the front and the face of the punjabis

30.08.2026

For an outsider, Punjabis are just farmers. The poor. One thing is not apparent. That Punjab is the warrior culture. We are known as warriors.

But what is it that makes us warriors? What is that special quality that sets us apart?

I believe everything revolves around the concepts of the front and the face of the Punjabis. These are terms that are used in fighting. You have a front in fighting, a public face. You have face in fighting, which is courage and fight.

This front or this face is based on honour. We are not just the warrior society, we are also the honour society. The most honourable thing is to be a warrior. We worship the gurus who were warriors. That fought for us against invaders, against oppression, against injustice. Sikhism has been forged in this fight. We are forged in the claims of honour.

What does front mean? What does face mean? We won’t let anyone change our traditions. We won’t let anyone touch us or our rights. When the government wanted to take the rights away from our farmers, we protested for one year and four months. The protest of the farmers was treated like a war. The protestors were hailed as heroes.

Front or face means that we will not bend. We will not submit. It doesn’t matter how powerful anyone else is. We will always fight. It is our honour to fight. And to die fighting.

The difference between the warrior and the coward is front or face. The coward does not have front or face. The coward has nothing. Because in our culture, the coward is a non-man. The coward does not have it in them to fight. They have no substance, values, morality or anything.

Our front is our morals. Our face is our morals. In a film that I watched, it was said that the world is won not through arrogance, but through morals. Front or face is not arrogance. It is self belief and confidence. It is knowing that we are warriors and it is our duty to fight. We know that we are men. We are called Singh, which means Tiger. The beast that is known for its fight. We are the community of Tigers.

Where does front come from? It does not come from the patriarchy. It comes from the matriarchy. From the mother. In the film Batwara 1947, Sunny Deol, my favourite actor, his fight and resistance against hate and oppresion comes from defending the mother from exclusion and injustice. And the mother? She is the one with the front and the face. She will not leave her family home. She is unyielding and unbending. She will not listen to anyone that tries to take her away from her home, whether this is India or Pakistan. She is the one that is substance, value, morals and honour. In Punjab, our mother is our honour. That is where front or face comes from. That is where the warrior comes from. The front or the face evolves from The Mother.

There is a saying in India when you call someone out for a fight. You say to them, ‘If you have drank your mother’s milk, come’. Because power, front and face, all of these come from The Mother.

love and the reasons not to die

17.08.2026

It is with sadness that we read of the death of Jason Arday. Such a senseless death from a media witchunt, whatever the reality of the claims of plagiarism. One understands suicide. But one is against it.

Camus wrote that there was only one philosophical question. Whether or not one should live. Whether or not one should commit suicide. Camus said that to kill oneself is to accept and become defeated by the meaninglessness of life. Whereas one should learn to accept that life is meaningless but to make meaning from it. To persist despite everything.

The Indian answer to whether life is worth living comes in many forms. But what is emphasised is love and duty. Whatever thoughts come, dark thoughts, there is always the mother that gave birth to us that would be devastated by our loss. There is the duty that we owe to our parents and family to look after them.

This idea of love and duty is thousands of years old. In the epic, The Mahabharata, the character Bhisma can choose the time of his own death. The reason he does not die is because of love and duty. He had to preserve the dynasty, the kingdom and teach and educate those that he loved and cared for. The children and the future.

Bhishma’s story is all about triumphing over death and suicide. His mother came from heaven and killed all of her babies except for Bhisma to liberate them from the suffering in the world. The reason he survives against his own will and his mother’s will is because of love, that his father the king wished him to live (and for the dynasty). He himself wants to die to escape the world and its pain but does not.

Then, Bhisma was a warrior. We come from the warrior culture. It is regarded as cowardice to kill oneself. And also shameful. The family would have to live in dishonour afterwards and one’s name would be tarnished. One has to live to fight. Life is a war. The duty is to live.

Bhisma’s story unravels another strand of the philosophy and duty to live. The thoughts of suicide come when one is all alone. Suicide happens when one is alone. However, Bhisma exemplifies that we are never alone. He is wrapped up in the web of others. His duty is to the dynasty, the kingdom and the people. He does not think of himself as a lone man. Bhisma wanted to die. He did not because of human relationships and what the Buddhists would call attachment.

