small accomplishments

18.07.2026

At about the stroke of midnight, I suddenly had this irresistible urge to write to A. Whatever A. was doing, perhaps sleeping, I always thought A. was free for me. Accessible and open, welcoming even. I wanted to tell A. about my idea of small accomplishments.

In my life, every day, I tried to achieve something. Small things that built up to a general sense of achievement. They did not have to be earth shattering. They were ways of self improvement. Ways of challenging and stretching myself. Ways of stimulation.

So, I wrote to A. I told of my day. It was one of the humble practices of writing. The list. And in order.

Meditation and chi building.
Light weights, stomach crunches and push ups.
Language learning in Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu through reading short stories, newspapers and novels.
Reading The New Scientist and great stories from British history.
Messaging friends and writing to my pen pal.
Juggling.
Playing at Scrabble, a jigsaw puzzle and a quick crossword.
Researching volunteering places in science for my nephew and sending him over a list so he can choose what he applies to over the summer holidays.
Listening to Hindi film songs on my headphones on my train.
Shopping for lunch and eating while I was exploring the area in London.
Going to various art exhibitions with my girlfriend. I also read poetry today while at the art exhibitions.
Photographing my girlfriend.
Shopping with my girlfriend.
Looking at a cultural destination with my girlfriend.
Editing photographs of my girlfriend with me on my phone.
Eating a dinner of fish and chips with my parents.
Watching ‘The Seven Year Itch’ to watch Marilyn Monroe after going with friends to see her exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery yesterday.
Looking at artwork and photographs on Instagram.
Doing a quick digital art doodle and posting it on Instagram.
Phoning my girlfriend good night.
Writing.

being gifted

18.07.2026

S: There’s an article in the New Scientist this week about being gifted as a child.

A: Here we go again. You’re going to tell me that you were gifted as a child.

S: Yes. I am naturally intelligent. I don’t have to work so hard. The teachers at school told me that I was gifted as a poet and a writer, at everything.

A: And what did this article talk about?

S: It talked about the experiences of gifted children as they grow up. It said that they were happy and that they achieved.

A: And yourself?

S: I had to work hard to get an ounce of happiness. No one wanted to give it to me. Because I was young, gifted and Asian. The fact that I was Asian is what counted against me.

A: But achievement?

S: Have you written a book? Do you have articles in top journals? Even at work, I have been promoted a few times. Not to mention having been a commissioned artist and a photographer that has been featured in magazines.

A: You are not famous though.

S: Fame is a different thing from achievement. Just look at how many degrees I have as well as a doctorate. The achievement and its evidence is there. I don’t even need to talk about the things I have achieved in my career. I have done a lot.

A: So you were gifted then and you didn’t burn out and you are gifted now.

S: Supremely gifted. By the grace of the Mother goddess.

A: Don’t become complacent. It ruins creativity.

S: I will keep on striving and growing and going. I have promised The Mother.

what it feels to miss love

15.07.2026

S: Do we miss other people?

A: Yes.

S: You answer immediately. But is it them that we miss? Or do we miss how they make us feel? Do we miss their love?

A: Those are aspects of them.

S: Is an aspect them?

A: One is one’s attributes. Do you miss someone?

S: There are those that I think of that are gone.

A: The dead?

S: There are those that are living too. The quick and the dead.

A: The biblical reference. Always with the books with you.

S: The living, I can feel their eyes on me. I know who it is that looks upon my words.

A: Friend, lover, enemy? Who do you talk of?

S: The secret rests within this breast.

A: Why not bring them near to you?

S: It has been a long time. There are distances.

A: You miss them. You will not make it up with them. That is perverse.

S: Humans are perverse. They themselves are perverse. They that hate, they know that I understand them. They hate because I understood, not because I did not.

A: Perhaps that is conceit. Perhaps you misunderstood.

S: Whether or not I understood them, which it is impossible to tell, they did not understand me.

A: The poor misunderstood man.

S: No one understands genius.

A: Why then do they fear it?

S: Precisely because it is an unknown.

A: What say you to the lost?

S: I say that I see your eyes before me. I say that I see your face. I see you saying the words of friendship to me. I remember how I would rush towards you. I remember how I would look forward to seeing you.

