the ache of not learning

14.10.2026

I can speak seven languages. Not fluently in all languages, not by any means. But I can read well in each language. Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Spanish, French, German and English. My weakest are Spanish and German (I can read Ancient Greek script as well because I did Ancient History at GCSE which I got an A for as well, but have forgotten most of the vocabulary).

However, on my bookshelves at home, I have textbooks and dictionaries in all of the languages that I want to learn: Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, Greek, Italian, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, Russian, Portuguese, Modern Greek… But where is the time to do the study? I don’t even understand how I could have got to seven languages already with no time to do anything (I am being modest. It is because of my ability to remember and to retain stuff).

Alongside these language books, there are primers on photography, graphic design, art, architecture, economics, history, botany and plant science. Dictionaries of quotations. There are over 600 books on my bookshelves.

Despite all of the things that I do, all of the many jobs (Curator, Tour Guide, Writer, Publisher, Historian, Scholar, Artist, Writer, Photographer, Manager, Visitor Experience, Administrator, etc.), I still have so many things that I want to learn and to do. There is a never ending list.

And the obstacles? Time and energy. Time and energy. The books I have managed to buy from charity shops at little expense. You work all day. You come home. Do you have enough energy to read those books, to study those books? Do you have enough time to go over things again and again until they are settled in your memory? Especially when you are doing degrees and graduate degrees while working?

In the old days, to be a scholar meant to be a monk. That would free you up for studying all day long. You didn’t have to earn a crust. You didn’t have romantic entanglements. You could just study and study and study with no distractions.

Undoubtedly, the best time for study was when I was a full time student. There were bags and bags of time to study. Being an adult student is hard work.

I know that I can do it. I completed an Art History degree with First Class honours alongside a professional floristy qualification while I was working. With my personality, it is never enough. I want to be a genius. And genius requires work. And work requires time and energy.

The question is, when will this energy run out? I work, I volunteer, I love, I keep up with my friends and family. I write and write and write. I cram in as much reading as I can. It gets harder and harder as more and more things become crammed into life. But always there is this ache for learning. For more learning. I ache and ache and ache. It is the hunger. The one thing that they cannot teach you. You have to be born with it. And no one is more hungry than The Oppressed, the Low Castes, The Dalits who were starved of learning. I have to live with this hunger and ache with this hunger. It will never be over.

for every work a story

04.10.2026

It is our stories that get us through our lives. Whatever disappointments and prejudices that I have faced, whatever variety of jobs I have done, I have always told myself a story to perform. As a result, I have garnered praise in every single job that I have done. It is that voice inside that tells you to believe and to do.

Here are the stories that I have told myself in each of my roles:

Leader (Gandhi) – that I am a natural leader. That I was born to be a leader and a role model for my community, for the community of The Oppressed, the Dalits and the low castes. That they unfairly took the positions of leadership from us when we were the most worthy. That I am fitted by intellect and capability to be a leader and this is what my community expects from me. RESULT: Manager in my current and last position.

The Pioneer (The Great Explorers like Shackleton) – The story is that I am gifted. That I can see things that no one else can see and get the ideas that no one else can get. That I have the courage to get things out there in the world. RESULTS: Setting up of so many projects: newsletters, tours, initiative after initiative in cultural institutions and education.

The Creative Genius (Van Gogh) – I am special. I am an unrecognised genius that can turn his hand to anything, poetry, creative writing, photography, art. RESULT: Published poetry, Published writing, Published photography, Commissioned artist.

The Saint (Guru Ravidas) – Helping others because I am stronger and privileged. From a poor background, I am comfortable. So it is my duty to help those who do not have as much, whether it is education or resources. RESULT: Volunteering in several charities such as teaching English to Refugees and Migrants, Helping underprivileged school children, tackling isolation, helping witnesses in court.

The Teacher and the Scholar (Krishna in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita) – I know more and therefore it becomes my duty to share what I know with those who do not and cannot know. RESULT: Published book and articles, teaching of all ages in charities and paid work as a teacher and as a Tour Guide.

The Truth Teller (Cassandra) – I will say the truths that others are afraid or not willing to talk about. I was gifted with the truth and the brain to understand it. RESULTS: Lead Editor of a newsletter for Ethnic minority colleagues, Public Diarist and thinker, Scholar with publications. Published journalist.