One can add to this that Bhisma waits for the right ending, the auspicious time to die. He doesn’t let failure create the ending. Jason Arday let failure create the ending. The idea that everything is finished. One cannot accept the bad ending. One has to look for the right ending, keep on picking oneself up after failure.

In Indian philosophy, to fight against death, one takes up the warrior mantle of Bhisma. Even when one dreams of death, one forces oneself to live. The dream of suicide? When one is all alone, when one is truly free. And the answer to this dream? To remember that we are attached to others. One is bound by others. One has duties. One has to create the right ending. Because of love.

monsters of the jurassic deep or heroism does not take a holiday

26.07.2026

The day was ending. Quickly, quickly, I was writing a list of things I had done today for A. It had been a day of art, nature, relationships, politics, literature, scholarship and social duty.

Reading news.
Shaving.
Phoning friends and family.
Contacting professional acquaintances.
Crossword, Scrabble and Jigsaw puzzle online.
Breakfast with parents.
Languages learning. Short stories and news in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Spanish, French and German.
Reading psychology articles.
Messaging friends and sharing writing with them.
Reading history.
Listening to Hindi music.
Natural History Museum exhibition, ‘Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep’.
Window shopping in the Natural History Museum shop.
Natural History Museum garden visit. Took a photo of a family there for them.
Chinese lunch at Chopstix.
Buying books at the bookshop in South Kensington: – Art Deco – 100 years of Fashion – Rare Plants by Kew Gardens – The Language of Trees – History of Illustration – The Great Tree Story
Ice cream in Macdonald’s.
Sitting in St Martin in the Fields.
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller ‘Landscapes’ exhibition at the National Gallery.
Watching the Palestinian protest in Trafalgar Square.
Shopping: buying sunglasses on a 70% sale.
Embankment Gardens visit.
Meet up.
Reading Skandar and the Phantom Rider.
Breaking up a fight where two young men were beating up a lone youngster.
Dinner at home – Chicken Biryani.
Writing.
Sketching.

would ask me about breaking up the fight. I had just got off the bus for home. Two lads were beating up a third lad. They started just as I had crossed the road from them. I was carrying a heavy bag of books on top of another bag I was carrying. I was rushing for home because I was very hungry. It was dark. I couldn’t see much, especially as I was not wearing my glasses. I was tempted not to get involved. It was dangerous. But I would not think of myself as a man or a Punjabi if I did not get involved. I shouted at the top of my voice, an order. ‘Stop what you’re doing or I will call the police! Stop right now!’ They looked at me and they stopped what they were doing straight away and walked off. I looked over to make sure that the kid that was bullied was okay. He was. He was grabbing his stuff that had fallen to the floor. Someone else would not have helped. A woman was there on the other side of the road where they were a few metres in front, just watching and not doing anything. But I was not a woman. I was a man. And I was not any man. I was The Tiger. I am the bravest. I am the warrior. Sometimes, people tell me that god sent me to help them. Just in time. It is not true. I myself am god on this earth. My name is the name of god. It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak. It is the duty of god to protect the People, the Oppressed. Thanks or no thanks.

the racist is a pangloss

03.06.2026

S: Voltaire wrote this novel, Candide. There was this figure there, Pangloss. A satirical figure that would proclaim, however horrible things are, that everything was great. That this was the best of all possible worlds.

A: That was then. What’s the relevance of that to the present moment?

S: Because the racist is a Pangloss.

A: How so?

S: The racist believes that the oppressed do not suffer from the scourge of racism. On the contrary, the racist believes that the oppressed have too good a time in this country. The racist believes that this country has given something more than a warm welcome here. That the oppressed are living it up, living a life of luxury over here. Furthermore, despite the widespread discrimination against ethnic minorities, the racist believes that they have a meritocracy in this country and that everyone is fairly rewarded for their skill and talent. That racism is over. That it doesn’t infect all things and relationships.

A: You see the Pangloss attitude as ideology?

