Author: diaryofaloneman

lost for words (microfiction)

12.09.2025

Not always too predictable as a whole, Alfonso had given me a bit of a surprise. We were going down the escalators at Kings Cross station after a literary tour through Hampstead Heath, the haunts of Coleridge the poet. It had been a long day, something in the region of thirty thousand steps. I was commenting forlornly to Alfonso that now, surely, at the end of the day, I wasn’t going to meet anyone.

Alfonso had looked up behind me and explained to the lady there that his friend wanted to meet someone, so would she be able to help him out? I turned around and the woman had smiled at me and introduced herself.

And I? I laughed. I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Hadn’t I been trying to connect and communicate with others for my whole life? Who was there for me? I turned around and got on with my life. There was no point talking to anyone.

Alfonso had asked me afterwards whether I understood communication at all. No, I replied. I did not understand communication. I did not understand connection.

‘But,’ Alfonso said. ‘You are friends with me.’

‘It is an exception,’ I had told him. ‘I am struggling. I don’t understand other people.’

‘I think,’ Alfonso said, ‘that the problem is that you understand them all too well.’

‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘I don’t understand anything or anyone.’

‘Why then,’ Alfonso continued, ‘do you then characterise this world as what it is according to your agenda?’

‘Who doesn’t?’ I had asked Alfonso.

Promptly, he then changed the topic. He asked me what I wanted. He said, ‘I thought you wanted to meet someone? I introduced you to someone there. You did nothing.’

‘I want to be left alone and in peace if I am never going to have any genuine connection with anyone.’

‘You cannot be alone. You live in a society. And you do not want to be isolated. Your body and your mind is sickening because you don’t have a genuine connection in your life.’

‘You have no evidence of that,’ I told Alfonso. ‘When anybody looks at me, they cannot tell if I am sad or if I am happy. I laugh. I joke around. Whether I am acting or not, nobody knows the difference. Even those that think they are closest to me don’t know what I think or feel about anything. I am inscrutable. You do not know that I am sick or sickening. I keep it to myself.’

‘There is something off in you,’ said Alfonso. ‘Why do you think nothing is working for you? It is because there is something off.’

‘Possibly,’ I told him. I was wondering what it was that I wanted. Did I want anything at all now? Or had I just given up? There is a psychology experiment with dogs, ‘learned helplessness’. At a certain point, you realise that nothing you ever do is going to make any difference to your predicament. And then, you just give up. Had I reached that point now?

a flirtation with destruction

11.09.2025

‘It is the death instinct versus the life instinct.’ Alfonso was drinking a lime cordial in soda water. It was a drink that I had introduced him to. I would admire the green bubbles of fizz and savour the coldness of the refreshment as it went down. I wondered what he made of it. You can never step inside another’s body. Another’s mind, perhaps. Not the body. That was why they could not understand what it was to be me and to have this hungry high testosterone form. I was an alien to them.

In the morning, they had killed that aide of Trump’s. It had been a topic of conversation. But that was not what we had been talking about. In the evening, as I staggered home from fatigue and sadness, I had not looked when I had stepped into the road. A car was just a few metres away from me. Instead of walking back a few paces, I had sprinted across the road.

‘Did you not care that you would get hit?’ Alfonso asked me.

‘No, not really. What difference would it make if I did get hit? Who would really miss me?’

‘How close did the car get?’

‘I’m fast. Not too close.’

‘Don’t you feel that you are worrying the drivers when you do this kind of thing?’

‘It’s only happened a few times.’

‘You obviously do not care if you live or die. You just want to take stupid risks.’

I didn’t say anything. Alfonso had shown some real anger. It was what I felt inside. This anger. I was trying to control it. I was trying to stop the fire from ravaging through the world.

Instead of letting the fire out, I was typing a few words in my bed. I was dying of tiredness. I had overstretched myself, done too much. And it was never going to get me anywhere. The more I dug, the more stuck I was. I was trying to live but everyone wanted me dead. The only difference was that no one was going to shoot. I was going to have to live the pain.

the moon undressed (microfiction)

10.09.2025

‘Do you think other people see you as a poet or a genius?’ Alfonso was drinking a gloriously pale pink shade of something. I looked at the label: Still lemonade with cherry blossom and yuzu. I had tried some earlier and it was delicious because it had freshly squeezed lemons in it.

‘No. Others cannot recognise or acknowledge genius or reward it.’

‘What is it that makes you a genius?

