S: They still read. Some are very loyal. In a world where loyalty is rare. Where time is precious and limited.
A: Do you think they wonder what you are up to nowadays? Outside of fiction?
S: I am sure I am a curiosity. A warrior from the old world. A so-called ‘toxic male’.
A: Did you not tell me that, in person, one told you that you led an uneventful life? That you did not do anything?
S: Apparently I do nothing and nothing happens. And yet the readers are riveted to my writing for some reason. Funny that. I am all over London everywhere and yet I am always doing nothing.
A: What did you do today?
S: I am not saying. I am denying anyone that reads for the vicarious feeling of pleasure in my life.
A: What do you think these readers make of you?
S: I am everything to all people. Friend. Inspiration. Argumentative. Childish. Mature. Egotistical. Humble. For some, an absolute enemy.
A: Every writer faces some kind of hostility, agreed. But what is it that you are trying to convey through your fiction?
S: In his mind, the writer has the idea of one who is in accord with him. Perfect sympathy. The beautiful reader. The ideal reader. The one that loves him. Perhaps, she reads.
A: That is what you have in your mind. Others dream of money and fame. Immortality.
S: I dream of love. I write for love. I work for love.
A: And yet, love is precisely what you don’t have.
S: The forms of love are various. Some come. Some don’t. In love, I am a beggar.
A: The philosophy of India is that the one who has the least is the greatest. Don’t forget that.
(Editor Welcome written for an Equality and Diversity newsletter)
An ancient religious and spiritual metaphor, the labyrinth signifies that we are in the midst of confusion. That we have no clear path, no clear destination, that we don’t know where we are going. And therefore, that we do not know who we are. Because without purpose, we cannot find our destiny and identity.
But what is significant is that the labyrinth is an ordered structure. It is just the order of the other. That is why it is confusion. And remember, there is a solution to the labyrinth. There is an escape.
This is why I believe the idea of the labyrinth resonates with the struggle to find true equality and diversity in this world, true unity. Sometimes, we all look at the world around us that has been created by others and ask ourselves, amidst this entanglement and disorientation, can we ever find our way? Against the order of the other, how can we create an order of our own? Can we escape from this order into freedom? It is a daunting task to even begin.
Personally, I always put the example of India before me. And I think of our freedom fighters. These brave men and women were up against the greatest superpower the world had ever known. This superpower was the law. It was the government. It was the country.
But they did not shirk from the colossal challenge that was before them. They knew that they had to carve out their own path in these convoluted bureaucratic and legal structures, their own destination and their own identity from the entanglement that was presented to them.
They did it. India is free. And because she is free, she gives me hope. And I trust that she will also give the world hope. There is a legend around that either Zhou Enlai or Mao Tse-tung replied to a question about the influence of the French Revolution by saying it was too early to say. Whether or not this is true of the French Revolution, it is certainly true of the Indian Revolution. And I look forward to seeing how much of an impact this can make for all of us in this world.
‘Over my wounds, he poured his praise. The recognition of my talent. As a writer. As a scholar. As a fighter for justice.’
‘The praise healed you? What is praise?’
‘This praise comes from the wise,’ I said. ‘It comes from those in the same game that I have played. They are masters at the game. They have dedicated their lives to the game. And now, they have themselves called me a master.’
‘What is the subject of this praise?’
‘The book which will proclaim my genius to the world.’ I said. I knew the true value of that book and how it would transform thought. I, the genius, I knew what the gift of my genius would mean. What it would mean for the People. And for the Revolution. Whoever had read it had gasped with admiration. There were four of us that knew the secret workings of this world from me now. The heart of the Revolution.
And this genius had meant a price. A heavy price. I stood completely alone in the world. Because genius stands completely alone. I was not a mortal man. I was not like them. I stood apart. Like a god. It was my destiny. This mind had been forged by six thousand years of India. This thought had been crafted by the ideal of The Tiger. How much had I done to become the one that solved the riddle of the Sphinx? No one else was capable of this ambition, this drive, this persistence, this discipline, this work, this born talent. That was why I was a genius. And they were not.
