control (microfiction)

04.10.2025

‘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.

game theory and genius (microfiction)

18.08.2025

‘You know, game theory is the truth. It’s how humans behave.’ As usual, it was me and Alfonso. It would always be just me and Alfonso. Because there was no one else in my life. We had our own little world, our little kingdom together. Yes, we were both kings together. And I, a solitary king.

‘Of course, you must go on,’ said Alfonso. He was wearing exquisite jewellery today, bedecked like a Hellenic dream of Persian magnificence and luxury. For him, fashion was everything. Style and substance. It suited him well, gold. He was a golden man.

‘Game theory says that no one will change the brute stupidity that they run their lives by, because they have set it down as the rule.’

‘Is this the usual rant about stupidity and conformity and the stupid conformists?’

‘You know me well. Could a genius say anything different?’

‘And what would a genius say about game theory?’

‘Game theory also applies to genius. Look at myself. My research was revolutionary and interdisciplinary. I am the last generalist in a world of pedantic specialists with their disciplines and their tunnel vision. They could not take it. The brute stupidity of their rules in a putative academia could not take real intelligence. They insist upon their stupidity as their rule. The way I can put things together into new combinations and innovative formulations. It is the same wherever I go. No one can keep up with me and therefore they try to marginalise me and throw a shade upon my magnificence.’

‘You are all ego.’

‘I deserve the recognition. You know it yourself.’

‘I do know it!’ Alfonso slapped his thigh and laughed. ‘Only you know things. But remember, the stupid hate the clever. It is in the Greek tragedies with Medea. The foreign woman…’

‘I am the foreign woman.’

‘Yes. And therefore your cleverness is abhorrent. It will get you nowhere. It does not matter if you achieve, educate, learn, do.’

‘And that is something that I know. I am the genius that suffers from game theory. I am cleverness against stupidity and limited perception.’

‘Dont worry’. Alfonso sighed. He often did so when we spoke. Alfonso believed in me. No one else could but he could. And he believed in me because he knew my talent. He had recognised something in me. Others recognised and still they shunned and still they sinned with their unfairness. But yet, truth exists. Philosophers thought the whole world was a lie. That all learning was a lie. It was not so. I had discovered the truth. I knew truths about justice, injustice and human nature as it had been corrupted. However anyone tried to keep me down, I knew. I was wise.

‘The inventor of game theory,’ continued Alfonso, ‘descended into madness. Be careful what you know and how it affects your mind. Remain a genius. Do not forget yourself in insanity. Pride yourself on sobriety and avoid intoxication. Cling to the truth while others drown around you. And voice what is rather than what is not. In the Gita, work is done for the sake of work, not for the reward. For neither love nor money. And money…’ Alfonso smiled, ‘is something that you have.’

But not love.

The Indian Vocabulary of Love and its Meaning

14.01.2024

I’ve been watching Hindi films since I was a child. It is how I learnt to speak Hindi (my language at home – my mother tongue – is Punjabi, not Hindi). Hindi speakers have many words for love. Not like English speakers. Here are some – Ishq, Aashiqi, Mohabbat, Pyaar, Prem, Lagan, Chaahat… There’s probably more. Hindi is a rich language.

Here are some more metaphorical ones, which touch on some of the ways that love is experienced and conceptualised in Indian culture:

Ibaadat – Worship. When you love someone, you love them like a god or a goddess. They are important, powerful, masterful over you. They rule over your heart. They take the place of a god or a goddess, commanding all your loyalty and faith. You trust them without question. You hope everything from them.

Aetbaar – Belief. When you trust them with your heart. You can rely on them without question. They are the one person in the whole world that you can count on the most to stay with you through thick and thin. You expect everything from them, total commitment.

Wafaa – They hold your loyalty. You will never stray from them. The trust and the bond between you is unshakeable.

Behosh/Mere hosh udhgayee – Unconscious/My senses have flown – How love is experienced. Your mind goes on a holiday when you see them, think about them, are around them. They command all your attention. You can’t focus on anything else.

Amaanat – They say that your lover (usually a woman) is your ‘amaanat’ (‘thing or property committed to the trust and care of a person or group of persons’ – https://rekhtadictionary.com/meaning-of-amaanat?lang=hi ) A red flag for Western feminists, but indicates the possessiveness that a lover will have over their sweetheart – and even in English, you still say to someone ‘You are mine’ or ‘You are my girlfriend’.

Here are some terms of endearment which further indicate what love means in Indian culture:

Jaanu/Janaam/Jaaneman – ‘My Life’. Love is for life. Your lover is your life. They are everything for you and they are for you forever, like your own life. They are precious like your life.

Mitwa/Yaar – ‘Friend’. Indian culture does not make a distinction between friendship and love between a man and a woman in this term. Which perhaps indicates the truth – that your lover is your best friend.

Humraaz – Someone who has the same secrets as you – you share your secrets with them. You trust them. They are the only ones you can share your most personal thoughts with.

Humnava/Humsafar – Someone who is a fellow traveller through life’s journey with you (the ‘ride or die’ chick). You are committed to the same journey. You have the same mission in life.

Humdum – Someone who has the same life force/breath (‘dum’) as you, your soulmate, someone who is the other part of yourself. The sense of connection, of seeing yourself in them.

Humdard – Someone who shares the same pain as you, because you are so connected. What you feel, they feel. They are the mirrors of you and you are the mirror of them (love’s mirror).

Huzoor – Master – they rule over you because you love them. And you accept their sovereignty over you.

Deewana – Crazy one – because you go crazy in love for someone.

See more terms of endearment from the Hindi movies here:

Titles in the Mehmi Press – Free Download

The Mehmi Press is an online Open Access publishing company which I founded in 2023. It is completely free to download, read and share my creative work. I hope you enjoy reading these titles which include microfiction and an artbook. Self-publishing gives you a freedom you cannot enjoy anywhere else and a sense of achievement which is hard to find in this world.

Stay on the lookout for more titles in the future!

By Dr Suneel Mehmi

SELECTED NOTES ON RACISM

PUBLISHED 2024

With a focus on the British Asian or Anglo-Indian experience, these are writings about the subtle strategies of racism in western culture which shape everyday life and also the cultural imagination through fiction and films. The aim of the book is to expose what is concealed but which orders life in Western culture for the ethnic minority and the majority culture.

SEVEN DAYDREAMS

PUBLISHED 2023

Seven daydreams which I have been immersed in constantly. From dreams of freedom, to dreams of imprisonment, from dreams of knowledge to dreams of the body beautiful.

STORIES FOR MY CHILDREN

Published 2024

These stories are lessons, adventures, a means to share life and my experience with the little ones. An attempt to replicate the wonder of stories which my grandfather introduced me to, the ultimate storyteller. Written in 2015. The first collection of many to come!

MICROFICTION 2022

Published 2023

Microfiction self-published on social media amidst the Covid pandemic, job search status after a PhD and the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

JUVENALIA: Stories for the University Newspaper

Published 2023

Microfiction published in various student newspapers with a twist in the tail – sometimes quite nastily.

PAISLEY ART BOOK

Published 2023

An exploration of what the Paisley symbol means to me as a digital artist and how it signifies the tears of India for me as they are appropriated by the West.

POETRY TO THE IMPOSSIBLE WOMAN

Published 2023

Poetry sent in an Impossible Way to the Impossible Woman.

MEHMI’S Introduction to Hindi Film (10 Favourites)

Published 2023

An introduction to some of the most iconic, historically significant and popular Hindi films through an exploration of ten of my most favourite films.