They wanted to liberate the people from love. But instead, they were liberating them from their humanity.
In this era, online interactions had replaced real life ones. It was no longer fashionable to date in the pool of people that you knew. The desire was for the stranger because the grass was always considered to be greener on the other side. And the stranger was appealing because prolonged human contact was no longer desirable in and of itself. Superficiality reigned, not deep knowledge of someone. That was what was undesirable. Knowledge was regarded as poison, ignorance as bliss.
As a result, the online dating companies grew and grew in wealth. Love was an industry. It had always been an industry. The Victorians would sell off their women to the highest bidder while canting about love in their triple decker romance novels. The royals had always looked at possessions for their matches.
To preserve their wealth, the dating companies needed their users to be always single. Or only to be in a relationship briefly. They decided to make it so that it was so. It was the grand conspiracy against love.
They took their cues from the world of work. They taught the people that everyone was expendable. You could just throw away someone when you had had enough. They taught the people that the most important thing in life was to be independent. So that the people could never tolerate being in a relationship or endure being connected to anyone. They taught the people to be selfish and grasping. So that they could never be in a genuine relationship with anyone and to give rather than to take, to give their whole heart without ego. They taught the people that there were only workers. Not lovers.
So there was no longer any love. I watched the bodies move in a loveless world. A sordid, practical world of money. I was all alone. Everyone was all alone. Just like the book, it was a lonely planet.
An unaccountable loss this, the ability to write purely imaginative work. Reality was pushing its sharp corners into my mind and my body. This life of suffering… How long was it that you could endure suffering for? It had been a sustained assault, a laboured siege, a ravenous feasting upon me that had taken place over years without end…
So what story could I write? That was different from my life? That was not an interminable quest? That was not a tragedy of heartbreak? A lament of loneliness and unbelonging? A fight against all that there was? A doomed resistance of difference in the face of the great evil of the One?
The public wanted a glimmer of light. That glimmer of light gave them hope. That was what sold. An orphan magician that defeats evil. A misfit that finds love. An underdog that achieves some kind of victory, whether real or imaginary. A problem that is resolved. Justice achieved.
Magic. Love. Victory. Justice. Where was any of this in my life? Where were they in my world?
And so, the need for a new story. Fiction is not the unreal. Fiction is not the false. It is an old chestnut that fiction is another reality. Perhaps more real. Perhaps braver than this reality. An alternative imagining of reality.
Perhaps I should imagine myself as a villain. I write myself into my characters. I could pretend to be the villain. But this would serve the false narrative in place. I am not the villain. I am the hero.
I live in the dystopia. What is this world if it is not dystopian? Perhaps I should invent a Utopia. Where talent is rewarded. Where genius is recognised. Where there is true equality, fairness and inclusion. But would the mind of this society and this reality be able to take it? Would they even be able to begin to comprehend it?
Perhaps this is the great barrier. Perhaps this is the cause of my pen’s impotence.
But tomorrow we pick up the pen again. And tomorrow, we imagine a new tomorrow. That is what the artist creates. From the swamp, the lotus is born. And from the breast of the slave and the faithful, there comes the rebel and the freedom fighter. Just like the devil comes out from the mind of god.
B. – My friend told me that a man who she knew asked her out. She said no. The next week he was dead. He ended everything.
A. – It is sad and stupid. There are other women
B. – Are there though? Do other women exist apart from the ones you love?
A. – Do you want to die like this poor fellow with such thoughts?
B. – Why not? It would end the pain.
A. – You told me that in your culture, death by your own hand is regarded as cowardice.
B. – You asked me if I wanted to die. Not if I was going to do it. Courage is to live. In pain. In a heartless world.
A. – You are courageous?
B. – One woman felled this fellow. I had three that I loved in a row that said no. More before that. I am talking about recent events. I live. I cling to life. Is that the courage you ask for? I could not live without her. I did it.
A. – Did you love them? Did you love like Romeo? He gave his life for Juliet
B. – He forgot his duty to his family. And in any case, she loved him back. There is no Juliet for this Romeo. Courage is when you are all alone and you are still The Tiger. Courage is when your body and your soul screams with pain but you go on like The Tiger. Courage is when the whole world is against you and you fight the whole world for nothing. Like The Tiger. You want to be schooled in courage? On the street, eight come but Tiger fights them all. Do you think you can doubt Tiger for courage?