And what did this genius want? This genius had vowed revenge upon this society. Upon the law of the unjust. In my mind I kept on seeing myself in a boxing match with the law. We would circle each other. And I would sink the fatal blow. In my mind I kept on saying the phrase in Hindi, ‘I will break your face/mouth otherwise my name is not Love.’ [agar mainein tera mooh na todhdeya to mera naam mohabbat nahein hai].
On the walls of my heart, there were the photographs of the freedom fighters. In my dreams, there was the Revolution. And them? On the walls of their hearts were the bastards that had raped and pillaged the world and made it into a hell. Their leaders? Criminals. Nazis. Their love? Injustice. Selfishness and ego were their creed. They were my enemies.
And against my enemies, my millions of enemies, I had my voice. The voice of The Tiger. The roar of The Tiger. I am the Truth. I am Justice. I am god that has been born on the earth to rid it of sin. I am the one that loves Mother India and is beloved by her, the son that protects her honour.
The praise had confirmed the intent. I was going to do what it took to get this book published now. Now was the time to strike the hammer against the iron. The process had already started. The book had been accepted in all but formality.
There was one that stood against all. There was one that never bowed his head to anyone but The Mother. There was one that never fell. There was the one that was born to be the seer and the leader. Once there was one whose ego was invincible, whose stubborness was legendary and who was the ungovernable, wild beast, FREEDOM.
Jai Maa Kaali! Inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab saada zindabaad! [Hail the Dark Mother! Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution Live Forever!]
Today, Alfonso had been worried about me. I had ended up in the Accident and Emergency department in the hospital again. I clung to danger. Danger clung to me. Of course, it was the leg. The leg again and again. The scars of love will ache and hurt never goes away. The world did not want me to stand upon my feet. But I stood upon my feet. And I swaggered when I walked. I was Punjabi. I was The Tiger.
It had been touching to see him so worried, with that diamond veneer that he had which was so hard and polished. At times, he could be cruel and dismissive. He had a pretence of insensitivity. But he was like me, sensitive and, ultimately, loyal.
Because it was unclear what the risks were, I had had to cancel my evening plans for working before I had found out. It had turned out to be alright and I had got the all clear. So I had a whole evening free. I had watched the Hindi remake of ‘Groundhog Day’ which was one of my favourite films. Alfonso had asked me to tell him about the film. Who knew India better than me? I was her most loved son. The one that had married her, Mother India. Her son and her most devoted lover.
I wrote:
A common story in India for all, the film is about unemployment. And not only unemployment, but also the unfair demands that the families of women have. Which is that, as a man, you not only have to be working, but that you have to have a top government job to have their daughter. Indirectly, the film is a criticism of the slaves to the state and their corruption, their slavish mentality, their sickening and conformist, selfish and materialistic grasping of the resources of the oppressive, exploitative state and the inhumane bastards that sustain it, those who do not care about preserving life in a world of corruption.
It is not enough that the state steals, pillages, rapes. Worse than that, you have to dedicate your life to its atrocities.
The film explores the nature of altruism, goodness and the preservation of the life force through the lens of the Bhagavad-Gita. The motto that you should do good actions and then not worry about the results or the rewards that you get or the cost that it will take. This is the philosophy of the warrior from thousands of years ago. The philosophy of war. Because Krishna who I am named after persuaded Arjuna to go to war for justice against everyone he knew and loved when he was going to withdraw from the battlefield. And I have been raised on that philosophy and the Mahabharata where those scenes come from. I have been raised in that warrior culture. The film is about us, the warriors.
As I watched the film, I thought about my own youth. I did not want to work in a job where I was making the rich richer. That was not my destiny. I wanted to work in a job where I did service for society. For justice. And so, I could not get married. Because I did not have a high status, high paid job. The unfair demands of other people could not be met.
In the film, the hero is stuck on the day before his wedding. He is stagnating in a life without marriage and love. After all, that is my life. That is the life of the man that does not want to be a slave to the state in a world of slaves to the state, to the rich and the powerful. Instead, this man wishes to be good. To do good things. He wants to be a hero and not a slave.
The woman that he loved, Titli (Butterfly), she spent all of her time arguing with the hero. Her voice was magical. A memory came back to me. But what was she? The one that seduced the man into the evil and oppression of the state. She was a siren.
The story is a comedy. There has to be a happy ending. Yet in real life, if you are not a slave to the state, then you cannot catch the butterfly in your hand. You watch it dancing away in the air, like her, the angel.
