the list of things done

29.06.2026

Again, A. asks me who I am. Are we what we do? This is what I did today. What does it say about me? A. never comments.

Meditation and chi building. To maintain mental clarity, focus and balance.
Reading the newspaper (The BBC website and The Metro). To keep in touch with things. To stay up to date. To connect with the wider world.
Exercise with light weights. Mens sana in corpora sana.
Languages learning in Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, German, Spanish and French (reading novels, short stories, the news, reading a German grammar book). Because of the challenge, the thrill of learning, connection with my own culture. Connection with the world.
Reading British history. To learn more about this world that I have arrived in. To be erudite and learned.
Reading ‘The Ecology Book’. To face the environmental disaster.
Reading psychology articles. To learn more about the strangers that surround me and the strangeness in myself.
Watching videos. Pleasure, entertainment, enjoyment.
Reading about Christiano Ronaldo on social media. Looking up to a hero that is like myself, the achiever, the goal getter, and understanding the hate sent to him by the jealous.
Phoning my girlfriend. To feel connected to someone, to feel intimate. To show that I care.
Taking my family around London, a museum and the Royal Opera House. Family ties require duty and care.
Playing Scrabble. Keeping the mind nimble.
Doing a crossword. Keeping the memory agile.
Doing anagrams. Keeping creativity and language playing in the mind.
Doing a jigsaw puzzle. Keeping visual processing in check.
Listening to Hindi music on my headphones. Connecting with the culture, enjoyment, language learning.
Writing to my pen pals. Keeping connected. Helping people to stay connected.
Writing some fiction. The drive to write is a compulsion and my biggest ambition.
Quick doodles. To keep the artist’s hand in training.
Looking at photographs and art on social media. To learn and learn and learn again. To be stimulated. To be one with creativity.

cristiano ronaldo and admiration in its forties

24.06.2026

A: Why do you like Ronaldo so much? You don’t even watch football.

S: I have played football when I was younger. It’s not like I don’t know anything about it. Ronaldo is inspirational because he has kept up that hunger into his forties. He is still running past defenders half his age. He is the best looking out there. He has transcended the game. He is an icon.

A: An icon for you. Why?

S: Just like me, he is the greatest.

A: I knew it would come down to narcissism.

S: The genuinely great man, whether it is Ronaldo or myself, comes from humble origins. He is known for his greatness. He becomes a success. He becomes the captain, the leader.

A: For him, it is true. How do you put yourself into that category?

S: Actually, there is not as much difference as you think. Ronaldo has many critics. Much of the public is against him. With me, too, it is those in the game that will not give me my due. I know that I have produced works of genius. However, I am in the humanities. The genius is ignored.

A: Also, you will not publish that book that you have written. The one that you claim is your masterwork.

S: Anyone that reads my work realises that I am completely original. That is the mark of a genius. It is what my tutors and lecturers at university have been telling me my whole life. Anyone that reads my work knows that it is brilliant. If I were to say that I was a genius without any proof about it, then that would be megalomania. What I say is justified by the response that I have got from experts in the field. I can go into any field and write these works of brilliance. That is why I know that I am a genius.

A: But then, Ronaldo. Why this identification with him?

S: What he does on the football field, I do in the world of thought. And, despite all the ones that are coming into things, like him, I still maintain my status as the fastest, the best, as the true leader. We are doing it in our forties, when the world would try and write us off.

A: It is extraordinary that the narcissist would celebrate another.

S: They all wrote him off. He still did it and keeps on doing it. Why? Because as they said when he scored those goals yesterday, he has worked tirelessly and relentlessly to raise himself above everyone else. Just like I have all throughout my life.

A: He has his reward. You have nothing.

S: In football, the results are undeniable. You get the goal. In writing? In the humanities? It is not a fair game. They are out to silence us. They are out to marginalise us. They do not want to include our agenda. And despite that? I am still the genius in the field. It is not the recognition of the oppressor that decides virtue and talent. It is the self belief and achievement of the oppressed.

MA Performance Central Saint Martins, UAL

Review by Dr. Suneel Mehmi

Screen Screening 2

Platform Theatre, London, England

Thursday, June 11, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

A Dry Swim, by Jhin Zhang

REVIEW

A film which explores what paint would represent the colour of water amidst the story of love and the burgeoning queer identity of a young man. Therefore an expression and investigation of art and identity.

