the failure of the university and the motivation for a masterpiece

10.10.2026

There is this book sitting on my computer. It is a masterpiece. It will change the world. It is something that none can see but me and it has affected human thought for thousands of years. It is so big that no one can see it but me. But it has lain there for five years untouched.

Four people have read it. Senior academics. They have agreed on the book’s importance. Because I have shown how madness is created in culture. I have exposed the game.

Why then, if this work is so brilliant, if it is so world changing, it lies hidden? Why, when this book could prevent the cultural construction of madness and the mad, why do I not finish it and publish it? Why do I not just submit a book proposal to an academic publisher, work on the first draft and get it out there?

All of the motivations I had for publishing academic work seem to have dissipated now that I know exactly what it is that you get when you do publish. My first book was also important. It showed how we were constructed as readers and viewers by the law. How our minds were usurped by the misogynistic constructs of legal reading. And what did I get? No job offer at a university. One book review after about four years. No citations. No letters from readers of the book. A few hundred pound’s worth of royalties.

Where was my reward and my recognition for almost a decade of thought and scholarship?

How many of these academics in these universities do you think published a book from their doctoral thesis? How many academics could make such an original and important argument? Yet I got literally nothing from it. Why? Because academia does not want someone like me in it.

So even though I can create the most important thoughts, the most important books, the most important scholarship, what is the point?

This ignorant world does not get any wiser. It ignores and marginalises any thought that can challenge it. It will starve the thinker. And the people that are getting all of the resources in the universities? It is because they fit in, not because of any meritocracy. They follow the agenda. If things were based on merit, I would be sitting at the head of the top universities in the country. Because I am producing masterpieces.

I look back at my life in university and I genuinely feel that it was a waste of time and effort. All that work. All that thinking. For what? What effect has it had? When I had to sacrifice everything for that study, including any chance at a personal relationship and a family? And then, why keep on sinking time, money and investment into this for nothing?

People wonder why the genius is so dissatisfied. Why they won’t share their genius with the world. Look at the conditions for genius. They will not give a career to the genius. They will not give any understanding to the genius. They will not give any recognition for the genius. They give it to his intellectual inferiors in this system of unfairness. They want his work for nothing. They want him for nothing. But he will not give his work for nothing. And he will not give himself for nothing.

But there is this thought at the back of the head. Those that have been made mad by this culture. The genius is their voice. He knows how to help them, give them the tools to fight back. He has written a masterpiece for them, for all of us. Will there come a time again when he becomes once more their champion, become the one that protects them, become their warrior? He is a genius. What does genius expect? Work. But can the genius work with the conditions that he has been given? In the failure of the university, in the failure of a research institution which does not value the best research?

western law and the love of the lie

Dr. Suneel Mehmi (LLB, LLM, PhD & Published Academic Author in Law and Literature)

05.10.2026

In my analysis of King Solomon’s legal judgement, which you can download as a short booklet on my ‘About’ page, I wrote about how this legal icon was a liar. How the law is supported by lies. Fiction. Untruth. Sleight of hand and deception. The legal hero of the West is a liar. The lie, it will be noted, was to go against a woman. And for exposing this truth? They had no place for me in Western academia. Funnily enough, in a world of stench and corruption, the truth teller and the one who cares for justice is not supported.

The judgement of Solomon is not just the root of Western law. The figure of the King Solomon legal hero permeates the whole jurisprudential structure. This is the inheritance of Western law. We can see it in the fictional legal heroes of the West, from Victorian times to more modern literature. The legal heroes of the West are all liars. And the lies oppose women. The law is a misogynistic lie.

Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Impersonates Charles Darney to deceive the French legal system and to have himself executed by guillotine. Here we have this lie which actually subverts the legal process and justice. Note that the lie thwarts a woman, Madame Defarge who thirsts for justice and revenge against the class that Charles Darnay represents. The lie is an evasion of the justice of a woman. And the result? Sydney Carton is celebrated in Western culture as is his final speech in the novel. He even figures as a hero in philosophy, as a ‘secular Christ figure’.

Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This supposed legal inspiration lies at the end of the novel so that Boo Radley is not imprisoned for killing Bob Ewell. Rather unconvincingly, he agrees that Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Note that Bob Ewell represents his daughter who lied to make up a rape case to prosecute an innocent, Tom Robinson. Bob Ewell represents a woman’s voice and place in the law (where she can only be seen as a liar). Therefore, one can surmise that the lie of Atticus Finch (The Father in the novel, and The Father as The Law) is attempting to oppose a ‘lying’ women’s justice with its own lies. There is a competition for the law, for untruth and deception. The concept is of woman as deception and the law wants to be deception. And the result? Atticus is an inspiration for men to go to law school in this legal culture of injustice and lies.

