convenience in love

29.04.2026

S: The one time that I went on a speed date, all the women could think of to keep on asking about was where I lived.

A: So?

S: It was a question that did not even occur to me. Because all they cared about was convenience in love. Whereas genuine love is decidedly inconvenient.

A: What do you mean?

S: They are born into this country and this culture. And here, for love, for the most part, they want you to be a clone of them. They want you to have the same background and culture. They want you to be in no way inconveniently different. They want you to be local. They fall in love with those that just happen to be around them, whether or not they are suitable. And as to the proposition that love is decidedly inconvenient? The ones that I have loved, I would have to fight for them. I would have to give up things for them. In short, love for me is not easy. For them it is easy. There is no cost to their love.

A: They also give their hearts.

S: But with many, many conditions. I give my heart unconditionally. I am actually a hero in love.

A: What do you mean by that?

S: The story of Hero and Leander. He swims every night across the dangerous Hellespont to see her. The story of Romeo and Juliet. He fights with everyone to love her. The hero of the love story loves one that is inconvenient. His love is inconvenient. His love is not lazy. His love is hard, hard work. That is why I am the hero. Nothing comes to me easily. I fight for everything tooth and nail.

A: They do not see you as the hero. They see you as the villain.

S: In this world, if you are a real man, if you are Indian, if you are Punjabi, if you are The Tiger, this world sees you as the enemy. Because you expose their corruption through your desires and your very being. They would destroy the desire and love of The Tiger. That is what they ask him to do, to kill his love. That is their biggest demand. Yet, still, The Tiger is love. He is named after the god of love. He is love. And that is why, in reality, they are the villains and he is the hero. In this love story, The Tiger is the hero. Because The Tiger accepts inconvenience, difference, the war that is love. If in love’s war, each lover is devastated, devastated, The Tiger accepts devastation. Even if he can never win in love, The Tiger loves. Because the love of the god is endless.

the poetics of marginalisation and the counter culture

28.04.2026

A: When one reads what you write, the substance is made up of a response to rejection, exclusion, hostility, heartbreak. Can you not write anything positive?

S: Those that have been included and valued can write something that conveys the satisfaction and the security that they feel. Those that have been rewarded, accepted and loved. I can only convey my experience of life.

A: Have you ever wondered whether it is something in you which is why you are treated as you are?

S: No. Because everything that is in me is in Punjabi culture. I am not me, I am Punjab. And they have tried to marginalise and exclude and restrict Punjab.

A: You have no personality?

S: I have a Punjabi personality. As I say, I am Punjab. We are loud. We are audacious. We are brave. We are hard working.

A: How do you know that what you suffer is not just what a genius has to suffer in this world? There are many articles about this. That because you are clever you will never get on with others that are not on your same level. You cannot stoop to the levels of their superficiality, you are too intense and full of deep thought. Then, remember, you have that condition which is also not conducive to society.

S: Those articles are untrue. They are based on generalisations. I say the same thing to you as I say to everyone. You have not met these people. You do not know what they are like. You cannot judge relationships from the outside, only from the inside. Don’t try to gaslight someone’s experience of things.

A: You would make the standard completely subjective?

S: What is so objective about you, the outside observer? Are you not subjective? I trust myself more than anyone else. I know that I am the reliable narrator. It is this world that is unreliable with their tired assumptions that can never take into account racism. It is just a fact that whenever you talk about racism here, people pretend that there is something else. Always something else, never racism. Funny that. When I have found that racism is their whole society. They have nothing else. The whole point of how they live and act and treat people is racism. They are racists. That is the truth.

A: And what is the key to the poetics of the marginalised and the counter culture?

S: The key is love. We are full of love in a world that has no love. We have right judgement in a world that has no justice or judgement. We have respect and honour, enough to give to others. They don’t.

the usurper of happiness

27.04.2026

S: You know, others are enjoying the happiness that is supposed to be ours.

A: In what sense?

S: I will only speak of my own case. If anything was actually fair, I would be a household name. After all, I am a genius. I would be feted everywhere. I would have whatever I wanted. Instead, there is this. The ones that are enjoying the rewards that I should have had, they do not deserve them. They should be mine.