Throughout, the main protagonist runs his hands through the water, trying to catch it in his hands. He is trying to understand the basis of love as we learn from the story of the colour of the water and how his sister and her boyfriend got together, searching for the expression of its colour and visibility. A metaphor for how we try to find love in this universe, the yearning for love, the yearning to understand nature, to understand ourselves and our reflection in the water too. For the young man is a narcissus that looks many times into many mirrors of the water.

Why is the colour of the water love? Why does one want to represent love and the water, the water of love? The film says that this is the artistic spirit. It is the spirit of the creative, of the artist. These eyes are made to find love in this world.

There is an investigation of queer love as it is structurally connected to heterosexual love, as there is the love triangle between the artist, the sister and the brother (who is after the artist and not the sister). Queer love emerges from the heterosexual relationship between sister and artist. It is contrasted to heterosexual love which is accepted, while the queer love is kept secret, in the realm of fantasy. And therefore, this film is about sexual repression too.

SUMMARY

In a world shaped by near isolation, a boy grows within the intimate orbit of his older sister. The arrival of her boyfriend quietly unsettles this fragile balance. Between water and skin, gaze and distance, boundaries begin to soften. Sensations, desires, and a shifting sense of self drift in and out of form, like light across a surface. As proximity reshapes the space between them, the boy is slowly displaced — carried toward an elsewhere that feels both estranging and inevitable.

–
Cast: Xiaodao, Juanbin Lei, Xiaojun, Flora Wang, Tianye, Evan Feng
Director: Jhin Zhang
Assistant Director: Eros Shen
Producer: Haoxu Yin
DOP: Jhin Zhang
Gaffer: Holly Duan
Production Designer: Dora Zheng
Stylist: Zaha Zhang
Sound designer: Yutong Chen

Happy Birthday, by Yilun Zheng

REVIEW

This film explores the pressure to look attractive. The protagonist is told by her mother on the day of her birthday that she will never be promoted if she does not wear make up like everyone else. She protests. She asks why she has to be judged on her looks and not on how hard she works.

While the young woman’s mother tells her that (visual) difference cannot be tolerated in this world, the film explores the young woman’s body and appearance through dance and choreography. Other women grab her and move her body around, signifying perhaps how constructions of gender orchestrate the body and its performance throughout society. The helplessness of the body as it is subjected to order.

The young woman cries as she rebels against the dicates of her mother to wear concealer. Is this the fate of those that rebel against the standards of beauty? The mother rubs the concealer onto her face. The body is subjected to beauty standards by other women, by the powerful. Is beauty the demand of power? And what is beauty? Is it just the demand of power?

The young woman asks the question, can I be judged by work rather than appearance? Is this possible in the world? A writer can ask this. They are not seen. An actor can ask this. They are seen. The judgement belongs to the viewer – has the acting been judged, rather than the attractiveness of the actor? Can the two be separated in a fair discernment?

SUMMARY

Happy Birthday is an experimental film exploring how contemporary systems of visibility and judgement shape identity and self-perception. Set between everyday life and surreal spaces, the film follows a woman gradually internalising external expectations through work, family, advertising, and social environments. The project reflects on the pressure to become socially acceptable and worthy of recognition within a culture built around observation and display.

–
Cast: Tianhao Wang, Hongyun Wang, Yiqi Gu
Director: Yilun Zheng
Assistant Director:Xiaofan Ying
Producer: Menglin Yang
Director of Photography (DOP): Yikai Yan
Gaffer: Shangjia Li
Production Designer: Simeng Yu
Stylist: Jingyi Huang,Briony Wang
Choreographer: Briony Wang, Yijie
Sound Designer: Yilong Liu
Editor: Yilun Zheng

Fallacy, by Kangqiao Jiang

REVIEW

I suppose the question of this film is that if a woman were a colour, why is she the colour red? And how can one colour signify everything that is feminine? When the feminine is multiplicity itself, as is colour with its millions of hues. The film shows this by exploring different dimensions of a woman who is presented as different women and the colour red through different scenes which relay the association differently every time. Red is itself explored in liquid form in bottles, perhaps a symbol for its fluidity and defiance of reification even while the arbitrary limit of glass is being put upon it to attempt to shape it.