Elle in ‘Legally Blonde’ by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith

Elle impersonates a lawyer to get her friend Paulette’s dog back from Rufus. She makes made up legal threats to Rufus to intimidate him and presents a fiction about common-law marriage and property rights. Obviously, Elle is a woman law student that becomes a lawyer in the movie and she is representing a woman, Paulette. The misogyny of the law is embodied in Elle: she is a lying woman. She is deception. Obviously, Elle takes on misogyny and prosecutes Chutney Windham in the murder trial, who she exposes as a liar (since, according to legal logic, women are liars and woman herself is deception). And the result? Elle is an inspiration for women to go to law school in this legal culture of injustice and lies.

How can you expect any justice in a legal culture which celebrates the lie and liars? How can you expect any justice in a culture of legal misogyny? These are the legal heroes of this culture. These are the fictional characters that are driving students to go to law school in the first place, as anyone that knows anything about Elle and Atticus would know. This is what this culture worships. The lack of reality in law. The lack of reality in personhood. The covering up of the truth to achieve an end.

reading versus life

03.10.2026

In a novel that I was once reading, there was this episode. A man who was a bookworm aimed to relinquish books and reading because he wanted life. But then he saw what life was and was disappointed. And then he turned back to books.

There is this opposition. Reading versus life.

A voracious bookworm myself, there has always been this tension between reading and life. When you are living, it is difficult even to find time for reading. It is difficult immersing yourself in a book. It is difficult to be able to take on board what the book is saying.

And when you are reading? Then it is difficult to live. There is the time factor. There is the fact that you are studying, thinking and writing about books and concentrated on that.

In books, you have the best of thought. In life, you have the best of company. In books, you have a direct correspondence with one author, an intimate conversation. In life, you have many people.

Life is like a whirlwind. Reading is like a monk’s cell.

Still, over and over again, this choice comes up in my life. Reading or life?

I did an English literature degree in the past because I wanted to read more. I want to read more. It has been a constant in my life. But how do you balance life with the desire to read? There is no money in reading. They would not let me become an English Literature Professor at the Universities. Reading does not give you any material reward.

Life can give you material rewards. Life can give you relationships. Life can give you experiences.

Perhaps, however, reading gives you experiences and experience too. Are these any less real than experiences in the real world?

There are perhaps over six hundred books on my bookshelves at home that constantly admonish me that I have not the time for them. Because over the past four or five years I have chosen life over books. Every day, I think to myself that I will make more time for reading. But how much time can you put in? An English Literature degree with first class honours. A PhD in English Literature, Law and Art History. Journal articles about major authors such as Charles Dickens. Having read most of the greats. Reading is never ending. Life is never ending. How to reconcile the two?

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.

Theatre Review: Who Killed Marilyn?

19.08.2026

A play that was about love and its absurdity. We had the most desirable woman of her time that was absolutely beloved by the public. But the irony? She could not find love in her relationships. Marilyn was presented as the victim of love. She was presented as one that was oppressed by that which masqueraded as love but which was not love. The idea of love that was being used to mask oppressive power.

The question that kept occuring to me throughout the play was why did these super desirable women appear to choose men that would beat them, desert them, never really love them? When there were so many good men about. It is an extraordinary fact that such women will often choose the man that is completely wrong.

Part confessional, part therapy session, and mostly in monologue form interspersed with narrative action, Pixie Lot’s performance as Marilyn was engaging, even mesmerising. The focus was on Marilyn’s relationships with men, mostly her romantic relationships. The idea seemed to be to expose the conspiracy of love. How it favours the men that were in power. How its victims are seduced.

I myself have written about the conspiracy of love. And how it affects Asian men such as myself. In a play like ‘Who Killed Marilyn’, the thought is acceptable. Because of feminism. Is the thought acceptable when it comes from the pen of an Asian man? I would suggest not. Yet we see these conspiracies of love. We feel them and orientate our life around them. As in ‘Who Killed Marilyn?’, it is a power play.

