04.05.2026
S: I woke up again from another nightmare in the supermarket, the supermarketisation of art and culture, the meanness of the philistines in this world. And as I lay in bed thinking over things, this is what came into my head. There is this line in this movie ‘Gadar’ (Rebellion/Mutiny/Revolt) that I think about over and over again.
A: The film goer. Which is?
S: Let me tell you the story of this film. It is based on a true story. A Sikh man fell in love with a Muslim woman. He married her and had children with her. The partition separated them. Her parents broke up the marriage. He committed suicide.
A: He kills himself?
S: In real life. In the movie, he does not kill himself. He wins her back.
A: So, tell me this line that you obsessively return to.
S: The scene in the film is that the two lovers are going to be separated. They have only just fallen in love. They are talking. He is suffering from the pain of separation already. And he says to her, ‘No matter how merciless this life is, you still have to live it.’
A: This is the line that you think about? There is no elegance or poetry to it.
S: Is it not the whole message of the film? The whole point of the film? In the film, he is to live. Whereas in this brutal and merciless world, he is made to die through its hostility to love and diversity, to an interfaith marriage, to the embrace of difference, to harmony and unity across cultures. In the film he is given his happiness.
A: You love the fairy tale even knowing the reality.
S: You live for your ideals. The ideals of India are the embrace of difference. The actor in the film, Sunny Deol, he is me. I have modelled myself upon the hero of Punjab.
A: It is easier said than done to live through despair.
S: When you are the hero, your duty is to live. In this spiritual war, it is our duty to not only survive but to prosper. Even when you dream of death, you make plans to live. Because we are love. And we keep love alive in this mean and cheap world.
A: You that has nightmares every night, you that has separated yourself from every community, you preach love and life?
S: To stomach injustice is to become unjust. To live with those that cheapen life is not life. To live with those that devalue love, that is not life. It takes courage to separate yourself from communities for the ideals of love and life. I have that courage. I can stand all alone in this world. I have lived through profound despair. And despite everything, still I laugh. I make a life. I love. I was born to be a hero. It is what I am named after, this Sikh hero Sunil Dutt that married a Muslim woman and saved her life, just like in the film Gadar. She is Mother India and I was raised to protect her honour. The story of Gadar is the story of my life. Why? Because I am Punjab. I am India. And this film that we are talking about? It is the most watched film in modern Indian history. All of India loves me. Because I am India. I am Punjab. I am The Tiger. I am love.
diary of a lone man 