A. – It is your word.
B. – I am known for my word. For my honesty and integrity.
A. – You are not brave to live. You do not seriously want to die.
B. – Less than an hour ago, I was sitting in a dive. Thinking about being in a warm bath. With slit wrists. I was enjoying being in that bath and dying. The red mist circling around me. Slipping out of…
A. – Stop it.
B. – In the film Gadar, the hero has no one. Except for the one he loves. And she is of a different tribe. In reality, upon which the film is based, he commits suicide. In the film, he wins her. He wins. That is the boast of Punjab. All against a world of hate, he wins. He has love. I am the boast of Punjab. I am the dream of the people. I am the courage that lasts in the desert of reality. They are making movies and singing songs about my courage. Which you question.
A. – You are a funny fellow. With a big ego. Maybe you deserve to be alone? Have you thought of that?
B. – Possibly. Possibly everybody ‘deserves’ to have someone except for me. It wouldn’t surprise me with the fairness of this life.
A. – There. That’s why no one likes you let alone loves you. You are difficult and disturbing.
B. – They live. I am not living. The dead are walking amongst the living. Without dying.
A: Why do you spend so much time expending your bile on other people?
Me: Because they are intolerable.
A: To you perhaps. You are highly strung. Admit it.
Me: Not at all. Do you know, when I came home from work and an evening somewhere, there was just one person in front of me on the street. Just one person. And despite that, this miscreant was walking in a zigzag across the street, in my way everywhere that I turned. They were glued to their smart phone. That is what people are.
A: What do you mean, that’s what people are?
Me: Inconsiderate. Deliberately in your way.
A: How was this person deliberately in your way? They were just going about their business unaware that you were in the background.
Me: Not at all. Anyone could have been trying to walk past them. They acted like the whole street was theirs. They didn’t have one single thought that there might be someone trying to walk past them.
A: The incapability to walk in a straight line is not a personal failing. They must have got out of your way when they realised that you were there.
Me: After getting in my way. The point is that these people will never let anyone past them. Even at their pathetic rate. Even with their meandering nonsense. That is why this world is like it is. These gatekeepers are everywhere. They won’t let you do anything.
A: You have achieved plenty despite them. They couldn’t keep you out of letters.
Me: I did it by myself. By enduring poverty. By having nothing. With no connections. By being a dependent. Despite their racism and prejudice, their hostility. Because of my genius.
A: I am not disagreeing. I know that they are full of hate. But don’t import their gatekeeping into everything.
Me: Why not? It is everywhere.
A: Let us change the topic. What did you do outside of work today?
Me: An acting workshop. Reading a book about reading. Reading The New Scientist. Shopping. Eating sushi for dinner. Contacting friends. Watching videos. Reading the news. I met a new person somewhere outside of work.
A: You meet new people every single day and nothing ever comes of it.
Me: That is London and its racism. That is this country.
A: Once again, we come onto the topic of other people.
Me: All there are are other people to make life sour.
A: What is your concept of other people?
Me: Despite hearing racism all around me, I have always believed we are all one. When you are all one, you are us. However, it has become apparent that they are not us. I live with the they. None of them are us. None of them are me. They are other people. They want to reject us. And because they reject us, they are them and I am me. They are other people.
A: Do you not believe that we are all one?
Me: It is them that have made the division between us. Not me. That is all that they can do. Divide and fragment. They do not know the meaning of harmony and unity. Their unity is to pit themselves against someone like me.
A: The whole world is not against you.
Me: Yes it is. I am what they want to vanquish and to rule. The ungovernable wild beast. The Tiger. But they cannot rule me. Because no one has ever ruled me. I do what I want. I have the resources of a millionaire. I have the brain of a genius. I have the body of a god. I have the energy of the sun. There is one that is born that cannot be caged. There is the bird that flies high in the blue. Freud said that the paranoic is not entirely without suspicion. They would kill freedom. They would kill anarchy. They would kill real independence and freedom and honour. They would kill me. They would kill my mother. They are murderers of thought and difference, of equality and diversity. But you cannot kill Oedipus. However much you try to protect yourself from Oedipus, it is him that will be King and that will have the Queen. You think that you can kill The Tiger. Come at him in a real fight, see what happens to you. You can’t outsmart Tiger. You can’t out talk Tiger. The man with the heart is the one that will always win. Because the man with the heart is the only real man on this earth. Not these little cowards with their lies and the shrivelled things inside their heads that pump their bastard blood through their bodies.