S: I see it as absolute denial, just as Voltaire saw Pangloss as a denier of the realities. For the Pangloss, nothing has to do with racism. If you are excluded, it is not racism, it is you. If you are denied progression, it is you, it is not racism. If you are denied opportunities, it is not racism, it is you. It is you that is the problem, not racism.

A: And what do you think?

S: I know how the racist is going to act. Because I have experienced it. There is always an excuse not to give you an opportunity. There is always some excuse to exclude you. They will pick on things like you don’t drink to exclude you from the pub. And they will always go to the pub in the first place, knowing that many of us do not drink. Exclusion is built into their whole culture. For themselves, they make every excuse to include themselves. When someone is not as qualified, they will get the job. When someone has no experience, they will change the format of the interview to make them get the job, taking out any assessment of experience. But for you? Even if your job slightly differs from the job specification, they will pretend that you don’t have the experience and that you are not specialised enough. If you are qualified, they will say that you are overqualified or that your qualifications are not specialised enough. They are absolutely corrupt in preserving opportunities for themselves and think we are too stupid to see it. Let’s not talk about relationships. It is not worth commenting upon the stupidity and bias.

A: So to destroy the racist, you would have to destroy Pangloss.

S: As Voltaire realised, you cannot destroy Pangloss. This culture is made up of the Pangloss. It is the culture of the Pangloss. And for the revolutionary? Pangloss is the one that you cannot be.

competing emphases on power

30.05.2026

S: As a generalisation, I think you can say that the oppressor’s society does not affirm or emphasise its power. You see, its power is unholy. It is unjust. Moreover, this power is accepted by the degraded culture of the oppressor. However, those in the minority camp, they must affirm their power so that none consider them powerless. Indeed, even the oppressor affirms the power of the minority. You hear them saying that the minorities are accruing too much power. Their power is always a threat. Of course, the real threat is the power of the oppressors.

A: I suppose another reason that the oppressors choose not to affirm their power is because it is more effective when it is undisclosed, for the reasons that you have suggested. Because it is shameful.

S: Do you know why they are so afraid of the minorities taking power for themselves? Because they know that the minorities are just. It is the oppressor that has no law, despite claiming that they are ruled and ruling through law and order. All the oppressor has is coercion, wickedness, lies and deceit.

A: You as a minority do affirm your power.

S: Precisely. And thus, I am hated. Although I am the most powerful. As I have said before, I am like Frankenstein. I am powerful because I am fearless. And they? They are full of fear. And therefore, they are powerless.

A: They could savage you badly. Rob everything of you.

S: It does not make them any less of a coward. Sheep are hunting in a flock. The Tiger, he stands alone. He is the last surviving man and he never accepts defeat. Death before dishonour. Extinction before cowardice.

A: You that have to affirm power then, is that not then the mark of powerlessness?

S: See if anyone can compete with me fairly on any level. They cannot.

A: In popularity they compete with you and beat you.

S: That is because I have brown skin. There is no other reason. And is that a fair reason? When we talk about merit, I am the most powerful. Because I am the best. I affirm power because I am power. I am energetic because I am energy. I am the sun. There is no doubt of it. I am god upon earth.

the courage to persuade the pistol

25.05.2026

S: In ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, courage is defined as the fight against racism. They say that courage is knowing that you are licked before you even begin to fight racism and still fight nonetheless.

A: You believe that you have this courage?

S: I fight racism with my words. I fight racism with my deeds. With my heart. With my love and my friendship. I have never denied anyone anything because of the colour of their skin or their religion or culture. I have never denied anyone love because of what is wrong.

A: What is your idea of courage? It is something that you write about a lot, this concept of courage and bravery.

S: Do you know what the courage of a Punjabi is? The guru said:

‘Chirion se main baaz turaun,

Tabe Gobind Singh naam kahaun’

It is when I make sparrows fight hawks that I am called Gobind Singh.

