body dreams

25.09.2026

Whatever anyone’s concept of an ideal body looks like, and whatever other people think, there is certainly a template that I desire for my own body. Which is ironic. Because I have been known for my body and looks since I was a kid. My nickname at home is ‘Sonu’ which is handsome. And at school, I was known as ‘the beast’ because I was so strong and muscular.

I would never get any cosmetic surgery on my body. I am against it in principle. It annoys me when people are getting their teeth straightened instead of leaving them natural. I believe everyone should be happy with what they have.

But the mind is contradictory. The daydream goes like this. An alien brings me up to their spaceship. And then they fix my body. Without any operations. With their wonder technology. What is it that they ‘fix’?

There is a big list. Here it is in order:

– My hair is thinning. They bring all the hair on my head back. With the brown colour it had when I was a kid.

– I’m five foot six. Although I’ve never worried about my height, I know potential partners care about it. So they make me tall.

– Making me lose my short sightedness.

– They make my body and face completely symmetrical.

– Losing weight.

– Making my muscles bigger and more toned. Making my shoulders wider.

– Straightening teeth.

– Getting rid of wrinkles.

Whatever these fantasies of the body in these uncontrollable daydreams, I am secure in myself. After all, I’ve gotten through almost forty four years of life being told I’m handsome and super fit. And in any case, I weight train regularly. I have been sculpting my body since I was sixteen years old.

It just shows you that an accepted ideal of beauty works away at the unconscious trying to do away with the body that you actually have. You want to lose the real you in an imagination and fantasy of the body. Whatever you might think about it with your conscious mind.

the illusions of free will, independence, choice and self determination

24.09.2026

Did you choose your own life? Whatever anyone says, what actually happens is completely different.

In my life, it has been rejection and constraint that has shaped the possibilities of what has happened. And also, the insistence by all, that I am Indian. Nothing else. In other words, it is the opinions and actions of others that determine what I can do and what I have done.

Your background determines your future. Social mobility in the UK is low for the working class and ethnic minorities. If, like myself, you aim at the bastions of privilege, then it is literally impossible to get in.

Independence? You have to work your whole life, usually for someone else. Someone else in a career determines your fate. Not you. It is them that interview you, them that keep you, them that promote you. Based on what they decide and find valuable. You have to play along with them.

There are no such things as free will, independence, choice and self determination.

How can you call it choice when you don’t get your first choices in life? This is a lie.

How can you call it free will, when you have to get permission to do what you want to do in terms of a career?

How can you call it independence when everything relies on other people? When you depend upon other people?

How can you call it self determination when everything is determined by the resource allocation of other people, determined by history, determined by culture and society and your upbringing?

Life is heavily compromised because of the asymmetries of power in this society. But is this the same for everyone in this life? No. Because if you had resources, then you have more free will, independence, choice and self determination.

Even myself, because I am financially secure and because I live with my family, I can choose work that suits me more. I can study degrees with the Open University. I can spend a lot of time in museums and art galleries. I can pursue my hobbies. The resources of the family have altered what would have been the compromised reality.

The sad conclusion is that it is resources that determine our freedom. And who controls those resources. When freedom is compromised by resource and power, how sincerely can you call it freedom?

But one hopes that despite this compromise, there is some resistance. That little spark that we can cultivate into a flame. Out of all possibilities of being, one hopes there is one possibility of being the authentic self. Because outside of the material domain, there is the domain of the thought and the imagination. And that is the one place where the seeker of truth can be truly free. It is Jesus that said it: the truth shall set you free. That there is a spiritual kingdom that is not of this world. It is not heaven. It is education.

a bounty of kindnesses

23.09.2026

How often does the universe conspire in its acts to unify an expression of emotion, to orchestrate and lure a particular response? Unexpectedly, this happened today.

After having been beat up by this existence, as is often the case in the lesser of the three worlds, I received the first kindness in the morning. I sent my self-published book on ‘King Solomon and the Monstrosity of the Law’ to a reader and a mentor and he boosted me up. He encouraged me to write more. He stroked the mane and the spirit of the writer.

And then, when I was writing to thank him for what he did for me, telling him that I had finally submitted my Art History dissertation to a journal because of his encouragement to stay in the game, thinking about his words to me, the second kindness was showered on my head. More praise. The recognition of achievement.

Kind words from those who have always been kind. Kind words from those that we look up to, from those that have looked after us.

They do say a truth, which is that you never know what the effect of your kindness will be on someone. What they might be going through and what a difference it can make to have a few kind words. To know that someone cares about you, however separated in time and circumstance they might be from you.

Inside kindness, there is a giant of strength and power. In this hard world, with its inner core of ice, with its splinters and thorns, there are sparks of kindness which offer warmth and light. Few and far between the deserted plains and barren distances, we find these sparks that point the way in life. They tell us that what we did was worthwhile. What we do is worthwhile. What we will do is worthwhile. They tell us that we are worthwhile. That we matter.