A: You take the idea that you are a god and a hero far too seriously.
Me: If you model yourself on a god you are a god. You have been called a god after the prayer of the people, after the prayer of your mother. They have asked god to come down upon earth to protect the Mother. There is no other aim in my life. Against the Mother, they are all standing. They want to destroy the Mother. They have seduced all into their evil. But the Mother, she is invincible. That is her name, ‘The Invincible’, Durga. Shakti is what they call her, power itself. And she is triumphant because she sits upon the tiger. I am The Tiger. I am her vehicle. She gave birth to me so I would prostrate myself before her and carry her through this world. So I speak the words of The Tiger. I speak the legend of The Tiger. For six thousand years, The Tiger has dwelt in Punjab. Now he is in London. This era will be like every other era. It will be the era of The Tiger. I am the past. I am the present. I am the future. There is only one way. That is the way of The Tiger. The warrior culture. There is an Indian film. I have changed the last line:
‘Imagine there is a lie,’ I said to Alfonso. ‘A great lie that you are told, that I am told, that we are all told. A lie we have all spent our whole lives trying to obtain.’
‘Is this a riddle?’ asked Alfonso, looking over at me from above the pages of his magazine. Again, it was just us at the end of the day. In the lonely night, he was the only one there for me. The only one to say the things of the heart to. My most intimate friend.
‘It is no riddle. The lie is connection.’
‘Absurd. You have friends. The obvious example is before you. You are connected.’
‘Real connection is romantic love. It is the highest order of connection. Romantic love is the highest form of connection, whatever form it takes.’
‘Some people have romantic love.’
‘Not people like me.’
Alfonso tutted at me. ‘It is the case,’ I continued. ‘They lied to me. They said to become something and you will find real connection. They are all fucking liars.’
In a patronising tone, Alfonso asked me how that made me feel.
‘I have learnt not to trust anyone. So now there is no trust in my life.’ Tut. ‘I have learnt that there is no connection with anyone. So now there is no connection in my life.’ Tut. ‘I have learnt that there is no warmth from anyone. So now there is no warmth in my life.’ Tut tut.
‘You are suggesting,’ Alfonso said, ‘in your wallow of self pity, that you are a meaningless, isolated atom that is removed from the whole of humanity. When all you do is build communities around yourself. You have literally hundreds of people that you know. If it is the case that no man is an island, you in particular are no island.’
‘They are all strangers.’
‘Because you can’t fuck them?’ Alfonso asked incredulously.
‘There is no need to downgrade the sexual act. That is real connection. The chemicals that it creates. Its alteration of the mind.’
‘You only feel lonely in the nights.’
‘We only talk together in the nights.’
‘You are not lonely.’
‘When I lie in my bed alone in the night time, I feel the loneliness of death.’
‘Love is heartbreak. Love is sorrow. Be thankful you don’t have to have your heart broken every minute.’
‘What do you think this world has done to me? Why do you think I am like this?’
We sat in silence, ruminating on things. It was past eleven in the night time. Soon would come the witching hour.
Absolutely superb. That’s what the weather was like for the long walk. I met up with my friend at Newbury station and we bundled ourselves onto the Tube at nine o’clock for an early start on the day.
In the morning, it took about the same time to get into Chigwell as it would take me to get into Central London for work due to a change at Hainault and a long wait for the next service. On arriving at Chigwell, I was struck by the beauty of the place and the grandeur of the big houses out there. Really a dream destination to live in. Chigwell is called Chigwell because the name derives from an Anglo-Saxon personal name, ‘Cicca,’ and the word ‘well,’ meaning “Cicca’s well”.
We came across some beautiful horses but I couldn’t get a good shot or composition. I have a personal ambition to ride a horse but haven’t got round to it yet. It is a very modest and achievable ambition but I am always too busy for it.
