Madame Defarge’s Revenge

20.11.2025

S: Do you know the difference between an Indian story and the stories of here?

A: Which difference? There are many.

S: The story of revenge. In India, we must have our revenge. A life dedicated to revenge is a good life. Here, revenge is not permissible in thought.

A: What about Boudica?

S: She fails. We win.

A: Elaborate.

S: Madame Defarge is totally justified in her revenge. They took the honour of her sister and killed her. She fights for all women against the oppression of the rich and powerful. After all, they subject these women to atrocity and the absolute force of their corrupt power. She dedicates her life to justice and revenge. But yet, the rich and powerful walk away untouched from her wrath. They portray her as unjust when she is the Revolution.

A: Nobody agrees with you.

S: Because I am Indian. Not because I am wrong.

A: What about India?

S: Have you ever heard of Phoolam Devi? They raped this lower caste woman. They dishonoured us. They thought we were nothing. She got herself a gun. A group of soldiers. They chanted Jai Maa Durga, Jai Phoolam Devi! Hail The Mother Queen, the Mother Goddess, Hail Phoolam Devi! They tracked down the rapists. They killed each one. Justice for the people. She was worshipped as a goddess. That is the difference. A real story in real life.

A: You favour a woman’s revenge?

S: You do not know the people that worship The Mother, her children. We are not like the others. We are warriors. We come from the honour society. The Mother asks for her revenge. They have dishonoured her. I am named after my mother’s honour. You know the story.

the drunken gait of love (microfiction)

19.11.2025

S: One in love moves as though drunk.

A: A cliche. They are always saying that love is like being drunk or being high.

S: Sometimes a cliche has some truth to it.

A: Do you believe?

S: That love is like drunkenness? Would you have me elaborate on the drunken gait of love?

A: Go on then.

S: Reason flies out of the window. They might have a thousand faults. Yet you love them. So they say that love is blind. Reason could be seen as sobriety. So sobriety goes out of the window.

A: And then?

S: You need more? Happiness, the happiness that comes when you are drunk. When you forget this miserable world. You drown your sorrows. That is the drunken gait of love too.

A: You are saying that you cannot have happiness without intoxication, either that of drink or love?

S: How else can you be happy?

A: Why else do you say there is this drunken gait of love?

S: If love is a journey, it is conducted as though one were a drunk. You meander here and there. It is impossible to move in a straight line. You go somewhere, you cannot leave that place. You are stuck. What else is it if not a drunken gait?

A: You told me that you disapprove of drink. Do you then disapprove of love?

S: I disapprove of what masquerades as love when it is not love. A love that comes from fascism, control, convention and conformity. Not to mention its other undesirable attributes, which I won’t, so as not to get myself into any trouble.

A: People must learn to love from somewhere.

S: Do you know why they despise love marriages in India? Because they are not based on reason. They are based on temporary emotion. Reason is more enduring than a moment of passion. Reason is more enduring than drunkenness. And it is better for society to work on reason.

A: Who has ever followed reason? Whose reason? What reason?

S: You speak to one that does not follow reason in love. That has the drunken gait of love. That chose what his heart said. Instead of thinking they are different, I thought that I loved them. Instead of thinking that it would not work, I thought that I loved them. Instead of thinking that society was against me, I thought that I loved them. And that love would do and be everything. If there is one drunk in love, it is me. Them, with their practicalities, they are what kill the lover. Them, with their reason, they are what kill the lover. Them, with their sobriety, they are what kill the lover. I would rather be drunk. It is better to leave this life than to leave the drink of love.

Tolerance

19.11.2025

S: You know, the racist has this ugly word, ‘tolerance’.

A: Why is it ugly?

S: Everything about a racist is ugly. Their faces are ugly when you find out that they are racist. Like Roald Dahl said, if someone is nice, they might have a wonky nose, but they are still beautiful. Inside, their hearts are ugly. And their words are ugly too.

A: But why is ‘tolerance’ ugly?

S: Because the philosophy of the racist is that they bear your company if you are different, under suffering. They are forced to be with you. They do not see you as a person, but as a burden. They are with you under compulsion, without consent. It is a form of rape.

A: Who are you talking about?

S: They will know. They will hear. I will not say.

A: Aren’t you speculating here?

S: Do you think that a racist will ever reveal the wicked thoughts in their head? Even the racist knows that these thoughts are unacceptable and inhumane. And yet, they only love like for like. When they choose, they choose like for like. They have not acceptance or love of difference. Instead, they have ‘tolerance’. Which given how evil this world is, is acceptable vocabulary in those so-called ‘civilised’ countries.

A: What would you do?

S: These people that use these words, they should…

A: Forget I asked. I see the expression on your face.

S: I am a warrior. It is only the warrior that fights for the difference between sin and goodness. It is only the warrior that stands between sin and goodness.

A: You would fight against a word?