My intuition is that the film may be implicitly about the Western feminisation of China, which is also associated with the colour red. And that the aim of the film is to counter the reductiveness of this equation by exploring the diverse nuances of the colour.

SUMMARY

Fallacy is a visually driven experimental short film that explores how femininity is constructed, performed and gradually internalised within contemporary visual culture. The film revolves around the protagonist’s sustained gaze and exploration of ‘red’—a colour that, within mainstream aesthetics, has been reduced to a symbol of femininity, yet which constantly shifts and transforms within the imagery, oscillating between attraction and violence, intimacy and illusion. Through this visual thread, the work poses a question: when an individual’s sense of autonomy has partially internalised societal notions, how should one coexist with such a self?

–
Lead Actress: Auguste Bartninkaite
Director/writer/editor: Kangqiao Jiang
DOP: Yuexiang Li
Art Director: Umi Shi
Producer: Luke Higgins
Gaffer: Vincent Liu
Sound Recorder: Ann Wang
Composer: Mavis Wong

She Who Writes Erotica, by Zixuan Wang

REVIEW

This was my favourite film of the night. It contained graphic descriptions of sex, postmodernist musings about the Mcguffin, about the fake and the real, the copy and the original, the reliable narrator and the unreliable narrator. It also explored themes of capitalism, friendship, writing and voice. Another major theme was about collaborative writing in an individualistic culture that seizes upon differences such as class and wealth to divide voices and representation.

The narrator constantly smoked throughout, perhaps to present herself as ‘a bad girl’. The rich woman is unable to partake of sexual pleasures while the woman with less wealth, we do not know whether she had any sex or not. So this could be interpreted as an investigation of female sexual repression and how it gives rise to erotica, fantasy, wish fulfillment and deception, while it destroys friendships and relationships in the process.

At one point, the protagonist says that financial struggle kills love. Whatever the audience may think of this statement, and I am sure that some will find it true for them, this epitomises the falsity of sexual repression and the thought of those in a capitalistic system. You can love without money. You can build a family without that much money. Nothing can kill love. Nothing can defeat love. And nothing can silence love. Love may be hard work, but it is possible. This is the philosophy of the poor from India.

SUMMARY

She Who Writes Erotica is a narrative short film exploring the shifting power dynamics within female friendship, desire, and class disparity. As novelist Lin and her friend Anna collaborate on a manuscript, the boundary between “raw” life and “refined” fiction begins to dissolve. When a luxury brooch exposes the economic chasm between them, their bond is tested through a game of intellectual mirrors. By utilizing the Female Gaze, the film deconstructs how consumerism alienates intimacy, ultimately questioning who possesses the true authority to narrate female pleasure.

–
Cast: Zixuan Wang, Ting Shu
Director: Zixuan Wang
Screenwriter: Zixuan Wang
Producer: Zixuan Wang
DOP: Tairan Li
Camera Operator: Jiang Shan
First Assistant Camera: Peiye Gan
Gaffer: Wuxingchen Zhang
Production Sound Mixer: Chenhui Tang
Makeup Artist : Yinuo Wang
Art Director: Zixuan Wang
Supervising Art Director: Ge Wu
Sound Designer: Zixuan Wang
Editor: Zixuan Wang

the control of words and the words of control

08.06.2026

A: I see that you have rested a few days. Do you no longer feel the compulsion to write?

S: I am losing this compulsion.

A: Why?

S: You know the story behind all this. The situation has gone. Life has transformed.

A: Yet you have written your whole life. What is this new reluctance?

S: One looks at what writing has given to one. What is it but less than an handful of dust?

A: There, you are wrong. It is writing that has given you the mind that is a razor. It is writing that has given you your ability to think, reason, argue and fight for what is right. In short, it is writing that has given you everything. Including a name. Not everyone has a name. Do not forget that. You are the envy of the world. You have a public reputation. You are the champion of the community.

S: It is not particularly satisfying.

A: You are too demanding. You are never content. But remember, it is writing that has given you your freedom. Because you write the truth.

S: Writing is about the control of words. It is the words of control.

A: You do not find freedom in what you write?

S: Can one then write anything?

A: Should one write just anything? Surely you only want to write the truth? And the truth, it must have limits. Therefore, you cannot write whatever.

S: I want to exceed all limits.

A: And truth?

S: Perhaps the truth is too limited.

