christmas eve (microfiction)

25.12.2025

S: I feel content and peaceful. Fulfilled.

A: How so?

S: This Christmas Eve, I have spent it with three of the people that I like the most in the world. The Lady. The Friend. And The Mother.

A: What did you actually get up to though?

S: With the socialising, a walk in the park. Dinner at home. And then the pub.

A: I won’t ask the different combinations of venue and party. Anything else that added to that feeling of contentment?

S: Here is the list of things that I did today:

– meditation

– chi building

– Weight training with light weights

– reading about Ancient India

– languages learning in Spanish, French, Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi in newspapers and poetry.

– listening to Hindi film songs and Chinese film soundtracks. Listening to jazz and soul.

– shopping and window shopping for jewellery, books, chocolate, cakes and clothes.

– a long walk in the park

– a photoshoot and editing photos

– sharing a previous photoshoot on social media

– looking at art and photography on Instagram

– writing

A: A busy day indeed.

S: I like to keep very busy. It makes life go along quicker.

A: When do you relax?

S: That is my relaxation. Self improvement. Study. Creativity. Time with the people that are close to me. I want to keep getting better and better. A great day today and many more to come this season and New Year. It is a lucky time in my life.

security and happiness (microfiction)

23.12.2025

S: If you know that when you fall, that there is someone to catch you, that is happiness in love.

A: How do you know that they will catch you?

S: Because when you slip along the ice, they hold your hand tight, they hold you tight in the cold. They would rather fall with you then let you go.

A: You trust so much.

S: Whatever I say, I believe in the goodness of those close to me and their love.

A: You have curated people very carefully.

S: I made mistakes. I was with the people that are false. But when The Tiger opens his heart, he never fears. My duty is bravery.

A: And you?

S: Nobody around me can fall. This hand is strong. I have been a nurse, a carer, a counsellor, a therapist, an advocate, a teacher, an organiser, a babysitter, a playmate. Everything. Love has taught me.

A: Well, you have done the work. Now you have one that thinks of you, that looks out for you, that looks over you, that cares for you.

S: Our choice, our judgement. It has been proven right. One recognised what was within and I also saw what was in their heart. The heart that is true – a rarity in this world of deceit and hate.

the voice inside (microfiction)

22.12.2025

S: Against the voice outside, there is the voice inside.

A: How you talk to yourself?

S: Yes, the voice of power and the voice of daring.

A: What does the voice inside say?

S: The voice inside tells me that I am Love. The voice inside says to break the mouth of the law, the corruption of what counts as right and justice here. The voice inside tells me that I am a hero, that I am a genius, that I am the only real man in this country.

A: You are so proud of being a man. It is just a gender category.

S: It is one that I have chosen. And been chosen for. To stand for strength and courage. To stand for protection. The warrior.

A: They say that you are toxic.

S: Freedom says fuck you. Freedom says fuck you to the world. Fuck your cowardice, fuck your lack of ability and fuck your prejudice. They are happy for their fucking little non-men to have their unjust and false wars for the corruption that is the state. They are happy for these perverts to rape women abroad and to kill the innocent. I do not fight for the state. I fight for the people, for us. For the Oppressed.

A: Where is your war?

S: In everything that I do. How I love. How I write. What I think. What I do. It is the Revolution.

A: And the voice outside?

S: The voice outside is saying not to be a man. Not to have desire. That me and my people are nothing, to be cast aside and away. The voice outside is saying to be a slave and a non-man, like the slaves and the non-men here. The voice outside is saying to live a selfish and greedy life with no responsibilities and no values. The voice outside is saying let the rich fuck you and rule over you. To accept race as a marker of status and privilege and to eat this fucking bullshit because of my ethnicity. This voice is hate. It says to hate. To abandon love.

A: This voice says all these things?

S: The voice inside is more powerful than the voice outside. The voice inside is winning. Freedom says fuck you.

a nice memory (microfiction)

21.12.2025

A: What is the most beautiful memory you have?

S: I’ve been brought up with a lot of care and attention. I have many beautiful memories. Why choose just one?

A: Okay, it does not have to be the most beautiful. Just one that is beautiful.

S: Well, the one is one that happened many times. We would be staying at our grandparents’ house in London. It was exciting to be in London by itself. And my grandad would get us together and tell us a story before bedtime. And then he would ask us what the story meant at the end. Sometimes, he would take us on long walks and then tell us the stories as we were walking.