Almost at once, we came to a beautiful view and the farmlands. I had already got out my camera and was trying a few shots. As I did so, we came across some fellow walkers and they told me and my friend that they had been doing the walks on the London Loop for about two years. They were finally going to finish off the walk today. It was an old father with two young blonde daughters, one of them wearing a red jacket and looking somewhat like Red Riding Hood.
As we trailed after them when we were ready and they were already in the far distance, we worked out the percentage of weekends they had committed to their mission as we were arguing about how committed they were as walkers. If they had taken two years for about twelve walks on the London Loop, that would work out as them having invested 6% of their weekends on the trips over two years. I maintained that that was quite committed but my contrary friend disagreed with me.
My friend is a birdwatcher and I was trying to one up him by spotting more birds than him. I got a robin that he hadn’t noticed and felt quite chuffed but then he showed his experience and expertise in this subject. He spotted a woodpecker, a brilliantly yellow coloured creature that I had never seen before. It was winging its way through the air. He also spotted some buzzards and regaled me about the story of the corpse of one he had encountered recently as roadkill. On the trip, we saw about nine different species of bird, so it wasn’t a bad day: peacocks, hens, Egyptian geese, robins, a white egret, the woodpecker, crows, some little ones I forget the names of and seagulls and magpies. So for birds, it was certainly a great day.
It was a delight to stop for elevenses at precisely eleven on a little bench in the woods as I had a Dairy Milk with me. I shared the chocolate with my friend. I was watching the birds fly into the trees. A Dairy Milk always reminds me of the war. Probably it is because Roald Dahl, my favourite author as a boy, mentions being a taster for Cadbury’s chocolates in his biography and he fought in the war.
Around Chigwell and its forest, we came across an Islamic chapel with Christian gravestones in the garden which was quite an example of religious amalgamation. We didn’t go inside but looked at it with intrigue from the outside wondering what it was.
The next phase of our walk was Hainault Forest Country Park which is not too far from our local area. Hainault Forest was an old royal hunting forest. I had gone there many a time with the family. We saw the two daughters with their father there and I shouted out to them that ‘it wasn’t a contest, but…’ and they all laughed which was pleasing. They were sitting on a bench looking out at the lake. We kept on walking and didn’t see them again and probably won’t in this lifetime.
Hainault gets its name because its original Old English name, recorded as “Henehout” in 1221, meant “wood belonging to a monastic community”. The Abbey of Barking owned Hainault Forest. The name’s spelling later changed because it was incorrectly associated with Philippa of Hainault, the queen of Edward III.
We stopped for a hot drink in the cafe and it was absolutely chock-a-block with young families. So we sat outside. Lazily, I watched two brightly coloured aeroplanes flying about in the sky and the families with their dogs all making their usual Sunday walk around the park. I was telling my friend that I should buy a dog so that I could also talk to the dog people.
After that I persuaded my friend to go to the farm and look at the animals. The goats were all butting heads with each other and the peacocks were sunning themselves. I got a few okayish shots on my camera as the light was quite good but missed a dramatic fight that the goats with brown hides were having as people had stopped to watch them and I didn’t want any people in the shot.
We walked through the golf course next and then we were back in the forest and in the farmland and then the forest again. There was a rough swing rope that someone had put up in the trees. The only way to get to it was up some precariously placed logs, so it was a challenge of balance. I climbed up it childishly and recklessly. It was only a few feet off the ground but felt like I was walking in the atmosphere and slipping about. I managed to get to the swing rope with my hands but then there was no way to get any momentum to swing about! I had almost fallen off once, but only once. And I hadn’t. So man nature was appeased. My friend shot a video of me doing it.
When we had walked through an enchanted pine soaked place with a delicious scent, I decided that we should stop for lunch. I had brought chicken satays from the reduced aisle with me and the scent was too much. Because we were accosted by two dogs that wanted to partake of the feast. The first one was a giant and was very forward and slightly menacing. Two young boys had to run up and grab him by the leash to get him away. The other dog was a black miniature hound and his owner, an elderly lady, said that he was ‘incorrigible’ as she rushed off with him.