A: You say this with complete assurance and humility of course.

S: We have spoken of this before. I have complete confidence in myself. You know, no one can match me in a fair contest. It is just a fact. They cannot outperform me. Therefore, if anyone is chosen above me for anything it is because of the wrong reasons. Who can write, think or create better than me?

A: But because you have a chip on your shoulder, you are not chosen.

S: Who has put this chip upon my shoulder? It is them. I know that they are unfair. Because of how they have treated me and my talent and brilliance. They have never been just. They cannot be just. They give lip service to the ideals of meritocracy but they have no meritocracy. Only mediocrity and this popularity contest that they have.

A: How can you get back the happiness that is supposed to be yours?

S: There is no way. Relationships, opportunities, friendships, whatever it is. You can never get them back. Because you have been passed over out of caprice and injustice and there is no way of getting any of those things back. Because they will not come out of their inquity. They are monsters.

A: Hanging on to the things that should have been yours, hanging onto your humilation, these are not good traits.

S: They can forget because there is not this accumulation of ills. I cannot forget the mountain of injustice. I cannot forget how they have stood in the way of all my ambitions and dreams, the disappointment that I have had to live with, how they have cheated our dreams and destinies. I cannot forget or forgive what they have taken away from me and us.

the energy of the master of the field

25.04.2026

A beautiful day apparent, and it being my day off, Alfonso and I had arranged a programme of events for the day. I met him at his house first thing in the beautiful sunshine and we walked through the park reflecting on life and everything.

Our first stop was a mission of charity. We were going to see our friend in the hospital through the park. Alfonso had bought a comb at his request and we had picked it up from the chemist’s in the corner. I had begun joking around there and suggested to the cashiers that he was starting up his hair stylist business which had aroused a few smirks and then some conversation from the old lady that was sitting there waiting for her medicines. The visit in the hospital had not gone very smoothly but then our mutual friend was not very well and was having a bad day. We had told him that we would see him next week at the close of about half an hour.

We walked again back through the park and again to Alfonso’s house where he made himself some coffee and tea while I gulped down some water. The first stop was a woman’s brass band that was playing in Holy Sepulchre church in Holborn Viaduct. We then set out for a poster exhibition which was about politics, democracy and resistance in the Eastern bloc at Europe House. Alfonso was older than me and had lived through the events in the late eighties and nineties so he was teaching me about them while I made some comments about the aesthetics, intentions and meanings of the posters.

We decided to walk to St James’s park which was in the vicinity afterwards and ended up in the Institute of Contemporary Arts which had a 1K challenge to promote Puma trainers. We realised that we could pick up some free running T-shirts if we collected a few stamps so we did so.

Having gone through a day of medicine, music, art, politics and sport, we then settled back down into Alfonso’s house after buying much reduced price chocolate in the form of Easter eggs and then watched the film ‘The King’, which was a creepy thriller about Christianity and its interaction with the military minded and violence.

According to Alfonso, the film was about revenge. Alfonso asked me how it contrasted with the film I had watched recently, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, ‘The Master of the Field’.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘the difference can be encapsulated in one cinematic moment. The hero is rescuing his sister who has been gang raped. He kills everyone. We have a scene where he disappears from the camera. Then he rises. His head is brought up to a whirling circular firework behind him. We focus on his face. It is the face of his revenge. Why the firework? In the film, they talk about the energy that is required to have revenge. The hero says that not all have this energy. He is the firework. The revenge is within him. It is a whirling circle of energy. Whereas in The King, the anti-hero is silent and evil, seemingly low in all energy except for sexual energy, low-key and understated, in the Hindi film the hero is full of energy. In fact, the actor Ranveer Singh is known for his energy. In fact, he is Punjabi and we are known for our energy. The whirling firework becomes a halo around his head. It represents the energy of the Sikhs, because he is a Sikh in the film and in real life. He is a hero, a guru. The energy is full of light and power, it is dazzling. It is the splendour of Punjab. The firework is fire. Fire which will burn the world. Fire which is full of the sparks that will ignite this world. That is the difference between ‘The King’ and ‘The Master of the Field’. It is a difference in power. The Punjabi is powerful. The Tiger is powerful. We have endless energy which illuminates and burns this world, this energy of revenge. And remember the last thing. The energy is the law: it is the wheel of the dharma. It is the beauty of law.’

the illusion of joining

24.04.2026

S: Men live by a number of illusions.