A: And yet you cannot bend and they cannot bend.

S: Some things are destined not to be. Everywhere, men build walls around themselves, around others. Such walls become the stuff of life. Such walls determine one’s destiny. Find me one that does not build this wall.

A: Some walls, you have broken through.

S: There is always a wall. To open one’s heart, one has to become a god. One has to become fearless. One has to shed all doubts. One has to become The Tiger.

dharma’s rejection of the rich – ikka film review

14.07.2026

SPOILER ALERT

Without a doubt, my favourite Hindi film actor is Sunny Deol. One of his most famous roles is playing a lawyer in Damini (The Lightning). Here, again, Sunny reprises the role of a lawyer. However, this time, in a reversal of the movie plot in Damini, he is on the side of the rich rather than on the side of the poor. It is a reversal of roles.

Why? Just like Damini explored how corrupt the rich are and how they monopolise the legal system against poor women, so Ikka explores this topic. However, what Ikka suggests, is that the law cannot reject the rich and neither can we reject the rich.

Arjun, Sunny’s character in the movie, cannot reject the rich man, the defendant. He has to fight for him in the court to save his daughter’s life who would otherwise die of cancer. The murder victim in the movie, the poor woman (not so poor however this time), also cannot refuse the rich man’s advances. The rich man kills her as a result with his wealth, forcing an expensive car’s key into her throat. The law cannot reject the rich man by treating him as a criminal in the film.

The rich man is protected by his wealth. He can put any kind of duress on anyone because of his wealth. Not only his wealth but his very being and identity as a rich man – the duress he places on Arjun is because he has a bone marrow compatible with that of Arjun’s daughter. He has biological wealth deriving from his stature as The Father – he is the biological father of Arjun’s daughter.

In the movie, Arjun as a father has to bow down to The Father, the patriarchal ideal. In one scene, he makes his ‘son’ Abimanyu (Abimanyu is Arjun’s son in the Mahabharata) testify for the rich man, showing the corruption of the patriarchal relationship and its foundation in lies and misdirection.

There is only one person that can reject the rich man in the movie: The Mother. She is the only one powerful enough to do so. Because The Mother is not the law. She is the dharma. Arjun’s wife, once the former girlfriend of the rich man defendant, she rejects him. She slaps his face. She married Arjun instead of the rich man and rejected him entirely. Again, the victim’s mother, she rejects the rich man. She can only see the rich man as a villain. And then the female lawyer that is fighting against the rich man is also a mother. And she is the one that eventually sends him to jail in the ending of the movie.

The fact is that the rich man dishonours The Mother. He is The Mother’s enemy. At one point, fighting for the rich man, Arjun is forced to dishonour The Mother in court. He hates himself for it. The film is about the honour of The Mother against the dishonourable rich man and his degradation and devaluation of women’s power (this is how the crowd protest against the rich man with their banners, invoking the idea of ‘nari shakti’, women’s empowerment).

Just like Damini, the film is about the power of the rich man pitted against the power of The Mother, of divine female energy. But all this revolves around the idea of rejection. How is it possible to reject the rich man when he has all the financial power? When he has all the resources that sustain life? The answer? You have to go along with the rich man, according to his intentions. You have to accrue resources, wealth and life from him. You have to follow his anti-Mother and misogynist oppressions. And then, when he believes that he is untouchable and invincible, then you have to defeat him with the truth, by fighting for the innocent. It is the story of how to become free. You can only become free from slavery by becoming strong, by having resources. You cannot do it out of nothing. And this is where the film is different from Damini. Because in Damini, the lawyer has to fight with nothing. In this film, the full corruption of the rich man’s law is exposed. The law is financed and serves the corrupt rich man and therefore it is absolutely corrupt itself. To gain justice is to defy the law and the legal structure entirely. Justice relies on rebellion, not adherence to the law.

Arran Gregory: Omved Artist of the Month of July 2026

12.07.2026

Instagram: @arrangregory

In a spontaneous excursion to Omved Gardens, we came across an art gallery that was dedicated this month of July to Arran Gregory, a British-Sri Lankan land artist. He calls the environment ‘a collaborator’ of his work and ‘sees clay as a living organism’. Barefoot and with a crisp linen shirt, Arran was a friendly and charming presence in the art gallery. He radiated an air of tranquillity.