‘Gidderon se main sher banaun,

Tabe Gobind Singh naam kahaun’

It is when make I lions out of wolves that I am called Gobind Singh

‘Nichon se main ucch banaun,

Tabe Gobind Singh naam kahaun’

It is when I make the lowly rise that I am called Gobind Singh

‘Sawa lakh se ek laraun,

Tabe Gobind Singh naam kahaun’

It is when I make one fight a hundred thousand that I am called Gobind Singh

Courage is when you have no power and you still fight. Courage is when you are the one and you fight the hundred thousand. When you stand against all as The Tiger. It is a concept shared by both Atticus Finch in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and the Guru. Attitus is one of the powerful. He says it despite the fact that he has power in a white supremacist society as a white man. The Guru? He said it when he was one of the lowly. What the Guru said is the truth, it is the sincere conviction of the true warrior.

A: You believe that you are the lowly?

S: I am an Untouchable. I am The Oppressed, the Dalit. I am the working class. I am an ethnic minority man. We are they who they want to keep low. And yet, I fight. With everything. To the last breath. With my love. With my freedom. With my voice. With my body. I am the one that the Guru called to fight. Because they want us to be lowly but we will rise. It is us that are truly powerful. With all of their might, we are the ones that strike fear into their hearts. Because it is us that are the warriors. And them? They are the cowards. They are the hundred thousand that fight the one. Me. And it is them that lose.

who has the right over this body

19.05.2026

S: Have you ever wondered who owned this body?

A: Surely you own your own body? But, then, is it not a false question? Can you sell your body?

S: Many do sell their bodies. But the question then becomes, does the buyer own your body?

A: These are sophistries.

S: With practical results. But to return to the question. Who owns this body?

A: I persist in saying that I own my own body.

S: Untrue. There are many claimants. First, there is the mother, who gives birth to the body. She invests much into our bodies. Therefore, she has a claim.

A: So, as usual, we are talking about the implicit rather than the explicit. We are talking about unspoken claims rather than the spoken.

S: Yes, why not? There are many that look only at the partial truth. Why not talk to one that talks about the total truth for a change?

A: Go on then.

S: Not only the mother, but also the baby. The baby also owns the body of his mother. It is where he gets food and comfort, delight and language, dance and music. It is where he is connected.

A: Any more? Perhaps everyone owns the body.

S: So now you see where I am going with this. Yes, the lover also has a claim to the body. A not undisputed claim, but a partial claim nonetheless. Because the body is the aim of the lover, if this lover has red blood within him. There are more. I come from the warrior culture. Therefore, Punjab owns this body. This body is for Punjab and the earth of Punjab. When they ask for war, they ask for the gift of the body.

A: I have told you many times that you are not a warrior.

S: And I have proved through action and thought that I am. I have fought tirelessly for the honour of The Mother. I know that I am a hero.

A: To add to the list?

S: The community owns the body. The mother owns the body. The child owns the body. The family owns the body. The lover owns the body. Also, as you said yourself, the self owns the body.

A: Theories contrary to the feminists, the Marxists and the whole tribe of scholars.

S: What do they know? Do they even have bodies? They think of themselves as minds – and they are corrupt minds. Selfish. Thinking in terms of selfishness and discrete categories in an interrelated world.

A: And you are not selfish?

S: I am the king. And the king lives for others. Not for himself. That is the difference in the philosophical orientation. This body is not just for the self, it is for others. And that is why death is impossible and there is the duty to live and to prosper. For others. Not just the body is given as a gift, but also the mind. A gift given to justice.

the weariness of performing

18.05.2026

S: Life asks that we perform. Always, therefore, we are performing. There is no end to this performance.

A: You are weary of performing?

S: There is a performer that shines with light. All he thinks about is his performance. He is the best. He is the cynosure of all eyes. The audience ask for him night after night. When will he find rest and peace here?

A: Is it his duty to perform, night after night.

S: Not only night after night. But also night and day.

A: What about the authentic self? Where is he able to find that which is true? That which is not the peformance?

S: The trial of this hero is that he has to perform himself every time. Only himself and nothing else. He performs authenticity. This is why he is the one that draws the attention. The others? They are fake. They are not even true to themselves, least of all to themselves. They are puppets. And he? He is a real boy.

A: How can it be that he performs himself?

