emptiness (microfiction)

04.11.2025

[written on the train home from work, 6-7pm)

A: You said that there was nothing. After the jealousy. After the fire. What did you mean?

S: The numbness. The ache of the emptiness. The place that is not filled. The void. The abyss. Many words. For the feeling of hollowness. Of incompleteness.

A: These are words. They do not describe the feeling.

S: You want to know the feeling of emptiness? It is complete numbness. It is nausea. It is the inability to arise from the bed in the mornings. Read the novel by Sartre. That is its literary expression. Why ask me?

A: It is you that is my friend. Not Sartre.

S: You do not want a wise friend? You prefer my company?

A: I prefer the company of The Tiger. He is also wise, the wisdom of nature.

S: It is a dangerous game. The Tiger has teeth.

A: Didn’t you tell me that the Punjabis have a phrase, ‘Friend of friends’? Isn’t that the philosophy of friendship of The Tiger?

S: You are one that appreciates care, attention and consideration and kindness. An anomaly. An exotic rarity.

A: You have many friends. You exaggerate. Perhaps you should keep better company if you feel like that.

S: The special friend I am looking for… Where do you find the better company? I have looked in so many fields. So many that I thought had embraced me only to watch them scatter in the wind…

A: When the kestrel cannot find a catch in one field, he haunts another.

S: The kestrel is free. He does not have a golden manacle upon his claw. He has no ties to a place.

A: You too are free. More free than anyone else. The wild ungovernable beast…

S: It is true what they say. Emotion is a cage.

A: Forget emotion. Become cold and hard like this world.

S: Impossible. They have a phrase in Punjabi, the language and people you are so fond of. ‘Dilwala’, the one with a heart. I am ‘Dilwala’. Not them.

A: Forget being one with a heart. Become one that has power.

S: It is accomplished. The power of The Tiger is unrivalled. He has transformed the world around him wherever he goes. The light that he sheds is like the blinding rays of the sun. And for them and those, it is unbearable.

the tears of the flowers

04.11.2025

Unexpected acceptance can be found within unacceptable expectation.

The day was long. In the garden, the flowers wept. The grass lamented. The sky itself, it was filled with melancholies of grey.

A bird glided into the tree and S. watched her keenly. The birds of Da Vinci flew in his mind, the artist feverishly tracking and recording their movements. Wanting to become the bird.

A. had asked him why he saw poison. Why he thought poison. Why his life had become poison.

What else was there? When all the good things were being churned from the ocean, instead, the god Shiva had swallowed the poison. To prevent the destruction of the universe. His throat became blue with the poison’s anger. And S.? His name was blue. The blue skin of a god.

A. had asked him, how can you become a god? S. had said that in the West, to claim godliness is arrogance and the height of madness. It is folly. But in India, one modelled onself on god. They called the good people gods. It was the aim to become god upon the earth. A god was known by good deeds. The deeds of humanity. And S. tried his utmost.

‘So you are Shiva then?’ A. had asked.

S. had said that the hero is formed in adversity. The whole world, including the gods, fate itself, all had to be against the hero. It was only then that the triumph of the hero could be known and recognised. It was only then that the legends of the hero could be told and the songs could be sung.

Life had to be poison. Otherwise, heroism was dead.

A. had smiled. The Buddha’s smile was known. It was the sign of his wisdom. The smile delighted the hearts of his followers.

jealousy (microfiction)

03.11.2025

S: I was insanely jealous. With an emphasis on the insanity.

A: You are insecure?

S: Where was the security? I had nothing. I was not theirs. I was clutching at a speck of a straw in the storm of the river.

A: And?

S: Seeing them with another… It was like a pickaxe to the brain and to the gut.

A: You have said that you WERE jealous…

S: Life taught me a lesson. To give up.

A: You? You gave up?

S: You cannot force.

A: You could love from afar. Like Dante.

S: Preposterous. A waste of life. To long and to yearn. And never love to earn.

A: And now? Where has the jealousy gone?

S: When hope is gone, jealousy is gone. Jealousy is the hope that one is mine. When there is still a bridge that connects. When there is no bridge that connects?

A: That bridge that you built, you destroyed it so easily.

S: Mine was not the hand that held the fire.

A: But you swallowed the flame willingly.

S: Not willingly. I was much loth to do it. The body and the mind fought me valiantly. They are the body and the mind of The Tiger. I am strength. Years of strength. That is why I am invincible. One lesser would have succumbed.

A: But what comes now instead of jealousy?

S: Nothing. The numbness.

A: You told me that you are fire.

S: You can be fire only for what is yours.

A: You are lying to yourself. You are still fighting yourself.

S: You don’t believe that love dies? Our world is one in which love is for a moment. And only that. It is a faint murmur that is forgotten against a deafening noise. There is no loyalty. There was no encouragement. In short, there was nothing.

A: The heart of a Tiger, the heart of a traitor?

where there is no bond there is no treason

the wheel of survival knows no season

loss is what we hide

why lie? we have died

critic (microfiction)

03.11.2025

S: Have you ever watched that film, I think it is called Birdman?

A: No. But I remember you talking about it once. That you were like Birdman.

S: In the film there is a critic. She is determined to destroy the hero.

A: Motivation?

S: His past. The fact that he plays the role of a superhero. She is against heroism.