‘The unfinished book that is in its first draft. The construction of madness in society. What no one can see but me. Originality. Vision. Analysis. The greater truths of this society.’

‘Quit the blurb. You have fanciful notions.’

‘Only truths. Do you remember yesterday that you said that our eyes did not meet on the moon, nor our minds?’

‘Yes. That was truth.’

‘Well look again. I took this photo of Lady Moon all undressed. Now, whoever reads here, their eyes will see the same moon that I do. And our eyes will meet on the moon. We will meet on the moon.’

Alfonso laughed. I laughed as well. He kept on chortling to himself. ‘You are the lover. In love, you are a genius. I have to give it to you!’ He clapped me on the back.

I looked at the moon and whoever looks at the moon looks at me.

meeting on the moon

08.09.2025

‘It is a full moon tonight,’ Alfonso remarked.

‘Full and beautiful. Do you know, there is someone looking at that moon at the same time that I am looking at it. And our gazes meet on the moon.’

‘Forget about your romances,’ Alfonso remarked drily. ‘No one looks at the moon and thinks of you. They think of someone else. Or themselves. Only you think of them.’

‘While I think that they would spare a thought sometimes of me, what can I do about it if they do not? In any case, I made no mention of romance. You did.’

‘The moon is the apt figure for any romance in your life. Because you do not talk to any of them. And they do not talk to you. You look in silence, if that.’

I did not respond.

‘Do you not have any romance in your life?’

‘I will not disclose whether I have or not. There is nothing in talking about such topics except for disdain, fear and loathing from anyone that hears. That is this culture. Love is outlawed here. Hate is legal.’

‘You think you are a prophet? Why make such pronouncements? All they do is to upset people.’

‘I am spoiling for a fight. I am a fighter. Come at me. I will take them.’

‘All you do is fight. Come, rest. Talk about the things of peace.’

‘This dishonourable peace? You want me to talk about the things of this dishonourable peace? The world is burning because of the excesses of the rich. The future is being torched because of the worship of status and rank and possessions. The poor are being enslaved because of the iniquity of the world. The oppressed are starving. The corrupt politicians are building their walls. Everywhere there are lies and injustice. And you want me to talk about the things of peace? In this world?’

‘Constant criticism will not win friends.’

‘I don’t want friends that live in a sugar coated reality. A warrior looks for an army and a warrior fights for the truth. If you cannot bear the truth, you cannot be a warrior.’

‘Wars are lies.’

‘Not just wars. If I did not believe I fought for the truth I would not be alive.’

‘Do you think you have what it takes to fight? You live in a world of fantasies.’

‘They are not fantasies. They are ideals of love, truth and justice. If you cannot bring your ideals to life but you spend your life fighting for them, then you have not lost. You have won. The one that tries never loses.’

‘Yet you told me yesterday that the hero always loses.’

‘In the Ramayana, Rama who is of perfect virtue fought against the villain Raavana because Raavana had abducted Sita, the perfect woman. Rama won. But could he keep Sita with him? No. Because the people thought her honour was tarnished. It is the duty of the king to follow the wishes of the people. It is the duty of the king to maintain the honour of the people. Sita had to go. The earth swallowed her alive. And Rama? Rama wept. The hero always loses. It has been known for thousands of years in India.’

‘Do not import your love stories into your explanations of myths,’ Alfonso admonished me. ‘You are not Rama and there was no Sita in your life.’ Alfonso sighed. ‘Come, it is getting late. Let’s retire. Tomorrow is another day. Forget these ill-fated romances. Read another book.’

the hero never wins

07.09.2025

‘I have just finished reading the Divergent books,’ I declared to Alfonso.

We had not spoken for a short while. He was elsewhere, both physically and mentally. Life events cause ruptures. But not separation. That could not happen with me and Alfonso. He was not like these fair weather friends of convenience that were around you all the time. He was as solid as a stone.

‘I am surprised that you read it.’

‘They have told me that I do not understand women of this generation. I make the attempt.’

‘And what did you understand?’

‘The false narrative. That the hero should and must die for love. In fact, the hero has to live for love. That is what I am doing. Living for the ones that I love. Not for myself.’

‘Any other observations?’

‘That you cannot escape your destiny. She was brought up in a culture of self-sacrifice. So was I.’

‘You confuse yourself for a hero. When this society has you as the villain.’

‘Who is there to believe? Them? Or the dreams of my mother and the dreams of the people?’

‘You hate the people. They are disorderly, mean, grasping, selfish, repugnant in every way.’