However much the warrior craves the sweetness of the siren, however sweet it is to die in beauty, he has to resist. Odysseus was tempted by the siren. He had to impose deafness and silence on his men and get them to tighten his own bonds so that he did not fall into the death in the mouths of the siren. But Odysseus is not Indian. He failed to stop his own ears and accept deafness and silence himself. He is the pawn of the state. When he feigned madness, he was still trapped by the state. He is a slave. Odysseus listens to the song of the siren. He is enamoured by the trap of the state, the trap of the siren. The trap of slavery.
The warrior has to forsake love if love is from the slaves to the state. The warrior has to forsake status if that status comes from the state. In a world of false wars and corruption, the warrior only has one duty. To not only forsake the state, but to destroy the state. Because to do good work, that is the only way. The way of the warrior. When Krishna taught Arjuna in the Gita, it was to go to war against the state, the evil usurpers and oppressors. Arjuna was the son of a god, he was divine. God cannot serve the state, he must be against it. It is our duty to take the power away from the state and to become truly noble, to serve the people and justice. This is warrior culture.
I can live a life in sickness and without love knowing that I am not a slave to the state and knowing that I have not killed my humanity. After all, it is better than the alternative.
In this film, there is the spirit of The Tiger. Of Krishna, the liberator and the revolutionary. I am not alone. India courses through us. I am India. Six thousand years of knowledge and war are in us. We are the Revolution and the days of the state are numbered. The state is a mere blip and dead end in human history.
Inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab saada zindabaad! Jai Maa Kaali! Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution live forever! Hail the Dark Mother!
Last night, my friend invited me to come down to the Dickens House as it was free entry. I had been before a few times a few years ago when I used to volunteer at the Foundling Hospital Museum down the road. Charles Dickens is one of my favourite authors as I admire his maximalist style, his sentimentality and also the fact that he came from an impoverished background and was a champion of the oppressed (except for the colonised and the Indians). As I am a published expert on Charles Dickens (‘The Preservation of the Power Name ‘Boz’ and the Foundling’ in The Dickens Quarterly), I decided to go down and give him a tour around the place. It was almost like being invited into the author’s home by the author himself. A visit to the ghost.
On arrival, I was given solicitous care by the staff because they saw I was carrying a walking stick. And almost at once, I met a volunteer I work with because I am also in the museums industry. As ever, he showcased his great customer service skills.
We started off in the kitchen downstairs and I was very pleased to see how inviting and friendly the volunteers were. We spoke to two of them, one an intern who was a student in Museum studies. The volunteer in the kitchen was very knowledgeable and we talked about Dickens’s love of food and wine which stemmed from his starvation as a child. We speculated on whether he would have spent any time in the kitchen. There was a likelihood as he was quite fastidious in matters as a whole and food was one of his especial subjects. In the corner of the room there was an interesting curator label – after Dickens, one of the residents in the house had been a sufragette who had slashed the Velazquez Venus in the National Gallery.
In the laundry room, I commented to another visitor, a blonde American lady, that this was the height of sophistication and luxury in that period. They even boiled the Christmas pudding there once a year!
On the ground floor, in the dining room, we admired the Moses Pickwick clock that had been gifted to Charles Dickens. I had written about Charles Dickens’s assumption of the name Moses in my article, so I knew quite a lot about this gentleman who had been a foundling. We speculated on who had carved the letters C.D. onto one of the utensils in the room.
The second room on the ground floor was the morning room. We spent quite a while gazing at the portrait of Catherine, Dickens’s wife. This captivating piece was painted by Daniel Maclise. The setting is the morning room itself. In response to what one of the visitors said, and sadly to disillusion her, I mentioned that Dickens eventually separated from her and even tried to get her admitted to a lunatic asylum. There was the President of one of the Dickens Committee there and I told her about my article about Dickens.
Upstairs, there was Dickens’s study and the drawing room. I was excited to see the desk where all the magic happened. It was always the highlight of my trip there in the past. A volunteer called Michael answered my friend’s questions and told us about the lighting at the time for writing. Then he answered my questions about who owned the house at the moment and showed me to the drawing room because I said to him that I had heard that the descendant of Dickens was there too.