After the forest, with its beautiful light and soothing smells and ambience, and after watching the little trickle that was the river Rom, the next thing, we were sitting in a pub called The Deer’s Rest which was in Romford itself. The whole pub was tricked out in Halloween decor. I got us some drinks and downed an ice cold Pepsi. It was absolutely delicious in a way that Cola is not always. My friend told me that I had worked enough so my body was rewarding me for the work with that delicious sensation. He said that he was having it with his drink as well. The pub had this wallpaper of framed butterfly specimens and it was something that I quite wanted for myself as I thought it looked very sophisticated and cool. And much nicer than real specimens of butterflies which I have always found slightly creepy. Because they are dead beauty.
We walked on through the beauties of nature talking about life, the universe and everything. At some point, we found ourselves in a park. I was keen to watch the young people at the skate park but it was disappointing. They were not doing any tricks! The kids were quite young, but then that Olympics gold medallist had been about thirteen. As we progressed through the park, we came across a father at the top of the slope throwing around a brightly yellow coloured glider aeroplane towards his son. The son was babbling away at us as I remarked that the dad had made a good throw. It was a really touching scene of family and its happiness, the joy of children.
The last stretch of the walk took us to Harold Wood. The name Harold Wood refers to an area of land associated with King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. It was about four o’clock. We had initially decided to do a bit more but decided to pack it up before the light started going and we’d done about thirty thousand steps. It was about eleven miles well spent.
‘You don’t have any self-control’. Alfonso commented.
‘On the contrary, I have the most in the world.’ I responded. He was always accusing me of something or the other. Everyone was always accusing me of something. That was all that I was to them. Someone to accuse. Well, I accused in my turn. I accused them.
‘In what way?’ Alfonso asked incredulously. ‘You have fallen in love with women that are not even your type just because of close proximity to them. Several times.’
‘Have you not read Proust’s magnum opus?’ I asked. ‘That is how they get you. Through the proximity. You are assured that you are safe. You are not.’
‘So how do you have any self-control?’
‘Because even though I loved them, I did not even touch them.’
‘That is not your self-control,’ Alfonso sneered at me. ‘They did not let you touch them.’
‘You should be around beauty all day and not get a taste of it,’ I said to him. ‘Then judge me.’
Alfonso snorted. ‘Let us chisel past that front. What original thoughts did you have today?’
‘There is an author who has written a new book about how we know what everyone knows, how common sense is created. It is the mark of a philistine and a mediocre Western mind that this book was written. Because their conceit is to always talk about a positive form of knowledge when it is not knowledge at all. Socrates knew that. Here, common knowledge. What everyone knows. In fact, common knowledge is just a form of ignorance. It is what the fool knows. The wise man is the one that knows. What is common knowledge? That you should pour wealth on yourself like excrement to be considered attractive and influential? That education is worthless? That hate sells? Why do you think that living piece of shit Trump and that specimen of rancid ear wax Farage are in the ascendency? Because they know what the scum think. And what the scum thinks is ignorance, lies and stupidity. That is all that they can accept. Not love, truth or justice.’
‘You are full of hate,’ Alfonso commented. ‘Even more hate than they are.’
‘This poison that is in me,’ I said. ‘It will kill the evil in this world.’
‘You will choke on it,’ Alfonso said. ‘You are the only one that will be hurt by it. Come, forget this. Something else.’
‘How about this for a thought? What is this garbage?’
‘What do you mean? Alfonso looked at me keenly.
‘This life. It is garbage. What is this garbage? Even religious people want to escape this life. The Hindu wants to escape the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation. The Christian, the Muslim and the Jew want to go to heaven. They want to die rather than to live.’
Alfonso shook his head at me. So what? It was the truth. Nobody wanted to live here. Look at this fucking garbage that they had made. Alfonso was asking me about original thoughts I was having in this fucking garbage. The stench of it was making me sick. The sight of its ugliness was denting my mind and my eyes. Its extent was polluting the whole of society. And Alfonso wanted an original thought from me that wasn’t cynical and jaded, weary of this fucking garbage. All there was was this fucking garbage. And when you pointed out the garbage, nobody listened and they tried to attack you. That was the triumph of the garbage.
‘Where do you think ultimate happiness lies?’ Alfonso asked me. We were eating sushi together. It was a supermarket version. Although he had, I had never eaten sushi in a restaurant. I was taught to be careful with money. Sushi was expensive. It is difficult to drift from a culture of thrift. The supermarket stuff wasn’t absolutely appalling.
‘The answer is just three letters: SEX.’