‘Yes. But that is all the more reason to fight for them. Because they could be good if they were given a chance.’

‘What do you make of the book, this western story about heroism?’

‘It is the same as the Eastern story in the Indian films. The hero never wins. Do you know the basic story of the Indian action film? Someone in the hero’s family is killed. It is the duty of the hero to get revenge. But even when you get your revenge, do you really win? In the film Sholay, when the Thakur kills the enemy, he weeps afterwards. Because the villain killed his whole family. Even the children. The hero can never win. That is this world. Not just fiction. The hero cannot win. The people that win are the monsters.’

‘What monsters? They are human beings.’

‘They are evil. Those bastards like Trump and Farage, the whole lot of them. That bastard Starmer. All these fucking pieces of shit. They are vermin. If I…’

Alfonso stopped me by raising his hand. ‘Don’t. Think it. Don’t say it. That is the policy that you have to adopt with things. Truth is not to be borne here.’

‘I know it,’ I said. ‘I don’t write stories. Because the real story is that only the evil and the mediocre prosper. The fucking sheep. In a story, the good and the best prosper. And it can only happen in the imagination. Because this world is full of shit. It stinks of it. The stink is fucking everywhere.’

Dance Videos Shot by Suneel Mehmi at Greenwich and Docklands International Festival 06.09.2025

Good evening friends. I’m sure you’re all out and about on this Saturday evening. Meanwhile, I have been out all day watching Dancing City, the dance event at Stratford today.

I’m editing all of my photographs – hundreds of them. In the meantime, if you want to watch some quick clips of the dances (as requested by some of my friends today!), here’s the links. Do share with your friends and family!

Passage Dance Performance:

One Sky Dance Performance:

https://youtu.be/8ubbxX91jqo

Courtney’s Diner Dance Performance:

https://youtu.be/75VOgMvBTlo

Enjoy if you watch. Lots of work going into these photographs and videos.

Copyrighted video and photograph shot by Suneel Mehmi. Please share with your network.

Educational Poverty for Dalits in India

Dr. Suneel Mehmi

This piece was submitted for a journalism internship as a writing test. The author, Dr. Suneel Mehmi, is proud to come from the Dalit Community and to be an Untouchable.

06.09.2025

India, which has a caste system and caste discrimination against Dalits (the lowest castes) also has the largest population of 287 million illiterate adults in the world. That is 37% of the global total [1]. If illiteracy can be considered an indicator of exclusion from education, then Dalits must be considered as victims of this educational poverty and deprivation, since 62% of Dalits are illiterate indicating they have likely not completed primary school [2]. Informal data indicates that more than nearly 60% of children who drop out of school are Dalit children [3].

Caste discrimination aligns with gender discrimination to fuel illiteracy, evident in the fact that the literacy rate of female Dalits in Bihar was 38.5% in 2011 [4]. To put that into perspective and stark contrast, the literacy rate in the United Kingdom is considered to be 99% for both men and women [5].

Despite the fact that education is the best way to eradicate poverty and build a better future, this education is still systematically denied to Dalit children in India [6].

While the caste system has been abolished in the law, there is ongoing discrimination and prejudice against Dalits throughout India including in the field of education. Dalit students face unique challlenges in becoming students. The family is so poor and unemployment rates are so high that even in today’s world, Dalit children are sold into bonded labour so that they cannot study, just so that the family can eat [7]. Many Dalit children are studying while they are malnourished.

In schools, Dalit children are often bullied and discriminated against. In Bihar State in India for instance, while there is a legal obligation to include children from all castes, still schools are either abandoned or barely functioning. If Dalit children attend the schools, they are treated with cruelty or neglected. Practices of discrimination include being forced to sit at the back of the class and prevented from touching or interacting with classmates from other castes [8]. Far from being able to join in school activities, stories of verbal and physical abuse against Dalit students from both teachers and classmates are rife [9].

The dropout rate for girls is exceptionally high. Children already vulnerable due to caste prejudice are placed in even greater danger, and there is the perpetuation of a cycle of poverty which has remained unchallenged for generations [10].

Education is key to increasing the prosperity, security and happiness of any country. If there is systematic and institutionalised exclusion of the Dalit community in India from learning, then the country cannot advance as a whole. To counter poverty, we must first counter the educational poverty and deprivation for Dalits.