We first looked at a line drawing of a horse that Arran had drawn with what looked like an ink brush that disappeared into mist, much in the Japanese or the Chinese style. This was placed by the door of the exhibition and then the space proceeded to deconstruct it. The horse was drawn again and then it was disassembled and put together again by rotating the sections so that you got the impression of a type of cubism which explored, rotated and decomposed how the lines were put together. On top of this, you had patterns of sewing which stitched the rotated sections together, sometimes circles, sometimes other shapes like a staple. Something of a meditation on looking, how a whole is put together, perhaps an investigation of the gestalt theory of art which explores how art creates a whole. Certainly an exploration of how creating, destroying and mending are all put together and perhaps a reflection on human intervention into the natural world, how the destruction of the climate crisis can resolve itself into a conscious effort to put the world back together again in a different format which challenges anthropocentric human intention and perceptions.

In the midst of these reassembled pieces, Arran had constructed a circle of earth which he had raked in concentric circles. It immediately reminded me of Buddhist art and the raked gardens that they have in Japanese art, so I was getting that Japanese vibe with the work again. Arran told us that he had spontaneously had the idea of creating the circle. I thought it was very interesting. It was on the ground and in earth, so it connected our human gaze with the earth. Again, it was done in the form of a circle so it had the idea of completion within it, the completion that comes with adjoining the human with the elemental, the man-made with the natural.

Two other pieces caught my attention. One was a depiction of the phallic man of Cerne Abbes, a line drawing etched into the earth with an erection. A symbol of fertility. This was a striking image and full of meaning. The equation of the human with the earth and with art. The desire for a new fecundity in our union with nature. Arran told us that he was influenced by the land artist Richard Long, who also puts together nature, art and human vision into new configurations and meanings, an artist who is also feeling out the way to re-orientate us in nature.

The other piece I found very interesting was also line art. It was the outlines of two women that merged together. Again, this was about the reimagination of the human body. It was a sleek and elegant piece with the lines, the sinuous shapes of the beautiful human body. This was for me a template of many of the line drawings, since Arran had drawn animals in geometrical shapes through line art as well, an investigation of how the body could be mapped onto the earth and line art like Cerne Abbes (the pieces were called ‘geo’-(animal) – ‘geo’, of course, means earth).

Arran elaborated on the photographs of his earth sculptures that were integrated into the land much like Henry Moore’s art and showed us a video of nature reclaiming the artwork afterwards and creating new arrangements with the work too. Just like we found Arran earnest, charming and reflective, so we found his work. There was much to intrigue and delight in the exhibition and much to inspire further thought about the urgent need for our new immersion and continuity with nature.

REFERENCES

https://omvedgardens.com/journal/introducing-arran-gregory-our-artist-of-the-month-of-july

https://arrangregory.com

justice is not won by adherence to law

11.07.2026

S: Justice is not won by adherence to law, but through rebellion.

A: What makes you so sure?

S: Look at how Parliament was established in this country. Through Simon de Montfort.

A: He has the same initials as you.

S: The spirit of the Revolutionary lives throughout the ages. We are irresistible and unstoppable. One dies. Another will be born.

A: This pride that you have in rebellion. What sort of pride is it?

S: This pride is based on the belief that the law is unjust. That I am above the law. I am better than the law. That rebellion is better than the law. That Revolution is better than the law. That is what this pride is. It is the pride of Punjab. It is the pride of The Tiger, of the Community of Tigers. It is the pride of the Indian, who has won freedom and independence from the unjust. It is the pride above all of the village, where we are not ruled by oppression and law. Where we govern ourselves. Where we are represented. Where we are the kings and the queens.

A: You would not follow the law?

S: You would follow the rich man’s law? You would follow the racist’s law? You would follow what another has thought, when you know that you are a genius? I decide my own fate. That is what rebellion is in this world. To follow one’s own choice and one’s own path. To decide, to be the judge and the master.

A: This is how ego talks.

S: I am ego. I am god, which is the ego of all. I am The Mother. I am her voice, her son and her lover. I am her. I do not need anyone to tell me what to do. Because the best placed, the best suited, the best, that is me. No other.

the delicous ravishment of expression

09.07.2026

S: But it is delicious, no? The ravishment of expression.