‘Aah. A sensualist. Come on then. Why sex? I heard the capital letters in your tone.’ It was a purple shirt today. Very classy.
‘Because you are able to forget everything in the moment.’
‘Why then,’ Alfonso asked me, ‘if it is so pleasurable, that people won’t take every opportunity to have sex? Do they not want to be happy?’
‘I told you that I will not make any comments about women,’ I said to Alfonso. ‘And the answer to this question necessarily relies on me talking about women.’ After all, life teaches you to hold your tongue.
‘Necessarily?’
‘If you want to ask unhappy people why they are unhappy, you should ask them. My answer is that I am unhappy. Read between the lines.’
‘Food makes you happy though. I have seen it.’
‘Yes, I am also a glutton. That is another aspect of being a sensualist.’
‘And company makes you happy. Friends make you happy. Natural beauty makes you happy. Creativity makes you happy. Education makes you happy. Why then do you say sex is the ultimate happiness?’
‘Because sex will give you babies and a family. The other things might be well in their own way, but the only way to secure long term happiness is through sex. These people that don’t and won’t have sexual relationships are going to be even unhappier in the future.’
‘Don’t speak for other people. You don’t know their minds.’
‘Let’s change the topic. What is your ultimate happiness?’
Alfonso was always asking me things about what I thought. And then questioning them. What did he think?
‘Happiness is friendship. Having good friends for company.’
‘But I contrast friendship with a family. You cannot build something with a friend like a family.’
Alfonso sighed. ‘That is your problem. You have good friends. You have satisfying work. You have money. Your health is not absolutely in tatters. You are still young. You have so much going on in your life. And all you can think about is that family that you do not have. Why can’t you be like all the others and forget about having a family?’
‘It is the most important thing in our culture.’
‘Do what it takes to get it if you think it is so important.’
‘I told you. Family is the most important thing. I have to look after the ones that I have got. They are not expendable.’
‘So the family is destroying your family?’
‘What a world, eh?’ I grimaced. ‘No one can forgive you for being loyal. For disloyalty, they can forgive you everything. And then, all the other things you have to do…’
I trailed off. There was no point saying anything. Because having an opinion on this topic was dangerous. Dangerous and unproductive. There was no point to it.
‘So I got home,’ I was telling Alfonso, ‘and just as I was heading towards the door, I took my headphones out which I use to drown out the sordid sounds of this sordid world. As soon as I did so, I heard the harassing, haranguing voice of an absolute idiot belting out some sorry tale at eleven o’clock in the night time without any consideration that he was walking in a residential area. In his voice, pure ignorance. I keep on telling you. I hate other people.’
‘They also hate you.’ Alfonso said, smiling.
‘I know they do. That is why I return their hate with interest,’ I told Alfonso. ‘But unlike them, I don’t hate them because of their skin colour or culture. I hate them because of their selfishness and their meanness. Their love of dishonour and atrocity and injustice. The lack of any love in their hearts except for themselves. They want to fuck themselves and they do fuck themselves. There was a reason that masturbation was a prime sin in the bible.’
‘Why can’t you forgive those that reject you?’
‘Why should I? The problem that my people have faced is rejection and devaluation. In India, we were Untouchables, the lowest caste. They devalued us. They could not see us as fellow humans. Here in England, they see you as an outsider and they devalue you correspondingly. They have rejected us. And by doing so, they become devalued. They become scum. They become vermin.’
‘Can’t you just see them as having a mental condition? As patients?’
‘No. You do not believe in evil and sin. I do. They are evil. They sin. They should be punished for their wrongs.’
‘You would punish them?’
‘Any time these cowards have dared to come up in my face, I have given them the answer. Even when they walk about in their hordes like sheep. I know the truth. I never back down. They think because there are more of them, they can do whatever they want. I don’t let them. I have never backed down from a fight from anyone. It doesn’t matter if it is an institution that is more powerful than me or a group of six or eight racists. I always go. I’m a warrior. They call me Tiger. I call myself Tiger. Tiger has teeth. Tiger is always ready to fight. Always. Only the coward does not fight.’
‘There are those that believe in peace.’
‘No one more than me. But when peace becomes dishonour, then it is the time to fight. And that time is now.’
‘For you, it is always now.’
‘It is always now.’
‘One day, you will be in serious trouble.’
