the days of great sadness

25.03.2026

We had just finished some ice cream topped with chocolate buds, chocolate sweets and then both chocolate and raspberry sauce. Alfonso shone with the shine of a satiated stomach. I was telling him about Dhurandar 2 (The Brave Hero 2), which I had watched last night.

‘The film finished at about quarter past midnight.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘Almost one. I went to sleep at about half past one in the morning.’

‘Why do you watch these action films? It is just violence and revenge.’

‘You are wrong. They are about honour. They are about protecting the family. They are about the duty of being a man and a hero, about attaining your revenge. They are about sacrifice and true grit. They are about energy and power. They are the films that relay our culture, the warrior culture. The hero is Punjabi. It is always about us. We are the superheroes of India and this world.’

‘Well I hope you indulged your bloodlust. You are going about London doing everything there is to do in this city. I hope you are happy.’

‘I have met my girlfriend many times recently. But despite this happiness, these are the days of absolute sadness. The days of great sadness. We look at his world. This wretched world. The real peace and happiness would be in death. This struggle that has gone on forever, this struggle for status and honour, for a just reward, for true diversity and equality, for the community, this endless striving. Then and finally then, it would be over. It is the days of death. We remember the ones that have died, our most beloved.’

‘And what philosophy is there to counter sadness?’

‘There is nothing that can counter sadness. There is nothing that can counter the suffering that The Oppressed have to face in this world. We fight our hardest against a cowardly and dishonourable foe. The whole world is our enemy.’

‘One man cannot fight the entire world.’

‘From birth, you contend with the fairness of the allocation of resources. Milk, love, food, money, recognition, power and status. If I had ever been content with the share that I received, that we have received, then I would lay down my arms. Then I would forget my sadness, our sadness. But this resource allocation has always been unfair. It is unfair. And therefore, The Tiger bares his teeth. He shows his claws. In the essence of The Tiger there is this great gaping wound, sadness.’

‘You who have chased every happiness, you have everything noble and great in this world, everything, how can you be sad? You are the most fortunate. You are the one they envy. Hindu philosophy says sadness and happiness are unreal. Emotion is a cloud.

‘Humne apnein shakaal ke dorh dikhai gaheen aini ke gum mein

Chahein hai humnein uske tudkhrein ekh mudat sein’.

‘We have seen the run of our shape in the sadness of the mirror

We have wanted its shards for an age’.