Krishna and Rama (microfiction)

09.11.2025

S: Krishna and Rama are two incarnations of Vishnu. Both warriors. But they are complete opposites.

A: In what way?

S: Rama rescued his wife from a man that tried to abduct her. Krishna consorted with the wife of another, Radha. He took someone’s wife away from them. Not just one woman, but all of them, all of the wives, the Gopis. Rama followed the law of matrimony. Krishna is above the law.

A: Anything else?

S: Rama, when he was exiled to the forest, accepted that another rule in his place. He let the usurper rule the throne when he was the firstborn son and the throne was his inheritance. Krishna, when he was dispossessed of his throne, he killed the usurper and reclaimed his throne. Rama accepts dispossession and unjust usurpation. Krishna fights against it.

A: I know you will say there is more.

S: Krishna has a good stepmother. Rama has an evil stepmother.

A: Always the mother with you.

S: Krishna was raised in a humble background then became a royal. Vice versa for Rama. And then, Krishna is known as the thief of butter because he stole butter. And Rama? He does not steal. Krishna is his own law. Rama follows the law of the other. Even at the end of the story, Rama sacrifices his wife in the name of the law of matrimony, because the people cannot accept that she is pure because she had been abducted by another man.

A: I think I know where this is all leading.

S: I am named after Krishna.

A: Whether it is Krishna or Rama, they are the hero.

S: Rama is the hero of the conservative. Krishna is the hero of the revolutionary.

A: It is a name. I have told you before. It is not an identity.

S: And yet, you can model yourself on that identity. The anarchism of Krishna. And the liberation of Narsimha, the man-tiger, the other incarnation of Vishnu. After all, one of my names is Tiger.

A: This obsession with names and identities, it is old fashioned.

S: I am six thousand years old. And yet, I am fresh. Because I am not just the past and the present. I am also the future. I believe. So does India.

the slave (microfiction)

09.11.2025

S: The idea of the slave is what gives us the sense of freedom.

A: How so?

S: We, who are the Revolution, we would do anything so that we do not become the slave. We fight so that we do not become the slave. We who are from the Dalits, ‘The Oppressed’, the low castes, we will no longer be slaves.

A: What is the slave? What are you talking about?

S: The slave is the victim of power and oppression. The slave is governed by the powerful and lives according to the caprices of the powerful. The slave has no independent thoughts or life. The slave models their living on the dictates and wants of the powerful. The slave loves the powerful, is fucked by the powerful. The slave has been raped and seduced by evil. The slave fawns on the powerful. The slave has no integrity. The slave only loves oppressive power and wants to be oppressive power. The slave is weak willed. The slave is the slave to the Other.

A: And freedom?

S: Freedom is freedom from slavery. One who is free governs himself. He lives according to his own desires, his own culture. The rules he accepts, the dharma, his own law. He is the law maker. From his own culture. He decides what he thinks is right himself. Not what someone else is trying to force him to think is right. The free does not want to become oppressive power. He does not listen to the powerful. He is his own man. He lives like a king. The free man hates the powerful. Because their power is based on greed and exploitation, injustice and lies. He is not fucked by the powerful. He is not raped and seduced by the powerful. He is mind. He attacks the powerful. Because the one without power is the most powerful. The one without power is the most free. The free man hates oppressive power and wants to be anything but oppressive power. The free man loves love and justice. The free man is not weak willed. He does not bow down to anyone. He holds his head high. The free man is not the Other. He is himself, authentic. The free man is the Revolution.

A: Who is this free man?

S: You are looking at him. The free man is The Tiger. Across thousands of years, the figure of The Tiger has stood against the imposition of unjust external rule in India. And now, The Tiger stands in every country of the world. The Tiger is self respect, value for his culture, just pride, goodness, dharma (the law), authenticity. It is not a name. It is everything.

meeting on the train (microfiction)

08.11.2025

S: You know, one of my favourite authors, their parents met on the train.

A: An interestingly irrelevant fact.

S: But it is relevant. When was the last time you had even a conversation with a stranger on the train?

A: The point being?

S: Have you ever noticed how a train is laid out? The space is actually maximised so that you are facing someone. So why is it that people do not talk to others on the train? If the space is conducive to something, why is it not happening?

A: What are you trying to get at?