If only we could let everyone in this world know that they mattered. If only this world was kind. If only life was valued in this world. If only kindness was valued in this world. But it is because the world is what it is that kindness carries its golden aura with it, because the contrast and the exception is what gives the act its splendour and nobility:

to have a kindness is to meet god in hell

what is bad becomes better

and what is sad becomes well

reflecting on an unsettled life

23.09.2026

While I was born and raised in England, my family in India are poor. So, my whole life, I have been hearing about poverty. I have been hearing about the insecurity and precarity that comes with an unsettled life.

My family in India, they believe that when they get to a developed Western country, their life will be settled. The lives of their children will be settled. This is what my grandfather believed when he came to this country. That’s the future that he imagined for his children and his grandchildren.

But my life has never been settled. I have had to struggle. Just like they dream of a settled life, so I have had to dream of a settled life.

The difference between the ones from India and the ones from here is that they have arranged marriages and they have their own unified community. So they fit in and they get hitched. They’re willing to work in whatever job they find because it is better than being unemployed in India or working for peanuts.

Here, if you are Indian and choose not to get an arranged marriage, try meeting someone. Try starting a family. Try getting the jobs that you are qualified for doing and would excel in. It all hitches on someone giving you a chance or an opportunity. When they cannot. Because of the racism in this country.

So, just like the origin of my poor family in India in the caste of the Dalits and Untouchables has clouded their whole life and made it a struggle, making their lives unsettled, so has my ethnic origin as an Indian person.

But still, I have refused to give up my Indian culture. I have refused to accept the conformity in this country or pander to the unjust expectations that we must all follow convention. Is it worth it? It has come at a great personal cost. The greatest personal cost. Yet if it was easy and convenient to be authentic and true to oneself, then the world would not be what it is.

The virtue of an unsettled life is that this is a life that I have created for myself despite everyone else. Despite the insane pressure from the Indian and the British community, I have forged my own way through life. I have done what I thought is right. I have made my own choices. I have thought out life in my own way.

The reward is isolation, uncertainty, the lack of a resolution or a happy ending. No love. The achievement? Dignity and self respect. We come from the honour culture. It is the greatest prize.

an unsettled life

22.09.2026

When I was a young man, the focus was on getting settled in life. So I studied hard. I did 6 ‘A’ Levels and got the best results in sixth form. I went to a top university, the London School of Economics, in the hardest subject to get into, Law. I graduated in the top 10% of the year. I volunteered in the law courts, I wrote in the university newspaper. I worked in Pizza Hut. I had work experience as well as education. I worked really hard.

All I wanted was to get settled. Get a good stable and satisfying job. Raise a family and children. Have my own house.

Flash forward in time. I am almost forty four years old and I am still not settled in life. Everything is up in the air. How did I cope all of these years, twenty six years, in an unsettled life?

The main thing is that I did not blame myself. I blamed other people. And I was justified. Not only had I worked harder than everyone else, but I was naturally intelligent and I could do anything. The fact that I could not get the work I wanted was not because I did anything wrong. I passed the interviews. And even when I did so, they would put me on the reserve list. You would ask for feedback and they would say that you did not do anything wrong. I knew I was being discriminated against.

Without the work, there was also no love. This was the world that I was in.

And the loneliness? I coped by learning. Learning and learning and learning. Because after all, you would always have books. You would always find fulfilment in learning and reading. I had the capacity for complete loneliness with my books. This what got me through five degrees including a PhD.

What created this resilience then? It was ego first. The ego of knowing how great I was. I never lost the sense of my own value. The brilliance of my mind. When I was faced with disappointment after disappointment, when I saw those that were not as talented as me getting ahead, I depended on my ego, self-belief and self-valuation to get me through things. And then, it was the love of learning which would nurture and nourish, when the world is cold, hostile and stupid.

My parents supported me. In my culture, this is my right. But still, it was them that supported me.

So even though I have been unsettled throughout my whole adult life, still I have survived and prospered. I live in a beautiful home which is because of my hard work. I have a brilliant and erudite mind and can enjoy my own company because I have invested in learning. I have been working in jobs that I find a lot of fun for the past few years. And I have the grace to accept that I can only control my own performance and that I cannot change the injustice, immorality and the unfairness of this world.

That’s right. I still blame everyone else and not myself. I see myself as a victim and them as the oppressors. And I have never given up hope. I might have lived my whole adult life in an unsettled way but I still look forward to being settled one day. I give myself the same advice that I give to everyone else that is struggling: Faust got to heaven because he strove for it. Like Goethe, I am a genius. And I accept the words and the lesson of a genius. We are fellow spirits, although his early disappointments in love which influenced his work were adequately compensated because he found a relationship later in life. Goethe’s philosophy is my philosophy. This is the philosophy of the unsettled.