A: Why?

S: She guards the gates of culture. She excludes. And again, it is the battle of the sexes. She attempts to crush the male ego.

A: We will have to watch it together. An artist must be against the critic that demands death.

A: The resolution?

S: Ambiguous. She calls for his death. A critic that demands death. Can Birdman die for his art?

A: Why talk of this film?

S: Birdman has this voice. The voice of power. He is a hero. He has the voice of a hero. Is the film a meditation on this culture’s exclusion of the hero? A jealous culture that cannot stomach heroes and their heroism?

S: Yes, but the demand for the death of the hero persists. They ask for tragedy. We give them comedy. Comedy ends in marriage.

the stealer of sweets (microfiction)

02.11.2025

In that shared space, S. had a cupboard. And in the cupboard, along with his other food, S. used to keep chocolate. No longer, because there is a stealer of sweets at large.

They began by lifting packets of chocolate. S. thought it was just an exception to the general trust that he could extend to the group. So he had kept on storing his treasures there. But the thief was resolute and shameless. So S. hid the chocolate somewhere else, under lock and key.

But then, after a while, when S. thought that the thief would no longer root around in a place where there was nothing, he had put a few packets of sweets there for himself. A quick energy boost to get him through the busy day. The thief had returned.

At first, the thief was careful. They took what could not be noticed. But, after a while, the thief became brazen. And they would take all of the sweets and leave the packet entirely empty. A message.

What was the motivation of this thief? Why were they stealing the sweets in such a targeted way?

Was it just the case that they could see something there, knew there would be something there and it was an easy heist? Was it just shameless greed?

Or was it more the case that they were communicating something? Was it a personal rivalry? Payback for some mistake? Did this thief even know whose cupboard they were stealing from?

One day, the thief left something. A giant furry strawberry. Or was it the thief at all?

The thief chews S.’s sweets in their mouth. They feel happiness. S. has fed everyone there with sweet treats on many occasions. He is happy to share. But S. does not want to share with this thief. Because generosity is a choice and not a compulsion. And this thief is forcing things.

S. wonders whether the thief thinks of their thefts at all. Whether they are happy just to take and not give a second thought. Is the thief different from this world that just takes at all without giving?

providence (microfiction)

02.11.2025

S: The other day, I had to look up the exact meaning of ‘providence’.

A: It is an old fashioned word.

S: To me, it means ‘fate’. In the dictionary, they talk about the plan of god.

A: Do you believe in fate? You always talk of it. And do you believe in the Mother Goddess?

S: Fate is real. I was chosen for my destiny. The prayer of the people. The prayer of my mother. The names I have been given. My origin. The myths tell of the hero born against death in the most humble of backgrounds. Of children that are pursued by murders from infancy. And the Mother is real as an ideal. The perfect warrior. The one that protects.

A: You are not religious. How can you believe?

S: I am Indian. Our philosophy comes from religion. From the stories. That is how we transmitted our knowledge and culture.

A: Is it then your fate to be all alone in this world? Is that what your Mother decides for you?

S: That is for time to tell. In this whole world, can there be one who opens their arms for an embrace? Or do all have their arms folded and their fists clenched?

A: Dream of an embrace. Rupture is deadly.

fate has asked for hardness

and freedom from fear

destiny has demanded desolation

and the peerless demands a peer

Complaint (microfiction)

01.11.2025

‘Shikayat’ (from “Gangubai Kathiawadi” soundtrack)

I was writing to A. About a song.

In this song, there is complete understanding. The understanding of a woman. The story is that there is a man who is upset with her. And she understands that he is upset with her because he loves her.

He does not look at her.

He does not think about her.

She passes by him. He does not stop her.

He complains about her.

She even says that he hates her.

But yet, she still believes in his loyalty. She believes that they are not separated. That he complains is that he loves her.

The song plays with the concept of ‘roothna’ or ‘ruthna’, being sulky or sullen. It is ‘when someone close to you gets UPSET, OFFENDED or SLIGHTLY ANGRY and STOPS TALKING/COMMUNICATING for some period’. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-English-word-for-the-Hindi-word-ruthna

“Ruthna” implies a temporary emotional withdrawal often intended to prompt reconciliation; “to sulk” and “to pout” capture the behavioral aspect, while “to be offended” or “to take offense” capture the feeling. (Ibid.)

So, in the song, she understands that he complains because he loves her. And she loves him too. The complaint is evidence of their love. It brings them together instead of breaking them apart.

Obsessively, I listened to this song. In it was the mystery of love. Of an Indian man’s love. I have not watched the film. However, the form of the song is important. It is a qawwali. This was originally a song form in Sufi Islam designed to be hypnotic and to inspire religious ecstasy and love. Hindi films use the form to convey earthly love. The divinity of love is being expressed in ‘Shikayat’ (Complaint).

How different, I thought, the Hindi film is from life. The understanding of this song, does it happen in real life? Real life is full of misunderstanding and confusion. As we know it, real life is full of misguided assumptions, tangle and confusion, mind games that meander and go nowhere.

The song has inspired me to watch the film. Perhaps in the film, there is the reconciliation of the lovers. A happy love story for a change. Instead of another witnessing of the death of love. And the death of the lover. Who is reviled for being in love.