S: Slowly. I’ll get there. Let’s look at mobile phones and social media. All of those sites, theoretically, they are built to connect people, aren’t they? Yet, all they do is create the feeling of isolation, desolation even. Loneliness is an epidemic in our society due largely to social media. It causes jealousy, withdrawal, cyberbullying. I could go on with this list. Yet all those sites and the mobile phone itself were built to connect people. For the good of society.

A: I’m beginning to get what you’re saying.

S: Finally, let’s talk about the open plan office space or staff room. It has been built to increase connection. So that people will talk to each other. Benches in the park. But if one person sits somewhere, other people won’t sit there and talk to them. They sit by themselves. They don’t talk. The whole point of how it is built is defeated.

A: What is your conclusion about all of this?

S: It is not the spaces. It is not the inventions. It is not the communication media. It is the people that refuse to connect themselves to anyone. They want to be alone. They are blaming technology for loneliness and isolation, the spaces in society. It is them that do not want to connect. They always find an excuse not to. They have been seduced by the evils of individualism. The Western individual.

A: The thesis is interesting. But have you considered that there is a failure in the technology?

S: Yes. And that is also revealing. Because the social media sites only connect in that they control. It is a system of control that is keeping individualism alive. It is an artificial way of life imposed by the elites in this society. Not a fault but a deliberate strategy. The etiquette on the train: imposed by the elites. So that all classes of society will not mix, people from different backgrounds…

A: The night has come. Sleep beckons. Another day, another thought.

the readers (microfiction)

07.11.2025

A: Do you still keep that website?

S: I only write fiction nowadays.

A: Yet you have retained your readers?

S: They still read. Some are very loyal. In a world where loyalty is rare. Where time is precious and limited.

A: Do you think they wonder what you are up to nowadays? Outside of fiction?

S: I am sure I am a curiosity. A warrior from the old world. A so-called ‘toxic male’.

A: Did you not tell me that, in person, one told you that you led an uneventful life? That you did not do anything?

S: Apparently I do nothing and nothing happens. And yet the readers are riveted to my writing for some reason. Funny that. I am all over London everywhere and yet I am always doing nothing.

A: What did you do today?

S: I am not saying. I am denying anyone that reads for the vicarious feeling of pleasure in my life.

A: What do you think these readers make of you?

S: I am everything to all people. Friend. Inspiration. Argumentative. Childish. Mature. Egotistical. Humble. For some, an absolute enemy.

A: Every writer faces some kind of hostility, agreed. But what is it that you are trying to convey through your fiction?

S: In his mind, the writer has the idea of one who is in accord with him. Perfect sympathy. The beautiful reader. The ideal reader. The one that loves him. Perhaps, she reads.

A: That is what you have in your mind. Others dream of money and fame. Immortality.

S: I dream of love. I write for love. I work for love.

A: And yet, love is precisely what you don’t have.

S: The forms of love are various. Some come. Some don’t. In love, I am a beggar.

A: The philosophy of India is that the one who has the least is the greatest. Don’t forget that.

a dream of sadness

07.11.2025

S. was woken up in the morning from a dream of sadness by the alarm clock.

He was at the context where everything had happened with the one that had broken his heart. And it was a lunch time. He had gone to a shopping mall outside with another friend. It wasn’t any friend. It was a friend with a tragic past whose mother had died as a child. His company was sadness. Someone who had been separated from a woman, a mother.

The shopping had been torturous. His friend had walked in front. S. was following him. But he couldn’t follow him. S. was so sad that he had lain there face down on the ground in front of everyone. S. wanted to give up. It had consumed a lot of time. So S. had to take a taxi back. He was running late.

The taxi driver, an Indian woman (S. was Indian) had charged him an extortionate amount of money on arrival back to the place where the breaker of his heart was. Twenty five pounds. And, on arrival at the place where the breaker of his heart was, because he had to go back, he saw the Indian women’s children there. She was the mother.

He had to pay. He fumbled around in his little plastic seethrough bag of things. He kept on looking but couldn’t find the card. The Indian mother’s daughter was approaching him, looking for a tip, demanding more money.

Suddenly two bouncers appeared. They were accusing S. of trying to get away without paying the Indian mother. And then, S. found the card. Finally, he could pay the mother.

That was when the alarm bell rang and S. woke up.

In his dreams, the sadness of heartbreak was being processed. And his duty to the Mother was being processed. His debt to the Mother. She was being processed in his dreams, the women in his life and in the realm of his ideas, India’s ideas. The words he couldn’t say out loud, the things he couldn’t say out loud in a world of judgement, enmity and hostility. His past. Who could understand? Only an Indian in England.

love without fear

06.11.2025

S: Have you ever wondered what love without fear looks like?