The drawing room was magnificent. It must have been such a wonderful experience to meet the author there. The descendant was a handsome, brown-haired, articulate and charismatic young gentleman called Ollie. I watched an eager crowd filming him as they asked him questions. I waited until they had gone and asked him if he wrote himself. Not so much he said, although he was an actor. I said that then he was following in Dickens’s footsteps and we talked about the author’s dramatic experiences.
In the exhibitions space, we admired the only surviving costume that we knew Dickens had worn and talked about his heroism when there was a train wreck. It was also a great highlight to see the Gold beater’s arm (‘the Golden Arm’) of a Tale of Two Cities. While for Dickens, it stood for the brutality of the Revolution, for me the anarchist, it stood as a symbol of hope for the transformation of the present and the future.
On the second floor, it was interesting to learn that Dickens had surrounded himself with mirrors so that he could practice his acting. I imagined him there, gesticulating in front of his mirrors, refining the expressions on his face, communicating something to his imaginary audience.
In the dressing room, we looked out of the window that Dickens might have looked out of. An emotional moment was in Mary Hogarth’s bedroom. I imagined her dying in Dickens’s arms and I said to my friend that I found the sentimentality in the work of Dickens very affecting. I had found the death of Little Nell (modelled on Mary Hogarth, his young sister-in-law) to be quite affecting. It is the emotion that Dickens arouses that is the draw to his work in a modern Western literature of restraint, of stunted emotion and stunted prose.
The whole room was dedicated to death and the vacuum it brings with it. The death of Mary Hogarth and Little Nell was likened to the death of Dickens himself in an exhibit, ’The Empty Chair’, Gad’s Hill–Ninth of June 1870, a print of an engraving by Samuel Luke Fildes. Apparently, this haunting image of the author’s absence influenced Van Gogh who also famously painted an empty chair too, to play with the idea of absence and presence. I am an admirer of both Dickens and Gogh, so this creative correspondence was highly engaging.
After I had looked at the empty chair, I myself fell into the empty chair in the room. I have had that leg operation and I needed a rest for the niggling pain in my shin but I was very pleased that it wasn’t that bad over the past few days and I am improving on the strength in the leg. The volunteer very kindly cleared it and gave it to me. An elderly lady passing by me looked at me conspiratorially and fanned herself, evidently in the throes of a hot flush.
My friend and I read a children’s book together in the book corner to do with a Jewish woman called Eliza who had written to complain to Dickens about his representation of the Jewish Fagin. The children’s book was intended to show it as an example of social transformation and atonement for wrong to a people. I did wonder to myself what Dickens would have made of me writing to him as an Indian to address the wrongs that he had done to our people in his writing (“The Perils of Certain English Prisoners” for instance showed his lack of sympathy for the Indian Mutiny). What was interesting about the book is that we think these kind of debates about identity are a mark of ‘woke culture’, when we have been having these debates for centuries. And still racism persists. Because people will not wake up from oppression, prejudice and injustice.
In the upper floor, we talked about the influence of the raven in Barnaby Rudge upon Edgar Allen Poe. And whether ravens could actually talk!
On the way out, Ollie and the other staff gave us a warm farewell. It was a nice ending to a beautiful visit. I remarked to my friend that I was inspired again to read the novels of this master. Looking around at the lived reality and material objects and scenes that had given form to the works had really enriched my understanding of the memories of reading and being in the mind of Dickens. The experience was invigorating, incredible, intimate.
Photographs reproduced by permission from the exhibition curator for my personal blog which is non-commercial and written with ‘fair use’ for academic comment and analysis. I will remove any photographs if there is any issues and there has been any misunderstanding.
One of my favourite Hindi songs says that love is expressed by adorning a flower in a love letter. It is what the writer (the lyricist) says because he writes to the woman that he loves. Here, we have a book with a flower inside it. Of course, fairy tales come to us mostly in books now that the oral tradition is dead. One of the themes of this book series by the artist is supposed to be the ‘journey inward’. Following the Protestant Revolution in reading, a journey into a book is a journey inward, as you try to understand yourself through the reading, to arrive at a distant truth. But is the destination the flower? Perhaps for some. And then, what does the flower represent? Or, more to the point, what does the flower not represent? For me, the flower will always be Woman. And Sex. Or, to put it in symbolic terms, connection. Which leads to reproduction. This is the destination at the ultimate aim of the journey inward. The Flowering of the Mind.