The Fighter and Activist (Guru Ravidas) – Writer and thinker on racism and ethnicity.

the education of exploitation

17.09.2026

Why complain? It will impact your career and potential employers (Suffer the injustice).

Never call it out.

Just now, travelling home from visiting my girlfriend, I saw a post by a working class student with a PhD. He was complaining that his supervisors had never told him about the hidden curriculum in a PhD, how to become part of the academia industry. He saw them as irresponsible. He couldn’t get any work, research related or not. He was living on benefits.

And underneath? Someone, probably an academic, had told him to shut up because it might affect his chances of employment.

Shocking. Academics are supposed to tell the truth. Not suppress it. They are supposed to be ethical. Not characterless.

But what I read is not surprising. In my culture, as I am half Sikh, we are taught that it is just as much of a sin to stomach injustice as to be unjust. And here we have this advice from these so-called academics, this advice to be silent and silenced by oppression, discrimination and prejudice. To stomach the injustice. To never attempt to call it out and change it.

What is this evidence of? That education in this country is an education of exploitation. They see working class (and male, ethnic) doctoral students like I was as cash cows and nothing else. To have our cash extracted out of us and then discarded. One could trace this to when they started charging students for fees in this country. One sees it in how they treat foreign students that come here in the hope of having a better life.

I will point out that I did everything that I was supposed to do to become a university professor. I had four degrees including my PhD. I published my doctoral thesis as a book. I went to several postgraduate conferences and presented. I organised a postgraduate conference. I wrote for websites for English Literature, including one run by the university. I taught in after homework clubs, with refugee and migrant adults learning English, in primary schools and secondary schools as a doctoral student. Yet all they wanted from me was free labour and my money. They didn’t want to give back anything in return apart from the piece of paper with the qualification which didn’t amount to anything and could not get me any work.

Because this is the tragedy. They take our hope and monetise it for their own benefit. Without caring for us. Knowing that they are going to crush all of our dreams because we are not like them.

And if you say it? Then it is us that are the villains, not them. It is us that are unjust. Not them. It is us that should be shunned. Not them. It is a system of injustice and exploitation. Because in an education of exploitation, if you do not exploit, then you are not worthy of joining the gang. Yes, they see us as unworthy, rather than them. This is the education of exploitation.

succeeding in study through distraction

06.09.2026

A small council house. That’s where I grew up. So small that any noise filled the entire house. And my bedroom? One wall was missing. Because the front room upstairs had been converted into a bedroom and it had a balcony and not a wall. The room itself? I shared it with my brother. I never had my own bedroom until I was eighteen.

All evening long, after school, the stereo would be going off. My brothers were playing hardcore gangster rap on it. Downstairs, the TV could be blaring.

In this environment, in which a middle class white person could never find any time for study or focus, you found the straight ‘A’ student that is now known as Dr. Suneel Mehmi. The student that got the best results in his sixth form.

Despite the distraction, despite the noise, despite the challenge, I got top grades. I would sit there at the desk in spite of everyone and everything.

Here, you found a student that had dedication, hard work, focus, determination and self belief. I believed that I was the most intelligent. And therefore I was the most intelligent. And moreover, I had a genuine love of learning.

One phrase follows me around my whole life. Our family came from the Untouchables in India, the lowest castes. We were Dalits. We were denied an education as part of our oppression. And my grandfather, who a rich man had plucked out of poverty and sent to university, where he became the top student and top athlete, he had told me this story. That our people, the Untouchables, we would stand outside classrooms, study with no light in the dark, study with nothing to become Big Men. Like Dr. Ambedkhar who was the architect of the Indian Constitution.

Again and again that story assails my mind. And I remember it as the detail he told me, that we had to stand and study while others were sitting. In other words, we faced adversity while others had every comfort and privilege. We had hardship and suffering. Others had the ease and luxury of being taught. They were spoilt. We were not.

This is the supposed level playing field of education in the United Kingdom. It is with this distraction and noise that we, the working class, we the sons of immigrants find ourselves in, the world in which we study.

And yet, despite everything, we succeed. I am the holder of five degrees including a PhD. I have published a book and articles, curated in museums and for websites, written journalism, poetry, reviews and articles for website upon website. You cannot kill talent. You cannot drown it out. You cannot kill the focus of a superior mind.