Salman Khan’s Fury at Body Shaming and The Indian Defence of the Mother

21.09.2026

Recently on a reality TV show, the Indian film star Salman Khan called out the trolls that were body shaming him and his loved ones. The trolls had made remarks about Katrina Kaif and her weight after she had delivered a baby. They had criticised the looks of Salman’s brother Sohail and they had criticised Salman Khan for being fat too. There were other actors mentioned that were trolled.

After calling out the trolls, Salman Khan had taken off his top and stood there, inviting the trolls to criticise his body.

Here, we have the Indian philosophy of the defence of the mother. The whole game exposed.

First, they criticised Katrina Kaif, The Mother. She was once the lover of Salman Khan. They had attacked The Mother of the son lover, Salman Khan. Remember that India is a culture that worships the Mother Queen, The Mother with the Tiger, The Invincible, Durga. The bhakti of the son lover is what infiltrates and creates Indian culture.

Salman Khan becomes one with The Mother in his protest. They criticised The Mother for being fat. They criticised Salman Khan for being fat. It is this oneness with The Mother that is the condition of bhakti. It is the protection of The Mother that is the duty of the son and the lover. Protection of her becomes protection of the self, of bhakti.

Salman includes his brother in his defence against the trolls. He includes actors like Varun Dhawan. So, the whole community is now protected. Protection of The Mother is protection of the whole community.

Finally, look at Salman Khan’s protest. He literally becomes The Mother. He becomes the other form of Durga, the Mother Queen. He becomes the Dark Mother, Kali. She who is naked. She who wars naked. This is the ultimate expression of The Mother’s anger.

Proving that the son lover models his entire being and action on The Mother. Because this is what love means. This is what it means to protect.

the hunger for education

20.09.2026

Four thousands of years, they would not let my people learn. We were Untouchables, the lowest caste. They kept the learning for themselves so that they could oppress us. That is one of the reasons that we are known as The Oppressed, The Dalits.

Yet, we have always had the hunger to learn. It is in the Mahabharata, the Hindu epic. One of the cornerstones of Indian philosophy. There you had Eklavya. He would watch the princes of the upper castes being taught archery in secret. And he learnt in secret, surpassing the prowess of the princes. His reward? For his gift, his guru asked him for his thumb to destroy his talent in archery. The world of oppression manifest.

How is hunger for education created? The Eklavya story tells you. You get an individual from a community without learning that looks at the community that does have it. Eklavya the common man lusts after the education of a prince. And therefore he outdoes the princes. The Untouchable takes the learning from the Brahmin guru, the higher caste. Similarly, I, the ethnic minority working class man, I go after the education that has been given to the white middle classes in this country, subjects like English Literature and Art History that only they can afford. We work towards the privilege that they have been given and handed on a silver platter in our stations outside of the ivory tower of learning. But we are alone on this journey, outside of the community. We have to teach ourselves. We are not coached and mentored, supported.

So in my own hunger for education, the hunger of this Dalit and Untouchable that has five degrees, there is the hunger for education of the people. Not just myself, but the community for education and social mobility. Because I have been taught by my grandfather and by his hero Dr. Ambedkhar, that the way forward for our community is to ‘educate, agitate and organise’.

And where else does this hunger from the community come from? It comes from watching my grandfather, this highly intelligent man who had been the top student in his university and his life. How when he came to this country they would not reward or rate his intelligence so he worked in non professional jobs, jobs like building and being a night watchman. I watch the unfairness in the way that they have treated the men in our community.

To me also, they have denied the rewards of my intelligence and learning. I am also a top student everywhere that I have been. And yet what have I faced in my life? What my grandfather faced. Distrust, prejudice and discrimination.

And yet, the coldness and hostility of those with the prizes has never thwarted this hunger and this love of learning. I have taken what I have wanted. I am a published scholar. I am an author. I am a curator with displays in musuems. I am a published poet. I am a published journalist. I am a professional photographer that has been published in magazines. This hunger has led me to perform. And the hunger is still not over. The hostility of the world just invites more hunger. The hunger of The People. The hunger of The Oppressed.

the teaching of hunger

19.09.2026

How do you teach someone hunger?

If social media news items are to be believed, Cristiano Ronaldo said, when he watched his son enter the sphere of professional football, he said that the hunger was the most difficult thing to achieve, to learn. Because his son had been raised in a soft life of luxury. Because his son had not lived through poverty and hardship with only the hunger to raise him above it.

And I? I have been taught this hunger.

Where did I learn this hunger? True enough, I was raised in a council house estate. With a bedroom I shared with my brothers. School dinners were too expensive to buy so we had packed lunches. I wore hand me downs. We had to work from the earliest age that we could as we didn’t get much pocket money. So that is where I learnt this hunger.