S: In the beginning was the word. It is what any culture revolves around.

A: You think you will win?

S: When you stand up against a system of corruption, greed and evil, you know that you will not win. Quixote tilts at the windmill. But Quixote is a champion of love. He knows his duty. Love stands up against a world of hate. In every era, this is the story. There are those that bend over and are fucked. And because they are slaves, they love it. And then there is the lotus flower that springs from the slime and muck to stand as enlightenment. Hate produces its own nemesis, love. From the heart of the slave springs the free man. The Mother chooses a champion. What is victory in this world? The warrior has one creed: right action without reliance on a reward. Krishna himself says so in the Gita.

the unpredictability of endings

18.11.2025

S: There was a boy from the lowest castes. A boy born in the working classes. A boy from the minority here.

A: So? There are many like him.

S: This boy dreamt of one thing. To be the voice of his people. Their champion. This boy dreamt of The Revolution.

A: What happened to this boy? Has he become a man yet?

S: The man still dreams. But his dreams are besieged by the unpredictability of endings.

A: No one can know the ending.

S: The Greeks said that the gods roll dice. Fate is arbitrary and random. Fate is not a line. It is a game.

A: There are those that have said that god does not roll dice with the universe.

S: If there is a god in this wicked world, it is me. And I do not gamble.

A: No, you risk everything. Which is worse.

S: I am the warrior. It is my duty. Old age stands at the corner, another enemy that wants to piss over my plans, another crony of a world of enemies.

A: Have you not always fought everyone for your principles? You are proud of saying you are a warrior from the warrior culture, the old world.

S: The prayer of the people is for god to walk in the world to vanquish sin. It is the prayer of my Mother. The heart still beats and the blood still flows. Somehow I am standing on my feet. She has her hand upon my head. There is much to do, everything to do. The Revolution pleads for an heir to her. One day, peace will come. Until then, may this arm be the strength that The Mother has longed for. I cannot forget what I have sworn to do. Always one more surge. Jai Maa Kali!

the eyes

17.11.2025

S: A look for a look. Eyes into eyes. Two gazes becoming one.

A: What about it?

S: She searches for who I am. I search for what she is.

A: How do you know what she sees?

S: Who can know everything? And yet we look. The heart searches.

A: What is this one that you search for?

S: She is sympathy. She is compassion. She is connection to this life.

A: Your look is a hunger for life?

S: I look at the colours in her eyes. At the blackness in the centres. The eyes are the crowns of the face, the universe in a face…

A: Can everything be in an eye? Can anything be in an eye?

S: The look is effort in this life. My great grandfather was a saint and they say a power fell from his blue eyes. Those blue eyes that have been gifted to me from India. With all my power, with all my masculine energy, I look into her eyes. Looking for the gaze of the Goddess in return, the divine feminine. Shakti. Power itself.

A: The eyes are twin sisters.

S: When you look with desire, the looks of desire become twins. They become magnets. They become magic.

A: You have learnt hypnosis.

S: The enchantress has taught it to me.

Impatience (microfiction)

S: In the Indian songs they sing of restlessness, impatience, lack of peace. ‘Bechaini’.

A: In what context?

S: Love.

A: You have felt it?

S: You have not?

A: It is a question for a question?

S: Apparently. We rush towards them. Within the heart, a wild stallion rushes at full speed, impossible to bridle… Will they come? Do they still love me? Are we still together? The desire to meet them, to have them, it increases and increases…

A: It is true what they say. Love is a sickness.

S: I hope we all catch this disease. What is wellness if it is not love?

A: Everything cannot be love.

S: That is because the world is made by those that do not and cannot love. Or can only love themselves.

holding hands (microfiction)

16.11.2025

S: When I got into the station, a young hooligan pushed the gates to get free entry. Then, when I came home from London, again at the same station, I watched someone push through those same gates to get out. The workers there did nothing to stop it both times.

A: I feel like this is not over yet.

S: When the bus was pulling out of the station, it had to stop. Some idiot had parked his car in the bus lane so that we couldn’t squeeze past.

A: Why focus on these things?

S: I’m trying to tell you about the people that I live with in my area. What I have to live with.

A: Forget about that. Talk about something different.

S: Why do people hold hands?

A: To connect?

S: But how did it originate? Why grab someone’s hands?

A: It is the primary way that we touch, through our fingers and hands.

S: That might be one explanation. How about this for a theory? If you hold hands, you can never lose anyone. You are attached to them.

A: What makes you think that?

S: Over the past three years, with the brutal treatment that I received from those that I loved, when you suddenly snap apart and there is nothing any more, when before you thought you would have them forever… You need to hold hands to stop that happening. You need to be attached to someone.

A: Isn’t attachment just connection?

S: Attachment conveys more of an idea of sticking together.

A: How about this for an objection? When you hold hands, you don’t just hold hands. You also caress the hand and the fingers.