We don’t have excuses. We have achievements. I graduated in the top 10% of a degree in Laws at the elite and world-class university, the LSE. While working part time at Pizza Hut. I did an English degree in two years with First Class Honours. I remember skipping classes to work part time. While working 70 + hour weeks over the past four years, I got a First Class Honours Degree in Art History. When I did my PhD, I was working part time as a teacher, volunteering in a museum and at after school homework clubs for children, as well as volunteering as an English teacher for refugees and migrants.

And you that’s reading this. You who will like any underdog story. I know you will not like this story. Because when it comes to the real underdogs, the Dalits, the Untouchables, the working class ethnic minority male, this story means nothing to you. Because this is not a sob story. This is the story of resolution. This is the story of the Dalit that shared his grandfather’s dream, that shared Dr. Ambedkhar’s dream: to have education for our people.

academic racism

06.09.2026

As the recent Arday case has highlighted, racism is structural to Western academia and to academic culture. But I already knew this.

I got six ‘A’ Levels with five As and a B, with the maths exam just 1% below the A grade. I did the most ‘A’ Levels in one go that anyone had ever done at my sixth form while working twenty hours a week at Pizza Hut. I passed my Cambridge interview and they pooled me. But they still didn’t let me in. In my school, the only ones that applied to Oxbridge and didn’t get in were the Indian kids. All of the white boys got in. This was my first experience of racism with Western academia.

When I finished my PhD, I got my doctorate published as a monograph. This is difficult. Not only that, but I got articles into top journals. Completely by myself. I didn’t have anyone that could read the drafts. I didn’t have a support network. I did it completely by myself. And yet, when I applied to university professor roles for two and a half years, I didn’t get one single interview. Not one single one.

No one helped me with any professional opportunities. I spent the time in the PhD presenting at conferences, organising conferences, writing for academic websites that my university was superintending. I volunteered in teaching with adults and schoolchildren. I did everything possible. And yet, because no one would help me or give me any opportunities, I am not a university professor. My university would not let me teach any classes no matter how much I raised the issue. And therefore, I cannot apply to anything because they all ask for higher education experience.

But I do not blame myself. I blame these racists. It surprised me that the supposedly intellectual people in this country were racists. They pay lip service to a meritocracy and to diversity and inclusion. But they are the most racist of all. They will never accept you amongst themselves. They keep the opportunities for those like themselves.

Because this country is what it is, people say to me that it is not racism. It is just a very competitive field. But then I watch people with less academic achievement than myself getting roles. And what is the difference between me and them? That they have the right colour skin and that someone there helped them and gave them a chance. Without someone giving you an opportunity and a chance, helping you on your first steps, you cannot do anything.

And I am resentful. I spent a decade or so of my life becoming a researcher. I worked very hard. I made sacrifices, big sacrifices. I could have got married young. I could have started a family. I could have amassed wealth working. And this is how they treated me.

So when you’re making your little comments about how the woke culture has overtaken academia and that it is not based on talent, this is just a reminder about how this academic structure treats us ethnic minority men. How it shapes our lives. When you’re making your little comments because your white privilege seems threatened, this is the reality of what it is. This voice that is so powerful has had to find channels outside of academia to be heard. That’s how inclusive and great academia is in this Western world.

My qualifications outside of work and study

13.08.2026

Today, the ‘A’ Level results are coming in for my family, so I was thinking about education and opportunities in life. These are completed certificates for study that I have done outside of work and formal higher education in my own spare time. While they show my intelligence, drive, ambition, hard work, commitment, curiosity, motivation, drive and initiative, the only course that got me to where I wanted at the time was the Leadership Essentials Course. Which begs the question – what type of education do we actually value and reward in this society? Thoughts from a lifelong learner with five degrees including a PhD.