S: He reads his culture. He interprets his culture. He watches. He listens. He lets himself be instructed. What is in the culture, that is how he models his life. What is false to the culture, he abandons. He has been raised on the stories of the Punjabi hero, the heroism of The Mother Goddess. That is the core of his culture. The warrior culture.

A: He performs the fight?

S: The fight is a performance. It is a display of skill. And he has all the skills. He is the one that they look up to, that they want to be like. His name is The Tiger.

A: To be oneself, to perform oneself, is it not as bad as performing another?

S: You are asking what is the lure of authenticity?

A: Yes, if you will.

S: To be the authentic self, to be true to what it is that you are, that is the teaching of dharma. Do not look at the false law of the state. Do not look at the false rules of others and their lies as to what is the truth. Be true to your own truth, to your position, your situation in life. Look at me. I come from the working class, from the ethnic minority, from the Untouchables and the Dalits, The Oppressed. I have never forgotten where I come from. I have studied at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, taught at the most prestigious universities in the world too. I have had the cream of this world, dined in the finest restaurants, holidayed in the finest resorts, been to the most beautiful places in the whole world. I have accomplished things that others dream of, a doctorate, a published book and research, taught hundreds if not thousands of the underprivileged. And still, I never forget who I am, where I come from and who there is to fight for. Why I was born. For the community. For The Oppressed. I have never forgotten that what I am is duty, yearning for justice and fairness, for equality, respect and the dharma. And this authentic self of mine? It is everything. Artist, poet, writer, scholar, athlete, warrior, photographer, curator, teacher, journalist, the greatest of the game players, psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, anthropologist, actor, singer, philosopher, historian, manager, leader. There is more and more. I am all. I play all the roles. That is true authenticity. Everything. And with an Indian stamp. With Punjabi style. And with a British accent.

jesus, paranoia and imperialism

15.05.2026

S: With imperialism, you can trust no one. No one is your real friend.

A: What do you mean? There’s always someone that you can trust.

S: Every friend will betray you for the empire.

A: Typical cynicism.

S: It is in the bible.

A: How so?

S: Does not Judas betray Christ? Is it not said that each one of his disciples will deny him? And why do they do it? They do it in service of the Roman Empire. The situation of Christ is the situation of the colonised in the age of Imperialism. It is the same age that we are living in now. The fact is that the oppressor kills the oppressed. The oppressor makes sure that the oppressed is betrayed.

A: No one wants to hear your interpretation of the scriptures. You are not even Christian.

S: Be that as it may be, the oppressed can read the life of the oppressed.

A: Any more jewels to bestow upon us with these readings?

S: In a selfish and greedy regime, where arrogance and a lack of empathy are the hallmarks of those supposedly successful in that society, where there is only the worship of wealth and status rather than spiritual growth, a genius like Christ can only encounter envy, hatred, jealousy and betrayal from even those that call himself his friends and peers. This has been the way throughout the whole of human history. Because those that are the worst lead. Those that are the worst exploit others and win power. Those that are not fit to be called human beings have to prove themselves superior.

A: This lesson is obviously not about Christ, is it?

S: It is about the present, with the rise of fascism in the world and where, unmistakably, powers like America and Russia are clearly empires, as well as the so-called ‘developed’ world which lords it over the ‘developing’ world by exploiting their natural resources and manpower. This age of capitalism, globalisation, what is it except for a new empire, neo-imperialism? It is this world that we live in, this world of the empire. And in it, Christ once more has to watch betrayal after betrayal. Because the clever man, the better man, the god on earth, the genius, the master of living, he has to watch the wretches around him sell him out and deny him.

A: They say that the colonised have a persecution complex. They suffer from paranoia.

S: It is not paranoia. Freud, himself the persecuted Jew, he said that even the paranoiac is not without justification. Man is a wolf to man. It is what the persecuted know. And Freud knew more than most – he was also a genius in Nazi Germany. They hated his cleverness. The colonised and the geniuses know the truth of this society of imperialism, hate and oppression.

the conceit of the writer

11.05.2026

‘The reason,’ said Alfonso in his engagingly lazy and erudite drawl, ‘that you write so much is because you are supremely conceited. You really feel as though you are the cleverest and most important person in the room. In any room.’