A: Those are your best memories? Stories?

S: They were stories told through love. They might not give happiness to some people, I know that all too well, I that write my stories. But they gave me happiness. And after the stories, my grandfather would be my bedfellow. I always slept in the same bed with him when I stayed over at his house. Because I was the closest to my grandfather. We were like best friends.

A: From being this kid that was excited by stories, why have you become this angry animal? If you had such a happy childhood, why are you full of rage and sadness?

S: Even when I was a child, I had anger management problems. I was born to be The Tiger.

A: Do you often dwell on these happy moments?

S: It is Christmas time. Today, a man told me that at Christmas time, you remember the ones that are not there. The ones that you had with you at Christmas. Do you know, there was this one. I asked them out in the New Year. It was my New Year’s resolution. I had them for that Christmas, thinking that they were mine although I did not celebrate it with them. I remember my grandparents at their house. We would have Christmas there. What is that if it is not dwelling on happy moments?

A: Happiness tinged with grief.

S: There was a time when they laughed that I felt all the joy in the world. Life has changed. Now, they are all gone from my life. They are either the dead or the living dead. They all left me.

A: Well now you have someone. And you can live in their laughter.

the beauty of evil

21.12.2025

S: In ‘Snow White’, the Queen is beautiful. And she is evil. In ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, he is evil and beautiful. So is Cersei Lannaster in ‘The Game of Thrones’.

A: The point? Is there one?

S: Evil is beautiful.

A: How so?

S: Let’s ignore the misogynistic currents in ‘Snow White’ and ‘The Game of Thrones’ for just now, their attack on women of power. The fact is that evil is beautiful. How else would it seduce the unwary?

A: A strong thesis.

S: And evil attracts beauty. That orange prick Trump has a supermodel wife. That bastard Farage has beautiful women around him too.

A: So evil is beautiful and evil attracts beauty?

S: The reality is though, that the beauty of evil is temporary and unreal. Both Cersei, the Queen and Dorian Gray lose in the contest of beauty as they are overtaken by their sins.

A: These are tales.

S: Yes, in reality, the beauty of evil is triumphant and the weak are seduced.

A: But you?

S: The evil of the beautiful did not lead me away from the path of destiny. Duty still stands before me. I follow the beauty of Punjab. I almost fell. I didn’t. The lover of the beautiful loves only those and that which are truly beautiful. As the song says: Dwell I in the land of beauty/My name is love.

mother medicine

20.12.2025

A: Why didn’t you succumb to the depression?

S: Why did I get up in the morning out of bed and I was never late for work? Why did I pass my university exams? Why did I volunteer at all those places? Why did I work six jobs and all the overtime that I could get? Why did I educate my nephew so that he passed his exams in every spare moment that I had? Why did I help my friends through their problems without telling them about my own problems?

A: Yes. Why? How did you do it? What is the cure?

S: Because even when I felt like shit, I had to pretend in front of my mother that there was nothing wrong. So that I did not hurt her. So that she did not think there was any problem. Because there were people depending on me and people that looked up to me. That needed me.

A: You did that for two whole years?

S: I could die for my mother. What is a bit of acting compared to that? I have sworn to protect her. She wanted me to work. She wanted me to be a man. Not just a man. The man.

A: This face that you showed the world, this laughing face, how could you play that role for two whole years?

S: You don’t get an Oscar for real life. In real life, there is only one take. Everything that I do, I am talented at. Acting as well.

A: Isn’t the new philosophy that you should go broken to the doctor and your whole life should be broken if you are sad?

S: The sadness that I had was real. It wasn’t based on nothing. It was based on heartbreak and trauma. I am not of this generation of people. I am six thousand years old. The brave live throughout sadness and loss. They do not fall into the pit. I am strength. I am resilience. I am The Tiger. And the mother of The Tiger expects a warrior. That is my power. That is why I am invincible and indefatigable.

enmity with the stone

20.12.2025

S: The stone is my enemy. They that cannot return love.

A: Perhaps the love was not in your destiny. You believe in destiny, don’t you?

S: The question is why there was not love. The reason that they could not love.

A: And what was it?

S: The answer is atrocity.

A: What will your enmity do?

S: It does nothing. It can do nothing. Because a stone does not have a heart. A stone is cold and hard and dead. You cannot touch a stone.