[1]

https://www.oxfamindia.org/featuredstories/10-facts-illiteracy-india-you-must-know

[2]

https://childrenontheedge.org/how-we-help/education/dalit-children-in-india/addressing-caste-discrimination

[3]

https://childrenontheedge.org/how-we-help/education/dalit-children-in-india/addressing-caste-discrimination

[4]

https://www.oxfamindia.org/featuredstories/10-facts-illiteracy-india-you-must-know

[5]

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (retrieved March 13, 2016) quoted at https://countrymeters.info/en/United_Kingdom_(UK) 

[6]

https://www.globalcare.org/project/india-patripul-dalit-education/

[7]

https://www.globalcare.org/project/india-patripul-dalit-education/

[8]

https://childrenontheedge.org/how-we-help/education/dalit-children-in-india/addressing-caste-discrimination

[9]

https://www.globalcare.org/2018/05/poverty-and-prejudice-changing-the-story-for-dalit-children/

[10]

https://www.globalcare.org/2018/05/poverty-and-prejudice-changing-the-story-for-dalit-children/

highlight (microfiction)

04.09.2025

  1. This war that you’re in, can it be ended through words?

(Alfonso paces around the room massaging his neck)

Me. You acknowledge that there is a war?

  1. Racism and hate is their way. The people are fighting it. With every breath.

Me. Our being is itself a war.

  1. Forget about duty. What was the highlight of your day?

Me. There were many. But the best highlight, I cannot tell you.

  1. Why not?

Me. I am not writing on that topic any more.

  1. We all know. You don’t need to say anything. We have been reading for two years and more. What about the others?

Me. I am going to make a list:

– someone gifted me a copy of ‘Romeo and Juliet’

– I ate and shared a chocolate tart from Marks and Spencers with my family. Delicious.

– I had a lunch of fine sausages and baked beans

– The weights workout at the gym was amazing

– I saw beautiful music

– I spoke to friends I don’t normally see

– There is a great visit to somewhere that I really want to go to in the works

– Someone is sending me a reward for my volunteering work in the post

– The flower arrangement I made a few days ago is flourishing and looks absolutely beautiful

– Reading the blurbs of Japanese novels in a bookshop

– A fine argument with someone. The dance with the words

  1. An eventful day. Do you think you will remember these highlights?

Me. I will remember the one that I will not write about.

tomorrow the enemy (microfiction)

03.09.2025

‘You love fighting, do you?’ Alfonso asked me. ‘With a name like Tiger?’

‘I’m not going to deny it.’

‘You watch those violent Hindi films. Don’t you think it is ridiculous that the hero is always fighting? That might is right?’

‘The hero fights against might in the films. Showing that might is wrong.’

‘Why does he win in the fight? Surely that is might is right?’

‘The hero wins because he is morally superior. Not stronger. The hero wins because he is good. And good will always triumph over evil in the end. That is why we fight. We are the good. The Tiger is goodness.’

‘Look at the world around you. Evil has overtaken this planet.’

‘Not all of it.’

‘You really believe? Despite all of this? Despite your life? Despite the treatment you have gotten?’

‘I can’t be the only person in the whole world that tries to be good.’

‘And yet, you love fighting. Fighting means hurting someone.’

‘The human condition is that we allow others to hurt us. Quite badly. Even your lover is really your enemy.’

‘You don’t feel regret when you fight with someone? When you are otherwise so soft-hearted and considerate?’

‘I was born to fight. I was trained to fight in martial arts as a child. I have been in the debating society at school and university. I argue. I fight. It is who I am. To have good in the world, you have to fight for it. The message of the god Krishna is that it is the duty of a king to fight. We are not like others.’

‘You are so big headed. You call yourself a king. You call yourself a god. You call yourself a hero. You call yourself The Tiger. Not even just Tiger. You call yourself The Tiger.’

‘If there is anyone better than me, I have never met them. People might be better at me in one thing. But not in so many things. No one can compete with me or keep up with me. I have always been the best. I am not arrogant about it. It is just fact.’

Alfonso laughed and shook his head. ‘I am not like the others,’ he said. ‘I know that you are talent itself. I know that you deserve this world on a plate and every happiness it has. I am your real friend. The one that can value what you are. But forget this conceit.’

‘As long as you do not lord it over others, there is nothing wrong with confidence,’ I told Alfonso. ‘The reason they hate my confidence in this country is because of my brown skin. They want us to shrink and grovel in front of them and accept the shit they want to stuff down our mouths. Well I have news for them. They can eat shit. Not me.’

Alfonso laughed. And I looked at him and laughed too. It is good to laugh. Tomorrow the enemy. But the future? That is us. The Tiger.