A: Do they that love fear?

S: There is a famous Hindi song from one of the all-time classic movies. It is called ‘If you have loved, then what do you have to fear?’

A: And?

S: The question is whether that film is an exception to the rule. Because in the film there is an Oedipal situation between Akbhar the Great and his son Salim for a dancing girl.

A: Why do you mention this film?

S: Because an Indian professor that I used to know used to call me Salim. He recognised that I was Oedipus.

A: Is it only Oedipus that can love without fear?

S: That is the question, isn’t it? Salim’s love was the Revolution. In an India where the young fear the judgement of their parents and their family and society.

A: Why do you think people fear when they love?

S: Biology. In the past, childbirth might mean death. Or stigma in a society of monogamy and religious fanaticism.

A: So that is reason number one.

S: Secondly, when you love someone, you give them a licence to hurt you badly. Irretrievably even in many cases. It is a very risky business. And therefore, there is fear.

A: Why else?

S: The law. So if you ever love anyone outside of the law, there is the fear of stigma and the repercussions.

A: And you? You do not fear?

S: What is there to fear? I cannot die giving birth. The ones I have loved have stamped all over my heart and mind. I am still here, aren’t I? I haven’t died. I am still as strong as ever. Because I am invincible. And the law? I do not believe in it. In fact, the law is my enemy. Above everything….

A: You are a warrior. Yes, I know. You have crowed about it often enough. You come from the warrior culture. Where cowardice and disloyalty are the gravest sins.

S: Besides me, I hope there are those that can love without fear. Because fear breeds insecurity and unhappiness. There is this feeling. They will leave me all alone. All alone. Often, they do. But I do not fear. The Tiger never fears. Even the lonely are living. And loving.

the lynch mob

06.11.2025

S: The real question you should have asked him is not whether he supports Trump or not. But whether he was a piece of shit or not. That would have got to the point a lot quicker.

A: [LAUGHS] I’m sure those MAGA masturbators think the same of you.

S: It’s not worth engaging with the thoughts of clowns that are not even funny.

A: Shouldn’t you be respecting the opinions of others?

S: When they are full of hate against me and mine? They’re no different from a lynch mob. You would have me respect the opinions of a lynch mob? with an IQ of zero?

A: Forget about that, tell me something. Why do you think that you are a hero in love?

S: Because unlike them, I embrace someone to put them into the palace of my heart. Not to put them up onto the crucify and gouge them with my spears.

A: That is not an answer.

S: Do you know how sick I got when my heart was broken? I was dead. I had to make myself come back to life. It took about three years to recover fully from it. And despite knowing that, I still dared to love. To throw my heart away at someone like it was nothing. Three times in a row. Do you have that kind of bravery? Are you a Tiger?

A: Is that all?

S: Would you be able to fight against everyone that you love for the principle of love? Against an arranged marriage culture? Would you be able to fight against this oppressive society that is against your love because of your ethnicity and culture? All your adult life? I am talking about twenty years of fighting. Are you that much of a man? Could you dedicate twenty years of fighting to a fucking principle with nothing to show for it?

A: Some do not have to fight.

S: I have had to. Rama is known because he was ‘maryada purushotam’, the most highly principled.

A: And that’s why you a hero in love.

S: Do you want more?

A: That is more than enough. But they will never sing a song about your love, your courage or your fight.

S: And that is why I still have to fight. That is what it means to be a warrior of love. It is for today and it is for tomorrow.

the warrior of love

05.11.2025

A: You hate this world. You hate the people. You hate everything.

S: So? What have they done for me? Them and anything? They hate me and mine. Ours.

A: But you have the hypocrisy to say that you are full of love.

S: It is not hypocrisy. Why do I serve them then? That is my love. My philosophy is love is work.

A: You have a funny way of expressing love.

S: You want me to lick boots? Kiss arse? I’m not a fucking sycophant. They do wrong. I point it out.

A: That is why you do not get love in return.

S: You do not love to be loved. If you do, then you are not a lover.

A: You are still calling yourself a lover?

S: The warrior fights because he is full of love. The warrior is a lover.

A: Elaborate. It is not convincing.

S: Love is a battle. Of wills and wits. Defence and attack. Only the warrior can love. And only the lover can fight.