A: Such as?

S: The illusion that we are not all alone.

A: Alone in what sense?

S: There is nobody and nothing. Men yearn to be a part of something greater than themselves. To join to society and others. Yet there is no joining to others. It is all illusion. There is only the naked self.

A: You feel disconnection?

S: In Descartes, he asks this question. How do you know that other people have thoughts and are not robots? In short, how do we know that only we do not exist? How can you guarantee that other people actually exist? How do we know that we are human and that they are also human, like us? In other words, the reality of being human is that we do not know if we are all alone. This is the foundation of modern philosophy in the West.

A: You however, are a critic of Descartes and mind body dualism. Because you believe that you are a body and nothing else. That there is no split between the mind and the body.

S: Let’s come back to this idea however. How do you know that you are not all alone?

A: Surely you have connected with others. Surely you have felt their humanity?

S: One assumes that they are human like us. One uses oneself as a reference point. But how does one know that they are human? In fact, how does one know that the self is human in the first place?

A: Do you honestly believe that there is no community?

S: I have spent four years going around London seeking connection. Just one connection. Just one person. I have some experience of this. I do not say things without any basis in fact. I am not like the liars in this society.

A: Whatever your experience, you will eventually have to buy into this illusion that there are others. That there is a community.

S: The reason that I am The Tiger is because the tiger is a solitary beast. The tiger hunts alone. That is why The Tiger is the king of the jungle. Because he is a solitary beast. He is all alone. That is destiny. Destiny, you cannot fight. They have a community and connection. The Tiger stands by himself. The community that he represents is the dream of the poet and the guru. The just community, not this one of lies and not much else. I have accepted that I am all alone.

A: The man of the community says that there is no community. The one that serves the community says that there is no community.

S: There is only isolation. Nothing else. Whatever you do, eventually all that is left is you and the mirror. That is what Descartes was saying.

the rationality of death

23.04.2026

S: Camus asks this question, why should we not commit suicide? It is the one question. The great question.

A: And what do you think of Camus?

S: Does a man need a reason to live? Why does he need a reason to live? Why can he not just live life? And this is what Camus says. That there is no reason to live. Just to live life.

A: Can you just live life without any meaning in it?

S: Who knows? Viktor Frankl says that you have to have a meaningful life.

A: Why do you keep on living yourself?

S: Do you know something? The most rational thing would be to die.

A: Surely, you jest.

S: Not at all. This life is confusion. This life is suffering. Hurt and disappointment. This life is a cage. This life is isolation. This life is one full of suspicion, misunderstanding, prejudice, hate, injustice, apathy and hostility. How sweet it would be to free from all this! The rational decision would be to die. It is no surprise why people choose to commit suicide.

A: Why then do you live if there is nothing to live for?

S: Duty ties me down to the earth when I should be sitting in heaven. The family. The community. The Oppressed. The Mother. The duty to keep on living for others. The duty not to be known as a coward that could not face life when I must be brave because I am the warrior and the splendour of Punjab. For myself, I would not live.

A: Do you really think that those poor souls that commit suicide are free? That they have escaped this world which you find so mean and cheap?

S: What else? Do you know where psychologists say that you find the utmost happiness? In a flow state. When you forget about everything else except for the activity that you love. In which the self is completely extinguished. What about sex? For that moment of bliss when you come, you forget everything. It is the little death. The utmost happiness is death. It is the rational decision.

A: The rational decision is life. To live. To make the world a better place. To fight those that would make it a hell.