S: And how about this for a reply? When you caress, you are looking at more places to attach yourself to, to connect to, to love.

A: Well, I hope for you, you find many places to love.

S: What is this journey in life but finding those many places to love? And then loving in those places?

fear (microfiction)

16.11.2025

S: You are asking me if I feel fear?

A: Yes.

S: Never in a fight.

A: Which means that you do feel fear. When you are not in a fight.

S: The conscious mind you can control. Not the unconscious.

A: What do you mean?

S: The nightmares. The fears that your conscious mind cannot acknowledge.

A: And? Anything else?

S: There is one fear that everyone has. You cannot escape it.

A: And what is that?

S: That the ones you love will die. That they will leave you all alone in this world. You will have to look upon the ugliness of their corpses. Naked death dancing through the world in all of her obscenity.

A: Why obscenity? Death is natural. Some think death is peace. Liberation from this unliveable world that the living have made within it. Accept death.

S: In the film ‘Sholay’, Thakkur comes back to his home. There is silence outside the station. Along the floor, there are bodies strewn about, covered in white sheets. Nobody says anything. He walks and lifts the covered sheets from the bodies. He looks death in the face. It is the entirety of his family. The last one, it is the body of his beloved grandson. The death of the innocent. The children…

A: Why are you talking about this scene?

S: Because the face of Thakkur when he sees the body of his grandson haunts me. It is full of grief. But more so than grief, with rage.

A: Why are you haunted?

S: Because this is what we look at as Indians. This is what we look at in this generation. They are killing our Indian children. The villain that kills Thakkur’s family is Gabbar, who stands for arrogance, (which is what his name means), selfishness and greed. They are killing us and ours with Gabbar’s qualities. I am watching six thousand years of Indian civilisation being ended in just one generation with greed, selfishness and arrogance. I am staring at death with rage, like Thakkur. The family is what makes us us. I am looking at the death of the family.

A: They live.

S: They are corpses that have motion. And to look upon them is to grieve India. Thakkur’s grief is the story of ‘Sholay’ and us all. Because Thakkur has seen what we all fear.

the conditions of writing (microfiction)

15.11.2025

S: The conditions of writing are always changing.

A: Why?

S: Because the readers are always changing.

A: But does the mission not remain the same? To leave a witness to the life that is experienced?

S: What do we write for? Is it not love? Do we not write for love?

A: Perhaps you do. Many write for hate. And they are the ones that are read.

S: To hate hate and to love love, that should be the way.

A: People do not love love. They hate love. And they love hate. You wonder why they love hate so much.

S: Because it is much easier in this world to hate than to love. Love is what is difficult. Almost impossible.

A: Some love easily.

S: Is that real love? Surely real love is difficult. But to get back to the earlier point. The conditions of writing have changed. The grief is over.

A: Really?

S: If not over, then buried away.

A: What did you grieve?

S: Love itself. I jumped into her coffin. I danced with her corpse held in my hands.

A: It sounds excessive.

S: It was justified. And necessary.

A: Nothing is necessary.

S: You are mistaken. You forget the ardour and the passion of The Tiger.

A: If the conditions of writing have changed, follow the conditions. Follow the reader.

S: I follow her alright. And I also walk alongside her with her hand in mine. To connect and to make love, you take a journey together through words. The words are lights in the darkness that point the way.

the machine (microfiction)

14.11.2025

S: How do you build the perfect warrior?

A: Haven’t you seen those action films? You inject them with a serum. Or you give them a bionic body.

S: It is not the body. It is the mind.

A: How so?

S: The perfect warrior is one that has anger. He is a berserker on the battlefield. Anger gives you strength and valor.

A: Surely anger makes you make mistakes?

S: You can get away with many mistakes in a fight. The other thing you need is loyalty. Loyalty to the cause.

A: Undying and unthinking loyalty?

S: Not unthinking. And undying except in special cases. There are many such qualities. The most important one is love.

A: I knew you would say that.

S: It is a complete misunderstanding of war and love to say that ‘I am a lover and not a fighter.’ In fact, the lover can only be a fighter.

A: We have heard this before.

S: The perfect warrior can only fight for love. The perfect warrior can die for love.

A: What if there is no love in this warrior’s life?

S: You need motivation in life. You rush home to talk to someone. You rush to where you are going to see someone. It is love that gives energy. Freud said love and work. That is what makes a life.

A: And the body?

S: India made a machine. The machine came from the farmers and the serfs. Full of natural muscle. With an insane stamina. A body that can do a hundred hours of work a week for over twenty years. A natural athlete. Strength personified. But the body? It is nothing without that iron will, the indomitable spirit and the audacious, powerful brain…

A: Who do you talk of?

S: The one that scares the cowards. The one that bows his head to The Mother. The one that is the boast of Punjab…

A: The Tiger…