How did Marilyn come across in this play? She is presented as a woman of talent who is not taken seriously by others because of her beauty. She is keenly sensitive to slight, to disrespect. She has horrors of being taken into mental institutions like her mother and her grandmother. She is presented as a voracious reader. As an intellect. And? Also as a writer that keeps a diary with secrets that could shake and take down the world and its system of power. The play is about Marilyn the writer and her power. The divine feminine energy of the writer that writes the truth. And the play is about truth. What is being said, whatever happened, this is a counter narrative that aims to expose power and mechanisms. Not the individualising narrative that lays the blame for the death of the writer and the actress on Marilyn herself, conveniently hushing up the context in which eradication takes place and death is formed.

three good deeds in five minutes

29.07.2026

S: It really does not take long to do good things in this world.

A: How so?

S: You really can do good wherever you go.

A: Really?

S: You know, just a few days ago, I stopped a fight. Two young men were beating up another younger man together. I stopped them.

A: Surely that was just a one off?

S: Not at all. On Saturday, I shared my photographs of an event with the organisers even though I was not paid for it. Yesterday, I arranged something for volunteers at a place I work in by giving my time not only in organising, but also on the day.

A: This is something that you often do.

S: Because I always aim to make life better for anyone that I know.

A: Any other good deeds recently?

S: Checking up on an elderly friend because she is not well. Again yesterday.

A: And anything else yesterday?

S: Yes. To illustrate this idea that you don’t have to do too much to do good things, let me tell you about my visit to the Oxfam book shop. Now, I was there shopping and I picked up this book by Steven Pinker about language, ‘Words and Rules’. It was on at £4. However, I browsed through the book and saw that it was a signed copy, with the author’s signature on the front page. Here was this signed copy in my hand. I could have bought it for just a few pounds. But I didn’t. When I got to the front desk, I told them that it was signed and that it was worth a lot more than the money they had put on it. In fact, it turned out that the book was worth £100 pounds. Therefore, in just a few moments, I raised a hundred pounds for the charity. They are now going to sell the book online. They thanked me profusely. I said ‘What kind of person would I be if I ripped off a charity?’

A: So that was another good deed.

S: Not only that, but while I was at the desk, I let a young woman go in front of me while they handled my query about the signed copy. And then, on top of that, I lent her my pen so that she could write in the card that she was purchasing.

A: You did a lot. But then, you realise, that by telling me about it, it appears that you are promoting yourself.

S: It is not promotion. It is rightful pride in helping others. When I achieve something, I am rightly proud of it. All of these examples above show that I am committed to helping others. That I try to be a good person. And yet, despite all this help that I give to others, however much I try to be a good person, did you not see how hard it was for me to meet someone? Because you are never rewarded in this life for being a good person. You go through life making things better for everyone but instead of rewarding it, people exploit it. They try to use you and then throw you away. They have no love in their hearts for you and your goodness. The ones that value goodness, they are few and far between.

the drying out of hunger

21.05.2026

S: I am feeling the hunger drying in me.

A: You have just finished four years of study. You are entitled to rest.

S: The biggest challenge to the warrior is not the enemy. The enemy is weak and ignoble, a coward. They are non-men. The big challenge is to keep the hunger for revenge.

A: It has been many years that you have been fighting in this war. You are getting old. How long can anger last?

S: This rage must last for an eternity.

A: Work yourself up. Remember what they have done to you, the Oppressed, and The Mother. It is the duty of the warrior to fight even after the head has been lost.

S: This lonesome war. This spiritual war that will never end. Where the fight comes only from one side, my side. Where there are no worthy companions. This spiritual war in which the warrior has to hold onto his humiliation.

A: This is the reality of war. It takes all. It takes much. And you must take it.

S: In the film Ghayal (Wounded), the hero of revenge watches all of his companions fall about him until he is the last man standing.

A: Even he had a companion at last. You have no one. You are alone. Dharma is to follow the duty of the situation that you are in. There is no one but you. Therefore you are the war and The Revolution. You entirely. That brain of yours has marked you for solitude. You are exceptional. Therefore you are the leader of this movement. You are the Independence. It is for you to do everything and anything. It is for you to create the voice and the vision of The Revolution. Just through your existence you are the fight.

S: You are the one that believes in me.

A: Only they who have felt the wound can believe. You have felt the wound too, intensely. We are one. But it is you that has the talent.

S: This talent is a burden.

A: Life itself is a burden. And still we bear it.

S: Tomorrow, once more, The Tiger will rage.