– Mckinsey Leadership Essentials Course

– Business and Administration Level 2

– CUST105: Customer Service (University Level Module – Saylor Academy)

– Principles of Inbound Marketing (Hubspot)

– L2 Certificate in the Principles of Warehousing and Storage

– NCFE Level 2 Certificate in Creative Craft (Floristry)

– The Advocacy Course in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Programme (British Council)

– The Communication Course in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Programme (British Council)

– An Introduction to Cultural Journalism in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Programme (British Council)

– The Cultural Relations and Cultural Diplomacy Introduction Course in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Council (British Council)

– The Cultural Strategy Course in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Council (British Council)

– The Culture and Creativity Course in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Council (British Council)

– The Digital Communication Course in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Council (British Council)

– Project Management in Culture Course in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Council (British Council)

– The Proposal Writing Course in the Framework of the Culture and Creativity Council (British Council)

– ARTH101 – Art Appreciation (University Level Module – Saylor Academy)

– PHIL304 – Existentialism (University Level Module – Saylor Academy)

– PSYCH101 – Introduction to Psychology (University Level Module – Saylor Academy)

– COMM001 – Principles of Human Communication (University Level Module – Saylor Academy)

– SOC101 – Introduction to Sociology (University Level Module – Saylor Academy)

– ENGL405 – The American Renaissance (University Level Module – Saylor Academy)

Learning in your own Language and Higher Education in Singapore: Degrees in Mandarin and Social Mobility

Language Barriers in Global Education

A significant barrier to Higher Education for international students from areas of high poverty is that most of these courses are taught in English and have requirements such as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or IELTS (the International English Language Testing System) English proficiency exams [1]. International students are required to produce an acceptable level of English at the application stage before consideration for courses.

In the UK, the Home Office has waived the IELTS test for citizens of 18 countries where English is seen as an official language. However, the IELTS is still widely taught in Commonwealth countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, India, and Malaysia [2]. In these countries, cost would be a barrier to social mobility for many since just taking the exam for IELTS costs around two hundred pounds [3]. This is a sum which can be a challenge for students from developing countries.

Students therefore have to spend more money on acquiring English as a language with formal qualifications when it is already difficult for them to raise the funds for a degree abroad in the first place. In addition, gaining the level of English proficiency required to pass them requires a considerable financial and time investment. Therefore, in contrast to English native speakers, the international student community has to invest much more resources in gaining an internationally recognised degree. They have a considerable disadvantage which is heightened by the fact that many come from countries where students may not have many financial resources due to high levels of unemployment and poverty.

Singapore’s Mandarin Programs

The People’s Republic of China and India remain the biggest sources of internationally mobile students, together accounting for around 30% of numbers between 2018 and 2022 [4]. This year, four universities in Singapore, namely NTU, SMU, SUTD and SUSS, have launched new postgraduate programmes in Mandarin which would appeal to Chinese international students [1]. For such students, this therefore eliminates the need for acquiring formal English qualifications at a cost. Furthermore, compared to the US and the UK, university fees in Singapore are relatively lower and therefore more affordable [1]. According to one student on the course, an MBA degree in the US would cost about 1 million yuan (US$140,000), whereas a one-year course in Singapore costs roughly half that amount [5]. The offer appears to cut cost for higher education courses for those that can speak Chinese.

Expanding Access to International Study

Singapore’s policy may offer widened access to higher education for the less privileged. As Jason Tan, associate professor at NTU’s National Institute of Education, Policy, Curriculum and Leadership suggested to Singapore’s CNA938 radio show: “the choice of studying overseas is no longer a privilege only for richer people. We’re getting a much broader spectrum now of families in China who are thinking of a postgraduate overseas degree for their children.” [6]

The social experiment may enable wider access to higher education in Singapore and bring in a greater diversity of students around the world who are not limited by cost considerations to study abroad. Higher education is one of the most certain routes for achieving social mobility and therefore for reducing poverty around the world [7]. A recent study has also shown that foreign-educated graduates can reduce extreme poverty in low and middle-income countries [8]. As Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education at Oxford University, Maia Chankseliani has stated: ‘Returnees use the skills and knowledge they gain abroad to drive local innovations and contribute to societal changes, which can lead to systemic poverty reduction over time’.

[1] https://seafocusnews.com/2025/07/29/1410/

[2] https://studyinternational.com/news/cost-of-english-proficiency-tests/#:~:text=English%20proficiency%20tests:%20Fair%20for,to%20international%20students’%20financial%20burden.

https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/uk

[4] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2025/03/what-are-the-key-trends-in-international-student-mobility_495dcfac/2a423a76-en.pdf

[5] https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2025/07/30/singapore-universities-mandarin-taught-postgrad-courses-raise-concerns-over-integration-and-language-policy/

[6] https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250903120713648

[7] https://www.suttontrust.com/our-priorities/higher-education/

[8] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-10-07-study-shows-how-international-student-mobility-can-reduce-poverty-low-and-middle