A: A cliche.

S: Because it is the truth.

A: You are from the warrior culture. That is what you think of love. You again attempt to speak for all.

S: You want me to endorse and promote the coward’s love? Where there is neither defence and attack? And therefore nothing?

A: You think you are so brave.

S: Yes. That is why, whenever I have felt love for someone, I have acted on it. I have no regrets.

A: Yet you are alone. You do not regret the aborted attempts?

S: If someone does not choose me, they are mistaken. I am the best.

A: You still believe?

S: Who can stand up against me?

A: Arrogance.

S: Confidence. Self-belief. The recognition of talent.

A: What good does it do you?

S: Against everyone, I followed the way of love. Against the family. Against this corrupt world and its corrupt values. I am the only lover in the world. No one else has had to pay the heavy cost that I have had to pay. I gambled my whole heart on my love. I am a hero of love. Because I am a warrior. These cold fucks with their cold love, what are they? What do they risk? Jackshit.

A: The Tiger’s love, reckless.

S: Lose everything in love. Except courage.

emptiness (microfiction)

04.11.2025

[written on the train home from work, 6-7pm)

A: You said that there was nothing. After the jealousy. After the fire. What did you mean?

S: The numbness. The ache of the emptiness. The place that is not filled. The void. The abyss. Many words. For the feeling of hollowness. Of incompleteness.

A: These are words. They do not describe the feeling.

S: You want to know the feeling of emptiness? It is complete numbness. It is nausea. It is the inability to arise from the bed in the mornings. Read the novel by Sartre. That is its literary expression. Why ask me?

A: It is you that is my friend. Not Sartre.

S: You do not want a wise friend? You prefer my company?

A: I prefer the company of The Tiger. He is also wise, the wisdom of nature.

S: It is a dangerous game. The Tiger has teeth.

A: Didn’t you tell me that the Punjabis have a phrase, ‘Friend of friends’? Isn’t that the philosophy of friendship of The Tiger?

S: You are one that appreciates care, attention and consideration and kindness. An anomaly. An exotic rarity.

A: You have many friends. You exaggerate. Perhaps you should keep better company if you feel like that.

S: The special friend I am looking for… Where do you find the better company? I have looked in so many fields. So many that I thought had embraced me only to watch them scatter in the wind…

A: When the kestrel cannot find a catch in one field, he haunts another.

S: The kestrel is free. He does not have a golden manacle upon his claw. He has no ties to a place.

A: You too are free. More free than anyone else. The wild ungovernable beast…

S: It is true what they say. Emotion is a cage.

A: Forget emotion. Become cold and hard like this world.

S: Impossible. They have a phrase in Punjabi, the language and people you are so fond of. ‘Dilwala’, the one with a heart. I am ‘Dilwala’. Not them.

A: Forget being one with a heart. Become one that has power.

S: It is accomplished. The power of The Tiger is unrivalled. He has transformed the world around him wherever he goes. The light that he sheds is like the blinding rays of the sun. And for them and those, it is unbearable.

the tears of the flowers

04.11.2025

Unexpected acceptance can be found within unacceptable expectation.

The day was long. In the garden, the flowers wept. The grass lamented. The sky itself, it was filled with melancholies of grey.

A bird glided into the tree and S. watched her keenly. The birds of Da Vinci flew in his mind, the artist feverishly tracking and recording their movements. Wanting to become the bird.

A. had asked him why he saw poison. Why he thought poison. Why his life had become poison.

What else was there? When all the good things were being churned from the ocean, instead, the god Shiva had swallowed the poison. To prevent the destruction of the universe. His throat became blue with the poison’s anger. And S.? His name was blue. The blue skin of a god.

A. had asked him, how can you become a god? S. had said that in the West, to claim godliness is arrogance and the height of madness. It is folly. But in India, one modelled onself on god. They called the good people gods. It was the aim to become god upon the earth. A god was known by good deeds. The deeds of humanity. And S. tried his utmost.

‘So you are Shiva then?’ A. had asked.

S. had said that the hero is formed in adversity. The whole world, including the gods, fate itself, all had to be against the hero. It was only then that the triumph of the hero could be known and recognised. It was only then that the legends of the hero could be told and the songs could be sung.

Life had to be poison. Otherwise, heroism was dead.

A. had smiled. The Buddha’s smile was known. It was the sign of his wisdom. The smile delighted the hearts of his followers.