‘Let us hope that that beautiful day comes soon. My mouth waters at the prospect. But until then, the hand of The Mother is upon my head. I am protected.’
‘What if I said there was no Mother?’
‘She is an ideal. An ideal exists in mental reality. The Mother is a representation of the perfect warrior, the life force. And the life force has decided that nothing will ever happen to me. Even in this world of enemies.’
I had just spent the past hour messaging three of my friends. They had all thought of me at the same time. It was Friday evening. It was the start of the weekend and some free time. So they had all thought of me. It was nice to be thought of like that. And, in some way, it had alleviated my loneliness. I lived with my parents. I had spoken to my mother while she had cooked me a feast of paneer with pea curry, curried spinach and spiced yoghurt with a generous salad. But still I felt alone. I was always going to feel alone. There was no point not trying to feel alone. Because I was never going to meet anyone special in my life. I was going to have to sleep in a bed alone every night for the rest of my life. I didn’t kid myself.
But then, I also had Alfonso. I rang him up. Without saying hello to me, he jumped into a question. ‘Why do people look for a reason for why their life is not what they want it to be?’
‘Because there is some reason why there life is not what they want.’
Alfonso was eating something. I wondered what it was but did not ask him. ‘What is the reason your life is not what you want it to be?’ he asked me.
‘Because I am an ethnic minority.’
‘You always say that.’
‘It doesn’t mean it is not true,’ I said. ‘Do you think these racist bastards even know how racist they are? How much it governs their society? What kind of fucking scum they are? No, they don’t. Because their racism makes them think they are superior to people like me.’
‘They have close relationships with people from other countries. With immigrants.’
‘Yes. With the westernised ones. With the ones that bend to them and want to lick their boots. I come from the village. I have rejected westernisation. I am too good to lick anyone’s boots.’
‘Then your situation is your choice.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘To choose freedom over slavery is not a choice. It is a necessity.’
‘Yet you call them slaves to the state. Have they chosen that slavery?’
‘Yes, that is the tragedy. They have chosen slavery over freedom. They are slaves in their hearts and minds. Slaves that think they are the masters.’
‘They hate you because of your criticisms.’
‘Let them hate. I also despise them for judging me. For being Indian. I never forgive anyone that rejects me because of that. You are taught to nurture your relationships. Especially enmity.’
‘You will never get this war that you want.’
‘I have it already. In my thoughts and my writing. In my heart. In my books that I publish.’
‘They will never fight you. And they will stop you from fighting. If you don’t change, you will always be alone.’
‘If you let someone pull you to the ground and step all over you, you are not a man. If you let someone throw you out like garbage and rob you of your dignity, you are not a man. If you let someone put a fucking leash on you like you are a fucking dog, you are not a man. If you let someone talk over you, reject you, exclude you and you fawn over them, you are not a man. You are a piece of shit. And I am not a piece of shit. In fact, I am The Tiger. Fuck everybody.’
‘Well,’ Alfonso said. ‘Even though you are so disagreeable and angry, the wonderful thing is that you still have friends. And yet you claim that you are all alone.’
‘Where is my family?’ I said. ‘How can you think you have anyone when you don’t even have your own family?’
‘What is the lack?’ Alfonso asked. ‘Be honest. Is it the children or is it the woman?’
I didn’t answer him. Who knew the answer to that? The ache inside, who knew who or what could soothe it? Although I did know. The only way to soothe the ache was with the war. And therefore, I did not look for anyone in this world. I looked for the war. The war was something that I could work on. The war was something I could have and hold in the nights. Yes, I lay in bed thinking about the war. I woke up in the morning to wage the war. I was a warrior from the old world. Not this shitty world. War was my destiny. We had been slaves. We were slaves. But we would not be slaves tomorrow. The child of The Tiger would be a king. He would walk free. The child of The Tiger would be a Queen. She would walk with dignity. The love of the world would be his. The love of the world would be hers. The war that we fought was for tomorrow. For tomorrow. This pain that we lived in, it had a purpose. It was for tomorrow. This hunger that we had. It was for tomorrow. One day, the spark would be lit. I had to survive for that day. It might not come before the end of my life, but it would come. In the end, it is truth alone that is triumphant. Satyameva Jayaate.
diary of a lone man 