But above and beyond that, I was raised by the very poor. My grandfather lived in absolute poverty in India because his father had deserted the family. My grandfather and his brothers went blind because of malnutrition. So that is where I learnt this hunger.

Where did I learn this hunger? From birth. When I was born, the nurses said that I kept on drinking and drinking the milk. I have been hungry from birth.

And this mind, this mind is hunger. The mind consumes the most energy in the body and my mind keeps on working and working and working. I am hungry almost all of the time yet I never put on any weight. This super fast mind means that I have a super fast metabolism. So that is where I learnt this hunger.

And where does this hunger go? It has gone on five degrees, six ‘A’ Levels and eleven GCSEs. All with top grades. It has gone on writing a book, articles in top journals, writing after writing in websites, newspapers, newsletters. Going after experience after experience to develop and see. The insatiable hunger to be a scholar. A writer. A man of the truth. Reading book after book after book, article after article, chasing knowledge after knowledge. Because there is a difference between wanting to learn and having to learn.

I am all hunger. There is no one that is more ambitious and more driven. I have learnt this hunger. In hunger, none can match me.

the law as the woman usurper’s mind and desire in the wisdom of king solomon

18.09.2026

Two women give birth at the same time. One baby dies and one survives. The women fight over the remaining baby, saying each of them is the mother. King Solomon’s solution? That we cut the baby in half and give each half to each mother. The real mother will not allow this to happen while the false mother will. This is the supposed wisdom and legal acumen of Solomon.

I wrote about how this story in the Bible reveals the monstrosity of the law. Let’s have another look at that today.

Solomon as the King, as The Father, as The Law, what does he count on? He counts on the real mother being a real mother. Not wanting her son to die. However, he also counts on the false mother, the usurper woman, to want the son to die. To want the son to be cut in half.

It does not make sense. This is a woman who has just had a baby that died. The whole reason that she took the other woman’s baby is that she wants to have a real baby. So why would the false mother even choose to have half of a dead baby? In fact, Solomon’s supposed wisdom would only draw outrage from both mothers. It would not produce the truth.

King Solomon’s law and The Father’s Law assumes that the false, usurping mother is a being of terrible violence and injustice. The bringer of death. This is the misogyny at the heart of The Father’s Law in a patriarchy. This is how the law conceives of women. The devouring Mother.

Yet, bizarrely, The Father’s Law enacts the wish of violence and devouring of the false Mother. Solomon says that he will cut the baby in half. In fact, the law models itself on this false, devouring, usurping mother.

This is a case of the law’s projection. It uses the false devouring and usurping Mother as a screen which actually reflects back its own being in injustice, in violence and duress, in usurpation. What is being mirrored is the law’s reality. It is not the false mother that is unjust. It is the law itself. Why else would the law mirror the false usurping woman?

At the same time, the legal strategy attacks the real mother. She is subjected to the symbolic violence of the law that will devour her baby.

This is the reality of the patriarchal Judaeo-Christian law that has been inherited by the West. It is based in structural misogyny and deflection. It is against The Mother. It is aggression against The Mother. And yet, this is what is described as wisdom.

the book i can’t bring myself to publish – recovering from ostracism in academia

18.09.2026

Academia kept me out of the game. Complete rejection and ostracism.

I am writing this as someone that published a book and several academic articles, some in top journals. On paper, it looks like I was accepted by the community.

In fact, I have made no significant money from my studies. They’ve never given me an opportunity to teach. I don’t have any network aside from two kind law professors. The articles? I wrote them by myself with almost no help, although I was lent a book by my network for one. I don’t consider this acceptance.

What does it feel like to be marginalised by a community that you wanted to be part of? It is heartbreaking. When you are an intellectual and you can’t afford to be in the game because it will not accept you. When your special talent is lost outside of academia.

And the effects?

My second book is in draft form. It is a very important book. It shows how madness is constructed. It could help many people. The four people that have read it have described it as important, and highly original. One called the research within it breathtaking.

Yet that book has sat there for four years in first draft form. Instead, what is happening is that I am working and working, studying to improve my career prospects. Because I know that I will get nothing out of that book for myself.

What did I get for my last book which was also important and original? No job. No kudos. No status. No network. No respect. No recognition. There was one appreciative book review in a journal. No citations. It is the same with the articles. Just a few citations.

If that is what they are offering, why would I slave away at this second book? Why would I sacrifice my life for these people if they can offer nothing? I am not a saint. You cannot eat self satisfaction in publishing another book. All that happens is that the publishing company makes money from it, from my work. I would have to be their slave.

So you see, because of how they have treated me, I cannot perform. And this book, which could change the world, it is sitting there. It has only been read by four people. It is my masterpiece. It is revolutionary. And it is going to sit there. Unread.