A: This anger is purposeless.

S: You are wrong. Now that I have seen the stone and its ways it has confirmed what I had only been told. The stones are the ones that have excluded, rejected, silenced and oppressed us. I have learnt the full nature of their enmity. The stone has given me the full picture of what we are fighting against, the face of evil.

A: Evil is that which does not return love?

S: The personal is the political. This lack of love keeps us from every opportunity.

A: You could not make them love you. Is the fault not yours?

S: Sycophancy, bad behaviour, bending to be fucked and cowardice are qualities that The Tiger abhors. The finger points at the stone.

A: Yet you loved the stone.

S: The stone is deceit. Falsity fills the atoms. I have learnt the lesson. The stone will look into your eyes and even their eyes will lie.

how to fight hitler

18.12.2025

S: There is this cockroach sitting on a throne built out of shit.

A: Trump?

S: He makes the world sick.

A: How do they tolerate it?

S: They are non-men. They can do nothing. They have no courage. They boast about being free but they are slaves. They say they are a democracy but live in a state of fascism. It is the same here.

A: You are with them?

S: No. I would act. But one man cannot save the world. I hunger for an army. For the ones that would follow honour and liberty to the death. The freedom fighter. Ones that are free.

A: And you find none?

S: In one corner of the world there is Punjab. In one corner of the world, there is the village. We have survived for six thousand years despite the corruption of the state. There is one corner of the world that still gives birth to men. To the warrior. The Mother of The Tiger has raised him to be The Tiger. Always ready to fight and the ungovernable wild beast.

A: You want to be you against the world?

S: When a great evil comes, the people pray for a hero.

A: Then do. What they cannot. Show your power.

S: Their whole system protects this evil.

A: To accept Hitler is to be Hitler.

S: Protests, law suits. Nothing. There is only one solution.

A: Think upon it.

S: Freedom calls for action.

this voice seeks the words of love

17.12.2025

S: This voice seeks the words of love. This voice seeks the word mother, the word son, the word wife, the word daughter.

A: The quest of a lifetime?

S: What would you seek? Money, power, fame? Paris loved Helen because she was love and beauty.

A: Was she though? Was she not naked death?

S: The goal of language, is it not connection? But we live in the degraded present, in the centre of corruption and hate. Here, language is to sow hate and division.

A: Has hate triumphed?

S: Inside language, there is a magic that the poet and the lover knows. We have heard the words of love. We come from the land of lovers, India. There is a song, we might not know anything else but we know how to love.

A: Your three Indian languages, they have taught you love? They are explorations of love?

S: The Mother Goddess herself came to me and gave me her love. It is what rescued me. You live in the mortal realm. I fly in the realm of the Goddess.

A: What is this?

S: Paris has seen Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. She has made him a promise. She asked his life for it. Your understanding is of the mortals, in this country of hate. How can you know?

A: The bargain, is it worth it?

S: She is beauty. She is love. More than anything else, I want to see her once more. Just once.

A: Because she is also death?

S: In love we die. In love we are reborn. I am her son and her lover.

crafting happiness

16.12.2025

S: When my family were telling me to perform and to be a man, they said one thing. Find someone and make them happy.

A: They didn’t tell you to be happy.

S: No. They said to make someone else happy.

A: Strange. You are the one they love.

S: Love is a duty.

A: Why did it take so long to find someone to make happy?

S: They are the only one that gave me the honour of being a man.

A: You can only be a man if you are with someone?

S: It is children that do not have someone. They treated me like a child.

A: Enough of that. Forget the brutal past and your grievances with them. How do you craft happiness for one who you are with?

S: This is the trick of love. You think of their happiness. You find things for them. You share with them. You craft these memories for them, these experiences. You make time for them. You listen and you try to understand.

A: And can you make someone happy, you who is always full of sadness and rage?

S: There are the ones that soothe the savage beast. There are the ones that make the warrior forget about the bloodlust for a moment.

A: Love before duty?

S: Love is duty. My love itself is a war. The duty of The Tiger is always before me, the breath of destiny. The woman of a warrior cannot stop him from being a warrior. We are machines made to fight. To the death. It is what we are.

A: Give happiness. Happiness in the setting of tragedy. And receive the happiness of doing so.

S: The death of love is the inability to give happiness. Let us never see the death of love.