The nymph in the fairy tale, the artist says, is the subject of transformation, someone that can be anyone, and influence the natural world around them. This painting is about the power of transformation. Is the context the global nightmare that is human induced climate change? Is the hope in transformation about this? There are red scribbles on the woman’s body. Is this blood? Is she hurt? Will transformation heal her and the planet? The painting is across two screens and cut in half. There is violence at the heart of this image.
The fear of death: the brief glance at death’s feet as he slides down a chimney to kill an old married couple from the Polish fairy tale. Unseen death covered over and disguised in a structure of disavowal – we conceal the reality of death because it is too traumatic when we are grieving, like the reader will grieve the violent endings of these fairy tales. A traumatic illustration that has followed the artist around since he was a child. Accompanied by the book that has had pages torn out from it and sutured to the chimney which is made out of paper – the stuff of trauma.
Sanem Özdemir ‘Evvel zaman içinde, kalbur saman içinde /Once upon a time, in a griddle of straw’ (2024)
A testament to the strong women in fairy tales. And woman as beginning, since the title of the painting is about the traditional Turkish beginning of the story. Woman is beginning because she is the origin of life. Woman is beginning because she is the one that teaches us to look, talk, she is the one that writes our destiny in life. The beginning is woman and the ending is woman. In Western culture, this is recognised in the palindrome: the words for the mother begin and end in the same letter: mum, mom, ma’am, madam.
The woman is by the water. The beginning of the land? The beginning of life in the water for all life on this planet?
A comment upon the ubiquity of the female saviour and their self sacrifice in fairy tales – and in life.
The egg at the bottom perhaps indicates that one of the themes is about female reproduction since women have eggs – that sacrifice for children is written into the biology of women. The idea seems reinforced by the imagery of nature in the piece, with all the trees. But then, the cultural images above the egg suggest that it is a social construct that women should sacrifice to save others (is this paradox?).
A kingly figure is flipped upside down, perhaps to indicate that the collage is an attack upon male ego and patriarchal rule – that which dictates the script.
In speaking, Darico told me that feminism has changed the way that we look at the world and fairy tales.
This is a reinterpretation of a painting which reinterprets an opera which reinterprets a story about magic and love – the fairy tale animal princess that gives love and bestows presents:
As a reinterpretation of a reinterpretation of reinterpretation, this is about the influence of fairy tales and the games of Chinese whispers that they create to forge the identities of readers, artists, opera writers and photographers.
The work is for a charity which supports Downs Syndrome, which the muse has, and some of the proceeds from the work will go to a theatre for those with the syndrome. So the whole thing is about the creation of culture from culture from culture – the never ending cycle of stories with stories within stories, copies of copies of copies.
Did you know that Down’s Syndrome comes from an extra copy of chromosome 21? Did the photographer know this? If so, then the work is about copies and their creation of differences, at the level of images, stories and even at the bodily level.
Katia Kesic ‘Affirmation 5. Take the courage to be seen’ (2022)
The fragmented hand that holds up the mirror to us. We look inside it. We are seen – but by ourselves. This is perhaps supposed to be looking at ourselves honestly in the mirror, having the courage to do so. But, perhaps, at the same time, it is about the courage of being seen as an artist – someone that holds up a mirror to the world – with the artist’s hand which creates the work. There is no disconnection – the artist shows us who we are.
A representation of fear as distorted body, darkness, abstraction, the vague, the indistinct, the blurred. The photography captures the fear in time as a product of time – so there is motion blur. Why the time? Because fear passes. In a sense, this is a photographic history of fear. Just as the fairy tale is a literary history of fear. There is a parallel though – both are fictions.
Because real fear is when you look at the ugliest things in the whole world in crystal clear photographic fidelity and they are emblazoned on your mind as a scar which keeps you up at night, screaming in your dreams. So these photographs and fairy tales are actually protecting us from the reality and the trauma of fear. The acceptable face of fear which masks.
These Indian women represent the Mahabharata and Indian mythology featuring male gods? Why? The series is called ‘My Head is a Vessel Full of Thoughts’. These women are the artist that has been inspired by Indian culture. And she has become strong, a load carrier as a result. These images are about the strength of Indian culture. But also woman carrying the weight of myths about men, gods and heroes as men.