A: Whatever do you mean?

S: Why do you think that the artist writes? Why do you think that the writer is an artist?

A: Because they think that language and expression is a way to counter the entropy of the world.

S: It is because it is addictive. It is a dopamine hit. You are letting it all out. Someone, somewhere, they will be reading. You are connecting with society, with another. That is why, for all that I write, the motivation has always been for love. That is why the love letter is the paradigm of my writing and my thought.

A: Love for yourself.

S: For the ideal reader. But you are on to something when you say that it is love for the self as well. Because, after all, I am writing for the community of the Tigers. I am The Tiger. I am expressing us. Us that are not represented. The Oppressed. Those from whom they would snatch the pen, snatch the voice and snatch our lives. I am writing for us. I am us. I am following the philosophy of India.

A: If then, you love to write so much, why are you falling off from this pleasure? From this ravishment of the senses.

S: Life my friend, it is full. So full that it is difficult to write.

A: It takes you no time at all. Get back into the habit of things.

S: These books, these scribblings. Are they life?

A: What is life if it is not the expression of the self?

S: Most of my life, I have sat behind a desk, thinking and writing. And now that I live a little, you would have me imprison myself once again. The unmoving mind.

A: Your mind moves most of all behind the desk. Your mind is like lightning. You begin to write. You look. It has been less than five minutes. And yet, the story has been written. The story of The Tiger and the Tigers.

the embrace of difference in thought

07.07.2026

S: When these English Literature types make the students write out their thoughts about novels, short stories, poems, anything at all really, what are they aiming at?

A: What indeed?

S: Is it difference in thought or is it conformity in thought?

A: Why do you ask?

S: Well, why do they never let you outright disagree with any critic that has had anything published before you came onto the scene?

A: So you are saying that they are the supporters of conformity?

S: What else then? Can they really value genuine difference? If genuine difference existed, would we even be able to comprehend what was being written?

A: You tell me. You are always boasting about having an interdisciplinary project that defied categorisation.

S: If they really valued difference and other orientations, why would they try to keep all of the students to their disciplinary confines?

A: Not everyone is like you. Not everyone can invent, invent and invent. You are perhaps too original.

S: There, you have said it. Because I do not conform, I cannot fit in.

A: Would you want to fit in? The ones that have read your book, the ones that have reviewed it, have they not lauded your innovations and your originality? Have they not said that you stand apart from everyone else? Accept it. That you are different. And, despite you being radically different, you have received praise for it from at least a few souls.

S: What is a piece of praise? You cannot eat praise.

A: Bread you can eat. But does it really satisfy?

S: Recognition, is it something that can quench this yearning?

A: If yearning could be quenched, there would only be satiation and complacency. Live. Write. Strike again. And again. The greatest are never defeated. They defeat the world.

the complications of life

03.07.2026

S: Do you think there was ever a time when life was just simple?

A: I doubt it.

S: So do I. An unusual agreement. For once.

A: Not at all. We agree in many things. But yet, it is always necessary to discuss and to debate. You are yearning for a simpler life?

S: Would it suit me?

A: You are a complicated person. Therefore you have a complicated life.

S: Life is complicated because other people are complicated. I am very simple by nature.

A: Really? Despite every ingredient for happiness, you remain dissatisfied.

S: The community is dissatisfied. We live for the community. Therefore, we have to share their dissatisfaction.

A: So you blame the complications of life on other people?

S: Look at life. Work for instance. A meritocracy is simple. However, there is no meritocracy. They complicate the issue by looking at popularity and proximity instead of meritocracy. Factors such as class and ethnicity and gender determine the outcome of interviews, not talent, experience and qualification.

A: The typically jaded view.

S: Which, nonethless, is true. The same model is exported into dating, friendship, every opportunity. Therefore, simplicity is abandoned in favour of needless, arbitrary and unethical complication. It matters more whether you prefer a hobby than your worth.

A: Yet there are those that are fair and strive to be fair despite all of that.

S: True. The ideal of fairness jostles with the social compulsion of unfairness. Again, another complication.

A: You could not live in a simple life. It would be too perfect. Inhuman.

S: It is difficult living in a complicated life.