S: Why do you think god has come down upon the earth? Because it was too full of sin. That is why he is reborn every time, when sin outweighs goodness. But has he come down from heaven for happiness? No. The common crowd follow happiness. The god follows duty. His mother called for him because they had tried to take The Mother’s honour. The people prayed for him to come into the world because they were oppressed. They asked for a champion. Duty binds the god to this world. The work has not been achieved yet. The Revolution has not come. I am the child of destiny, of fate. The gifts have been given to me. I am The Tiger. And since I am The Tiger, I have to show energy. I have to show life. The seductions of easeful death are great. The mouth waters. But there are only two deaths available to The Tiger. A glorious death in battle. Or in bed. There is no real war. And there are too many years left still to be lived for this peaceful death in the bed. So we live. With reluctance.

reluctance to write

A: I notice that you are reluctant to write at the moment.

S: One wonders where it goes. One wonders what it does. One wonders, in short, why?

A: You have your readers.

S: Enemies and critics.

A: You have something to say.

S: Which no one wants to listen to.

A: You are The Tiger.

S: The mortal enemy of this world.

A: You cannot stop writing. They expect. They read you every day in every way.

S: There is only one reason why I write. So that they cannot defeat me. Defeat us. The Oppressed. This learning, it is for The Oppressed. This mind, it is for The Oppressed. This body? It belongs to The Oppressed.

A: Why can you not just live for yourself?

S: I am The Oppressed. I am The Mother. It is the authentic self. There is nothing other.

A: Write then for them.

S: Have you ever considered the language of the warrior?

A: What do you mean?

S: The words of a fighter are charged with energy, absolute energy. It is the fight. The pen is not mightier than the sword. The pen itself is the sword.

A: Language as a weapon?

S: Language as the fist. Language as the kick. Language as the choke hold. The mastery over the language is the mastery over the martial arts.

A: Who has taught you this?

S: The gurus. The activists. The scholars. Hindi film. They have made the writer into the warrior. And the duty of the warrior? Even when he is cut into pieces, he will fight. Even when all else have been defeated and he stands as the last man on the battlefield, he will fight. Fighting is what he was born and raised to do. It is his life. And so, he fights. He writes.

A: With reluctance?

S: The war is hard. Life is hard. Yes, with reluctance. But still he writes. Because he believes in that one spark that will light up this world. That precious one, that precious reader that will become The Tiger too. What The Oppressed pray for, what The Mother desires. Freedom.

the expression of energy

22.04.2026

A: What did and do your university tutors make of your writing?

S: They said that I was original, ambitious. They said that I went far. They said that my writing was lively.

A: What do they mean by lively?

S: After all, my writing is the expression of energy. Of total power. Of a mind that is free and does not fear. Because this is what the power of the mind is.

A: Where does this energy come from?

S: That is the question, is it not? First of all, I have always had high levels of energy. Then, we were not kept idle as children. We had many things to do. Add to that that I have always done much exercise to build up this body and mind. Do not forget the genes of the athlete and the scholar that my grandfather has bequeathed me. And do not forget the discipline that I have. Discipline is everything.

A: This energy that you have has been described by everyone around you as unnatural.

S: I am a genius. Although I come from nature I am beyond nature.

A: Is this energy that you have being translated? Is this energy being expressed?

S: There are so many pies that I have fingers in. I do the work of three men. Is that not enough?

A: Why not sit and redraft this book that you say proves that you are a genius? You keep on saying that you will do it and you have not touched it.

S: I will not kill myself to do it. They will not give me any reward for it. They are ungrateful, miserly and haters in their hearts. They are unfair and they do not reward or recognise on merit. They do not even deserve my genius. If I write this book, it will only be for us, The Oppressed.

A: The reluctance of genius.

S: All my life, I have worked for society. And what have I got for it for myself? It is a serious question.

A: But now you have everything you wanted. Meaningful work and a girlfriend. You have got something out of it.

S: Where is my honour?

A: Come come. There are many that respect you. You do have honour as well. Write the book. Prove that you are the genius that you say that you are.

S: Summer is almost here. There is only one more month. Then we will see what this energy can do.

