the expectation of dismay

12.05.2026

A: What do you think it is that your readers expect of you?

S: They expect dismay, despair, desolation, derision…

A: Out and out negativity. Cynicism.

S: If they want to read about a fool’s happiness, a dupe’s joy, then they should go to the mainstream media.

A: Why can’t you write something that they actually want to read?

S: I’m not going to pander to them. I am the lone voice that actually says the truth. I say it like it is.

A: They are never going to accept your low view of humanity.

S: Yet that is the reality. You know this moment in the world is atrocious? All of the old racism has returned with a vengeance. Fascism, and what is worse, mediocrity, has overtaken the world. There is the climate change disaster which they are hardly doing anything to avert. Then, on top of that there are all the wars, the dismal job market, the growing isolation and loneliness in society, the decline of manners and culture in this supposed civilisation….

A: You always focus on the negative.

S: What is there that is so positive?

A: Be thankful for the good in your life. The loving parents and friends that support you. The fact that you are working and contributing to art and culture. The fact that you can volunteer where you like because you have the health and the talent to do it. The fact that you can follow your creativity. The technology that aids you in this life. Above all, be grateful for the fact that you have that fine mind, that discipline, that amazing body and stamina and that relentless drive and ambition that allows you to perform at the highest levels. That privilege that you were born into a rich country so that they can’t hold you in contempt because you come from the Untouchables and the Dalits. That privilege that you went to one of the top universities in the world and that you have five degrees as well as a doctorate, that you have been published as an academic writer. You crow on about how special you are. Be grateful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon you.

S: There is a man that is a god. And this god spits upon this cheap and mean world and everything in it. Because this man is a god, he should hold the highest honour. And they have not given it to him.

A: Do not let this sourness dictate all of your thought.

S: Why not? Achilles is the greatest and he is sour. The honour belongs to me.

A: Why do you hold onto your humiliation?

S: Because the humiliation is the seed for the storming tree of vengeance.

A: This ego and this revenge, they will crush it. There are more of them than there are of you. You are all alone against them.

S: It is not true. I am the dream of The Oppressed. I am the dream of The Mother. Behind me there stand the minds and voices of all of India, six thousand years of us. I come from Punjab which has fought against every oppressor and won. We are the men that all of India look up to as warriors, as The Tiger. This criticism of this society which they cannot bear, this will be how they look at this civilisation in history. It will be our view that prevails. We are the past, the present and the future. History is written by the victors and we are the victors. We never lose. That is why we are six thousand years old. Nobody can stand against us. No one. Certainly not the non men.

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.

light and darkness (microfiction)

21.10.2025

A: It is Diwali today. The triumph of light over darkness.

Me: Does light really triumph over darkness? Are we celebrating a real victory?

A: There is a philosophy behind that question. Go on then. Out with it.

Me: This world is darkness. That is my philosophy. I am the light. I am the sun. And I am losing against the darkness.

A: So why do people think that the light has triumphed then?

Me: There is no limit to a self-serving delusion. They think they live in a world of justice. Because it serves them.

A: It is easy to say others are deluded. It is hard to admit your own delusion.

Me: Then that would mean I am the same as everyone else.

A: It means that you are no better than anyone else.

Me: Why should I be? But to add to the philosophy, why should light win? What is inherently better about light? The Dark Mother, Kali, she is the darkness. She is the shadow self. And she is the perfect warrior.

A: You are not a warrior. I have told you before. You worship warriors but you are not one yourself.

Me: You are wrong. I am the true warrior. The war that I am in is a spiritual war. Harder to fight. More time consuming. More draining. I last because I am powerful.

A: I keep on telling you that the world is not against you.

Me: And I keep on telling you that you are wrong. It is.

A: You have told me yourself that all of your closest friends are from the dominant culture. That means that not everyone is against you.

Me: We argue together all the time.

A: That is because of you. You are argumentative.

Me: What do you expect from Punjab?

A: Stop calling yourself Punjab and India. It doesn’t do you any good. Not all Punjabis and Indians argue all the time.

Me: The Tiger is warlike. The Tiger fights. Punjab is the warrior culture. Your mouth and your fist had better be instruments of war. We are known for being warriors. We are known for war. Our language is known for its energy, our bodies for our strength…

A: Boastful, pessimistic, cynical…

Me: A proud Punjabi. A proud Indian. And an Englishman. That actually has a backbone.

tomorrow the enemy (microfiction)

03.09.2025

‘You love fighting, do you?’ Alfonso asked me. ‘With a name like Tiger?’

‘I’m not going to deny it.’

‘You watch those violent Hindi films. Don’t you think it is ridiculous that the hero is always fighting? That might is right?’

‘The hero fights against might in the films. Showing that might is wrong.’

‘Why does he win in the fight? Surely that is might is right?’

‘The hero wins because he is morally superior. Not stronger. The hero wins because he is good. And good will always triumph over evil in the end. That is why we fight. We are the good. The Tiger is goodness.’

‘Look at the world around you. Evil has overtaken this planet.’

‘Not all of it.’

‘You really believe? Despite all of this? Despite your life? Despite the treatment you have gotten?’

‘I can’t be the only person in the whole world that tries to be good.’

‘And yet, you love fighting. Fighting means hurting someone.’

‘The human condition is that we allow others to hurt us. Quite badly. Even your lover is really your enemy.’

‘You don’t feel regret when you fight with someone? When you are otherwise so soft-hearted and considerate?’