A: It is the prayer of the people to see this anger vanquish all. It is the time of the demon and the liar. Sin has outweighed goodness in the world. The Mother, they have stripped her naked and they come to rob her of her honour. She has cried out for her son, for the anger of The Tiger. You will not defend your Mother? You are not a man?

S: You are right. For all that they do there will be a reckoning. We count the insults and when the time comes we will devour them. This drying of hunger, it is a sickness that they try to instill in us. Our strength is our anger. Because it is the anger of justice. We have sworn to protect what we hold dearest. The Mother expects and we must meet that expectation. Otherwise, she who is most precious will be lost to those that learn and teach hate and oppression. Warrior duty is the war. Love asks for revenge. The coward cannot be the victor.

the false benevolence of the law and its corruption

14.05.2026

In the Mardaani 3 film, the villains are Amma which means ‘Mother’ and her son. The female cop pits herself against the identity of The Mother, the poor woman.

Or does she?

There is a curious mirroring between The Mother and the female cop (The Law). Amma criticises the law by saying it serves the rich, not the poor girls. The female cop criticises the law for serving the rich and not the poor girls. Amma uses a certain strategy with her son to infiltrate the law. The female cop copies her strategy to infilitrate Amma’s criminal network.

The female cop also uses the body of Amma as a weapon, as the solution to resolving all of the issues in the case. She exploits the mother son bond and the figure of the poor woman Mother. In the movie, there is also the invocation of the Mother figure of power for the female cop as a puppet show is depicted in which Durga The Mother Queen, the Mother goddess fights against her enemies.

At the same time that the movie is hostile to the poor Mother and depicts her as a criminal that exploits poor girls, the film is trying to reclaim her body and position for the law. It is copying the poor mother as the source of real legitimacy. This is because the film is going against the traditional culture of India which is to celebrate the poor mother as the source of legitimacy and authority. Ask me, I am named after it, the son that weds Mother India in the movie of the name with the poor Mother in it. There is this false face of benevolence to the law because the female cop is supposedly trying to help the poor girl, she is supposedly good.

But the law is not good. It is trying to destroy the power and the legitimacy of the poor Mother. It is trying to destroy the Mother/Son bond of protection and love in the movie. While no one is justifying child trafficking or any of the villainous aspects of the villains in the movie, it is worthwhile noting how they attempt to demonise the poor Mother. Amma is supposed to be attacking and killing poor girls, which is actually what the female cop is doing because she kills and silences Amma in the movie by shooting her in the throat, suppressing and marginalising the voice of the poor Mother. She does the same to the son that loves the poor Mother. Amma is supposed to be exploiting the bodies of poor girls, but who else does this? It is the female cop by exploiting Amma’s body as a weapon.

The law is falsely benevolent and it is corrupt. The fact is that the female cop acts for and with the rich and powerful Father of the rich girl. Against the poor Mother.

all before eight thirty in the morning

31.03.2026

A: You like listing things that you have done. Go ahead.

S: I’ll tell you what I did in the morning before 8.30 am.

A: Let’s see how much you were capable of.

S: On the train, I did language learning in German, Spanish, French, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. Reading poetry, dialogues and news stories. I also read the Metro newspaper, particularly on the Iran war which is affecting my friends. Then, I did the quick crossword and the anagrams on the puzzle page. Finally, I read a poem on the way up the escalator at Holborn, a woman’s poem about the body and its relationship to various metals.

A: Then?

S: First I bought a chicken and mushroom slice from Sainsbury’s, then I walked over to Ole and Steen and bought a £2 offer, which was a berry and pistachio treat. I got in to work then ate that with some tea in milk. Which was followed by working on my fashion photography and charity work by uploading some photographs to my social media after messaging my girlfriend.

A: More and more.

S: There is still more. Then, I wrote letters. I told my mentors in my academic discipline about the book review that I got for my first book and also thanked the academic that had taken his time to write such a glowing review.

A: I hesitate to ask. But is there more?

S: I haven’t even included everything. But there is more. Then I did some writing. And now, I am about to do some reading. Stendhal’s ‘The Red and the Black’. It is about love and power.

A: The work day has not even begun.

S: All hours of the day are work. Even play. Because I work to make that play happen and often the play is itself work. If we were not busy, then we would be dead. And then there would be quiet. That is the difference between the quick and the dead.

the readers (microfiction)

07.11.2025

A: Do you still keep that website?

S: I only write fiction nowadays.

A: Yet you have retained your readers?

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.