The mirror that the woman sees her face in, with her back to us seems to be in half the shape of a heart. Is it about a concealed love? Since the partner in the mirror of the heart is absent?
The wounded heart is black. Because it is the black that have been hurt. The heart is cut open and its bleeds – the violence that has been inflicted upon the heart is the violence that has been inflicted upon the love of the black. Instead of love given to us, we are cut to the core by the hate of this society and the ‘lovers’ in it – since they can never love us. The wounded heart is the rejection that we, the black, face.
There is a face with four eyes in symmetry with one another. In India, there is a saying that in love, two eyes become four. We share the gaze with someone. Our perspectives blend into each other. In fact, when you look into the eyes of the woman you love… But this is another story that the woman that you love knows…
“The Arachnids were found on witch’s altars in southern Russia, dating back to the early 18th century. The text includes unpronounceable spells, and the images contain some particles that can be used in the preparation of a love potion”.
In the artwork, we are presented with women’s magic: the magic of love. So the question is, who is this spell meant to make a lover of the artist? Is it us, the viewer? Are we supposed to love the artist witch? And what is the nature of this love – with these unpronounceable spells that only work through writing? A reflection on women’s silence in love – when the men have to do all the talking while the women never move their lips? The lover the artist wants is a secret of silence…
Elena Stashkova ‘Herne’s Golden horns’ (2023)
A representation of the horned god of the European peoples. In gold to suggest that mythology is gold, that the god still has enduring and everlasting value in culture. A comment perhaps on the valuations that we bestow on the gods in mythology. Perhaps an attempt to bring to the earth the imagination, to breathe life into the treasures of story and culture (like Agammenon’s golden death mask at Troy?).
This is ostensibly about death and loss. But if you look at the female figure’s dress, it transforms surreally into a clown’s face with a big bow tie. That is spooky and perhaps relays the idea that tragedy can turn into comedy and comedy into tragedy.
Crying is heavy. We carry it. She is carrying the tears around her neck. And, like a farmer, she appears to water the earth. The tears have faces. She is sowing heads into the ground. Because the head has the brain in it – sadness makes us see reality because reality is sadness. That’s why sadness is the head and the mind. Suffering makes the mind grow.
This is a reflection of pure emotion. But what emotion is it? Red for anger? Red for desire? The big, dilated eyes could be anger or lust. The idea of a ‘bloom’? Emotion as the flower? Lust causes a red blush. Anger makes us see red. Maybe the ambiguity is intentional. A deliberate blurring of distinction. Maybe you have to be a Greek to understand this one.
Lera Dergunova ‘She’ (2024)
Artist statement:
“Flowers have always symbolised significant aspects of human nature, such as life, death, love, passion, and power. My first memory of a flower comes from “Beauty and the Beast”, where I was scared by the Rose losing its petals, symbolising imperfection and lifelessness. Through my work, I aim to help people accept their internal softness and the parts of themselves considered “weak” and “defenceless”. I want to unify opposites and show that their strength lies in acceptance and integration”.
Gaining strength through crotchet, confronting fear and the idea of fragmentation and developing resilience through repetitive patterning and creating a whole which masters trauma and loss.
Alona Rubinstein ‘Metaphorical Cards’ (2023)
Artist Statement
In my metaphorical cards, I strive to offer viewers a unique way to find answers to their inner questions through imagery. These cards, created by hand using mixed techniques, predominantly watercolour, serve as a tool for self-discovery. Each card contains a metaphorical image that can be interpreted based on personal experience and intuition.
Suneels’ Comment is ‘no comment’ – because these ones, the whole point is that you are supposed to look at them and go onto your own journey. I have been on my own journey with these. However, one point. With the embrace, there is one behind that does not embrace. The past is rejection.
“This diptych explores the life and death of a modern Thumbelina. The girl could not withstand the current ecological conditions and was buried in a teapot. In today’s environment, fairy tales are not always possible.”
The idea that current reality kills the fairy tale. The diptych seems to be about the death of romantic love. And therefore the death of everything that is human. Because in the story, Thumbelina falls in love with someone and has a happy ending. The current climate is killing love.
diary of a lone man 