01.10.2026
Once upon a time, I was a young student. Naive and inexperienced. At home, my mother did not speak English and was locked into the Punjabi community. My father was always working. At school, the teachers would lie that the outside world was a meritocracy. That it was fair. You can tell how much of outside reality was penetrating into this mind and soul. In this existence, I studied and worked part time. There were no women. I was alone most of the time outside of the family. In this existence, I was waiting for life.
What was it that I was waiting for? I was waiting for a job that would take into account that I was one of the most intelligent and imaginative people in the world. A creative and satisfying, well paid and structured career with recognition for myself and the community of The Oppressed, the Dalits, the low castes. I was waiting for a salon. A circle of intellectuals, artists, musicians and writers all around me. We would speak of cultured things. Live an unconventional life. And above all, what was this watcher of Indian films and their romances waiting the most for? It was love. It was The Woman.
And now? I am still waiting for all of those things. I am still waiting for life.
But that is not to say that I have not tried to make all of those things that I wanted from life.
I have been working in arts and culture for about four and a half years. I have made a significant contribution to the institutions that I have worked for, in both employment and in volunteering. I have been the initiator of a tours project, I have been a curator, I have managed events and people in the cultural industries, I have worked to enhance visitor experience. What has been missing here is the recognition and the reward. And that is an ongoing project.
What about the salon? My friends are teachers, psychologists, architects, scholars in Art History, leaders in charities, and doctors. I have cultured friends that come to me to art galleries, that discuss literature with me. That I can have deep conversations with. And the artists, intellectuals and writers? There, friendship has not worked. I have made the effort but they have not wanted to be friends. And that is an ongoing project.
What about love? The one thing that I waited and longed for so many years and sleepless nights? That is an ongoing project. Privacy permits me to say no more. There are some lines from an Indian film, one of my favourite songs ‘Har Funn Maula’ (Jack of all Trades):
Itni haseeno pe kitni dafa yeh dola
He has fallen for many beautiful women
Phir bhi fakeeron ka pehne huye hai chola
But still he’s dressed like a faqir (holy man in rags that has renounced the material world)
In India, they say that the fruit of patience is sweet. This patience has lasted for a lifetime so the fruit should be the sweetest of all. One waits for life. It is the man’s lot. He waits for this woman. Where is she? Rouging her cheeks and lips, scrutinising her loveliness in a mirror, flowing perfume upon her beautiful form. The man waits at the door. He saunters in front of the house. He even tries to walk up and down the block a bit. His life and his love is there and he is here. She is here and he is there. He waits for his life. And she? She is always elsewhere. Always somewhere else. But despite that, the dreamer and the poet tries to make her appear. He dreams of his reunion with life, this life that he imagined. Through work and service, he lives in his dream. This is what it means to wait for life.
