavabharati by Abhinavagupta, the legendary Kashmiri philosopher.

Each emotional state gets its due, as stories of love, sadness, wonder, disgust, fear, humour, heroism, anger, and calmness—all flutter past you like a montage of lives lived and musings on nothing, anything, and everything.

Srinivas’s activism and experience in theatre and creative writing also find their voice in many of the stories in this collection.

Though each set of stories has a dominant emotion, such as Dr Achala Sachdev’s explorations of past lives having wonder at their core, and The Ancestral Serpent showcasing the use of folkloric fear, the other rasas often trickle in, giving you a rich kaleidoscope of what it means to be human in nine shades.

​The Ancestral Serpent, for example, explores the blurry lines between reality, belief systems, cultural transmission, and folklore in the case of snakes protecting ancestral treasure.

“So strong was the belief that a curse would fall on any family who tried to steal the gold, that for many generations, all feared our home and did not try to dig and search for treasure,” says the uncle of this short story's protagonist, Dilip.

Yet, there’s more to this story than meets the eye, as it also evokes a sense of wonder at the weight of old myths, and how they can still stare you in the face.

It’s also not only stories in her backpack—you also get free verse poetry, internal monologues, alternate endings, and parts that read like a film.

And while some tales could do with a polish or two, it is perhaps to the author’s credit that the tales are as imperfect as humans are, with some filling you to the brim with the emotions they promised, and others leaving you numb and empty.

In the end, choose this book if you want to discover the meaning of the one, the eight, and the nine—beyond what the author says in the first few pages—or even just to sit with the quiet, messy business of being human.

1 More Than 8 and Other Stories: Exploring Navarasa - The Nine Emotions

Author: Sheila Kunjur Srinivas

Publisher: Red Grab Books (2025)

Pages: 230

Price: ₹275