‘And what is wrong with that?’ I growled at him. After all, it was true. I was more intelligent than everyone else. It was just an intelligence that they did not want. Because it went against their agenda of stupidity and racism.

‘In reality, who they want to hear talk are the mindless.’

Was it not true? What sold the most in this society? The endless drivel that the celebrities came out with, those were the top selling books. And the areas that they neglected were all of the interesting areas, science, literary studies, art historical scholarship. They would rather listen to the imbecilic Farage or Trump than someone that could actually talk some sense. Their sensibilities were for hate. For the puerile. For unjust wars.

‘The conceit of the writer is what allows him to write.’

‘You cannot worship the ego as a writer,’ said Alfonso. ‘Learn humility.’

‘By no means,’ I said. ‘Dickens was one of the greatest of writers. And he called himself ‘The Inimitable’. Is that not the writer’s conceit? I would rather think myself great and strive for greatness. I believe that I am supremely talented. That I am a genius. And that is why I produce. You cannot ask The Untouchable, the Dalit, the low caste for humility. Humility is how they have kept us down. I am a prodigy. I have had this talent of writing since I was six years old. I was acknowledged as the best in my school and later on during sixth form too. I am unrivalled.’

‘But in the real world, who is there that reads you?’

‘Whoever does is amazed and even overwhelmed by my work. As I have told you, I am a genius. It doesn’t matter if the cast of villains does not want to read.’

‘This conceit that you are a genius. Where does it come from?’

‘From my knowledge of what I have produced. The knowledge that I can go into any field and make the biggest contributions. Film, literature, art history, the law, history, sociology, anthropology. I am a polymath.’

‘I have been told that the most intelligent are modest. They know the limits of their knowledge.’

‘I have prepared this ego for the hostility of a world that would crush our thoughts, that would keep us as The Oppressed. This ego is an answer to the casteists and the racists. I believe that I am god. I do not just write it. I am the prayer of the people. Nothing is closed to me. I know the secrets of the world, the things that drive this society of oppression and injustice. A genius is forged by his context. The context is the Independence of India, the Revolution. It is a work that has not yet been completed and it has asked for another genius. The intellectual terrorist. The one that will destroy this world of contemptuous thought for it to be rebuilt again. I am the truth. I am the knowledge. This self belief is unshakeable.’

‘The few pennies that you rub together from your writing, do they not teach you humility?’ Alfonso smirked at me while he said so.

‘The genius never sells in their lifetime. They are never acknowledged. I am so far higher and beyond all that I float in the heaven all by myself.’

‘If you are the genius that you say that you are, why then do you not produce and produce and produce?’

‘I could. It could easily be done. But why should I waste my life upon the ignorant? They will never give up their ignorance. They cannot value rightly. They will never value the gift that I give them.’

‘The conceit and the contempt that you have are both abominable.’

‘It is what they deserve, they who imagine themselves to be better than me. In fact, I am the best. Because I am the truth. I am the voice of the righteous. I am the one to whom the things are given. The stories that are thousands of years old that no one knows except for myself.’

‘The academy did not accept you.’

‘I do not accept them. I am too intelligent for them. All they have is dirty politics and favouritism. As well as the falsity of their Eurocentric bias.’

‘You think that only you are talented?’

‘Not at all. I believe that I am the most talented and that they should throw everything my way, every single honour and award. All the marks of recognition. They should recognise my greatness.’

‘You talk for them. You think for them.’ Alfonso pointed his finger at me in an accusing way.

‘Why not? They cannot talk a good talk. They cannot think a good thing. They cannot see or support genius.’

‘What good is it to have nothing and to rail at the world for it not giving itself to you? You want consolation? You want consolation for being clever.’

‘One day,’ I said, ‘You will understand what it means to be Medea, the intelligent foreign woman that is surrounded by the hostile and inferior minds around you, that is jilted and has her love stolen away from her. One day, you will understand this Greek myth. And one day, you will know that all the genius can think of is the revenge of success when his status will be restored as the hero. It is something that Euripides was dimly aware of.’