‘I was born to fight. I was trained to fight in martial arts as a child. I have been in the debating society at school and university. I argue. I fight. It is who I am. To have good in the world, you have to fight for it. The message of the god Krishna is that it is the duty of a king to fight. We are not like others.’

‘You are so big headed. You call yourself a king. You call yourself a god. You call yourself a hero. You call yourself The Tiger. Not even just Tiger. You call yourself The Tiger.’

‘If there is anyone better than me, I have never met them. People might be better at me in one thing. But not in so many things. No one can compete with me or keep up with me. I have always been the best. I am not arrogant about it. It is just fact.’

Alfonso laughed and shook his head. ‘I am not like the others,’ he said. ‘I know that you are talent itself. I know that you deserve this world on a plate and every happiness it has. I am your real friend. The one that can value what you are. But forget this conceit.’

‘As long as you do not lord it over others, there is nothing wrong with confidence,’ I told Alfonso. ‘The reason they hate my confidence in this country is because of my brown skin. They want us to shrink and grovel in front of them and accept the shit they want to stuff down our mouths. Well I have news for them. They can eat shit. Not me.’

Alfonso laughed. And I looked at him and laughed too. It is good to laugh. Tomorrow the enemy. But the future? That is us. The Tiger.

people that don’t give you what you want (microfiction)

24.08.2025

‘How does it feel not speaking to people that don’t give you what you want?’ Alfonso asked me. He was reading over something I had given him and he looked over at me from the tablet in his hand. It suited him well, the look of a reader. My handsome, kind reader who gave me whatever I wanted. Unlike other readers in this world.

‘It is well.’

Alfonso laughed. He clapped his hands with the tablet in it. ‘Such a terse and cogent answer! And why is it well?’

‘Everyone talks to someone because they want something from them.’

‘Typical cynicism from one known for cynicism. Can you not be positive in life?’

‘Who has proved me wrong?’

‘Many people are kind to you.’

‘Except for the ones that I care about the most and that I wanted to be kind to me.’

‘You have an answer for everything.’

‘I am Punjabi. What do you expect?’

Alfonso laughed again. ‘And how does it feel now that you no longer make art any more?’

‘They say that art is worthwhile. But it is not worthwhile when you have brown skin. That is this culture. Nothing is worthwhile from you if you have brown skin. And then they talk about diversity, equality and fairness. Their culture is a joke and they are a joke.’

‘Be careful,’ Alfonso warned me. ‘You are in the position of least power.’

‘Yet I am the most powerful’, I said. ‘Because I am The Tiger’.

‘Let us return to the earlier question. Do you not feel awkward not talking to people, avoiding them, blanking them?’

‘Why? That is how they treated me. Like I was nothing. I’m merely showing them the mirror of themselves.’

‘No you’re not. They talked to you.’

‘Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words.’

‘They have done nothing to you.’

‘Precisely. They have made no investment in me. Therefore they should feel no loss.’

‘It is not good to use a cost benefit analysis on other people.’

‘Why not? It is what they have done to me. I was not worth their while. So they are not worth my while. I am merely reciprocating the sentiment. If I am not on their wavelength, they are not on mine. They are not worth wasting time and thought over.’

Alfonso rolled his eyes but held his tongue. It is useless to argue. No one ever changes their opinion. The Right fight against the Left. The Libertine fights against the Repressed. The Anarchist fights against the slaves to the state. The evil fight against the good. The enmities that have been set stand in stone. And The Tiger will fight forever. Because he was born to fight. He is loved because he fights. He is hated. Because he fights.

Jiggling the Jelly (microfiction)

06.08.2025

After a promise to write in the night, I sat there at my desk in my boxer shorts scratching away idly at my inner thigh as I endured a severe writer’s blank. I tried the usual methods to break the blank. A feverish search in my vocabulary of words. Reflection on an experiences that would inspire something. Themes.

Nothing worked.

There were certain things it was now best to avoid. That was not helping. Because it was those things that were on my mind the most. The unfinished business…

Suddenly I felt tired so I grabbed the laptop and lay on my bed. And, immediately when I done so, all the words and ideas came flooding in.

Curious. Had it been the change of scene? But why? I am comfortable at my desk and habituated to writing there. Then I realised. I had laid down. Which had changed the orientation of my brain.

I had jiggled the jelly.

That was what had sparked off the creativity. All I needed to do was to change the orientation of the mass inside my head. Maybe if I leant to the left, that would mean that I would produce poetry or soemthing like it. Then, the right might produce prose and non-fiction. Maybe if I leant my head back while it was straight, I could produce some good erotica.

So simple. All I had to do was to introduce different movements into my routine.

I tested it out. I lay down and tilted my head to the left. Failure. I started thinking of they, all the moments. They were on my mind frequently.

I tried the other side. It was worse. I started thinking of the big C word. My career. And out of work time too. I shuddered.

Why was the writing impulse so elusive today?

But if it was the jiggling of the jelly…

‘Eureka!’ I cried. The solution was so simple. I slapped myself on both cheeks and on my forehead. That would move it.

I pummelled away at my face with my open palm. Unfortunately, however, you can not get much writing done when you don’t have any free hands. The jelly was jiggered and not jiggled. And in all the experimentation, I had forgotten the idea I had when I laid on the bed. There was not going to be any story tonight.

My discerning, demanding readers would be most displeased.