A: Forget that you are Achilles sulking and become the greatest of the warriors. You know how important that argument is in the book. You know that you are the king of reading and the king of letters. Show the splendour of Punjab. Show them the roar of The Tiger. Show them the champion of The Oppressed.

dishonourable peace or honourable revolution

21.04.2026

A: The words ‘peace’ and ‘revolution’ in Hindi rhyme. ‘Shanti’ and ‘Kranti’.

S: What would you rather have? Shanti ya kranti? Peace or Revolution?

A: I am sure that most people would say peace.

S: I do not.

A: You would rather not have calm in your life?

S: Where peace is dishonourable, it is unacceptable. The choice is simple.

A: You think the Revolution is honourable?

S: What else?

A: Why talk always about honour?

S: Because we come from the honour society. We are honour. The Mother who we worship is our honour.

A: How is peace dishonourable?

S: Do you know what Sophie Scholl’s last words were before the Nazis killed her for resisting them? She said, “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause?” We are living in the times of the fascists. We are living in the times of the haters and the cowards. We are living in the time of discrimination, injustice and lies. To accept peace on their terms, with those that are dishonourable, is tantamount to being dishonourable onself. And if we have spent our whole life fighting for our honour, for the honour of our mother, how could we look at ourselves in the mirror or look anyone else in the face? To have honour is to be righteous. It is to fight for righteousness. The Revolution over a dishonourable peace every time.

A: What is so honourable about The Revolution?

S: The Revolution is against the dishonourable in the name of honour, of The Mother’s honour. The Mother is honour. The Mother is us.

A: They hate you for saying that The Mother is honour and that she is your honour.

S: So what? Everything that they say and do is delusion and oppression. It is a lie. Their thoughts are lies and their lives are lies. One does not listen to a fool or a coward. That is what they do. Not us. We are Punjabi. We are the Tigers of Punjab. A real man does not listen to those that would make him a non-man.

A: Live without calm. Live without peace.

S: I am blessed that I live without peace. I am blessed that I am the warrior. I am blessed that I have chosen The Revolution. Because in The Revolution there is glory, the bliss of glory. There is only one lack. A warrior worthy to be the enemy of The Tiger. The enemy does not have a Karana in their midst. All they have is corruption.

A: You are an intellectual terrorist. That is what they think of you.

S: The intellectual terrorist is them. They live their law through coercion and duress. Their taxes and their exploitation of the Oppressed is gained through coercion and duress. They pretend there is the illusion of choice and freedom when all they have is their cage and their prison. Their thought is a cage and a prison. Their thought is violence against us and The Mother. Yes, they are the intellectual terrorists. And I? I am god. I am the liberator. I am The Tiger. I am freedom. The ungovernable wild beast.

wanting the world

20.04.2026

A: I think it is true of you to want the world.

S: I don’t think so. I imagine that you are referring to my ambitions?

A: Yes.

S: I do not want the world. That is the mark of the coloniser. The imperialist.

A: But you want the whole world to love you and to fall at your feet.

S: Victory is won over the heart. Not over land.

A: History would say otherwise.

S: In any case, having looked at the world, having explored the world, I no longer want the world. It is a detestable and disgusting thing this world.

A: What do you want then?

S: I don’t want to impress them. I am much better than them.

A: But come, tell me what you want?

S: In many ways, I want only to destroy them. Have you ever read ‘Perfume’ by Suskind? In the end, he no longer wants the love of the people. It is not enough. It is nothing.

A: What does the genius want?

S: The genius wants above all things to play the game. And I do play the games. Several games. Art, writing, music, song, photography, scholarship.

A: But you have often enough told me that you play to win. There is no winning in these games that you are playing.

S: You are wrong. I am winning against them. They would have me, through the conditions they impose, to do nothing and to be no one. To have no voice, body or soul. Every time that I make something, I am preserving Punjabi culture. I am preserving and transmitting to the next generation the spirit of The Tiger. I am winning. I always win. Because to be the authentic self is to win. To be a man is to win. To be a god? Is that not winning? The People, The Oppressed, they have chosen this champion. The one with the gift of the mind. The one with the gift of strength. The one with the gift of endurance. The one with the gift of talent. The one with the gift of genius. The one that is the champion. They have chosen the one that wins.