A: You have told me that you escape from the confines of control. Because you are the Independence of India and you are The Tiger. Is it not true?

S: That is the question for my readers to decide.

A: And there. We have had our conversation. You will begin to write again. Because it is important for our community to express ourselves. And you are important for our community. You build the community. You are its architect, inspiration, prayer and god.

S: One writes with reluctance. One fights with reluctance. Yet one does these things. Duty is greater than comfort. Honour is greater than complacency. And virtue? It is more important than life.

so much to say

04.06.2026

S: Have you ever wondered why the words never run out?

A: What do you mean?

S: I write and speak often of the same topics. India, racism, cynicism, pessimism, oppression, duty, courage, the life of a writer and an intellectual, marginalisation, alienation, depression. But the words never run out. There is an unlimited universe of language about these things.

A: You keep on spinning and spinning out this web.

S: And so does everyone. The spewers of hate have an unlimited amount of hate. The structure of racism is all pervading and systematic in this society and creates an unending spiral of words too.

A: Why spend your time dissecting and analysing racism?

S: Indeed. It makes no difference. The rational cannot fight the irrational. Knowledge cannot win over ignorance and prejudice.

A: You believe that?

S: Do you have the experience of being a genius in this world? Genius is unwanted. Why do you think there are so few geniuses? What they want is the malleable cretin. And that is what most are. Gullible. Weak. Impotent. Why else would this society be like it is?

A: You believe that only you have your wits about you? You believe that only you are strong? That only you are powerful?

S: The genius is the revolutionary. The genius is the hope of the Oppressed. Oppression cannot have genius. It can only have idiocy and slaves.

A: And we come to it again. This is why your words never run out. Because all you do is boast.

S: People read these boasts time and time again.

A: You have only a handful of readers.

S: So what? Those that have many readers and listeners are corrupt in their thoughts and their minds. Their fans worship hate and intolerance.

A: What is surprising is not so much that there is this unending stream of words in you, but the incomprehensible fact that anyone pays attention to anything that you are saying.

S: What they see in this stream of words is the eternity of the truth. And the limitlessness of true genius. You laugh. It is good to see a friend laughing, when what we see most every day are the tears of those closest to us.

the conviction of legacy

21.05.2026

S: Does an artist fear death?

A: Why do you ask?

S: It is always a question with a question for you. There is a reason to think so. The artist attempts to capture that which is fleeting, a flicker in the wind. He will paint an animal or a woman. He will paint a baby or a feeling. He attempts to rescue the moment from death. He attempts to write eternity.

A: But does the artist think this when he works?

S: Surely yes. Surely those portrait painters of the past thought that they were preserving a likeness for all time. Surely their patrons thought that they were preserving a monument to all time. Read the poem ‘Ozymandius’.

A: Ozymandius is about the folly of power.

S: It is also about the corruption of time. The tragedy of time.

A: Only you are the one that I can discuss literature with. But do you worry about your legacy?

S: No. I have produced enough already. I can produce more, much more. What you do not know is how easy everything is for me.

A: You have found everything easy in your studies?

S: Yes. There is nothing complicated in anything that I have studied, law, literature or art history. Or psychology, criminology, anthropology, philosophy, history, any of the subjects I have studied at university level.

A: But you are not read. Your published work, your art, your photography. You are not famous.

S: Yet. I know that I have produced good work. Therefore, I do not worry. You cannot make the ignorant listen to sense. I am the truth. I have produced the truth.

A: Stop these scribbles and these sketches. Do something more substantial.

S: Why? Why do things that you get nothing from? I know that I am a genius. I have nothing to prove to anyone.

A: Remember that your name is the name of the Untouchables. The Oppressed. They need your shine. Don’t forget that. Don’t become selfish. Remember what other geniuses have said. Genius is a gift. You have to give and give and give. It is your duty. For the community.

S: I am listening. I have perhaps forty more years in me. And I will work, don’t you worry. I will work on substantial things.

A: Now, while you have the energy. Do not let this life defeat you.

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 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.

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.

the energy of the master of the field

25.04.2026

A beautiful day apparent, and it being my day off, Alfonso and I had arranged a programme of events for the day. I met him at his house first thing in the beautiful sunshine and we walked through the park reflecting on life and everything.

Our first stop was a mission of charity. We were going to see our friend in the hospital through the park. Alfonso had bought a comb at his request and we had picked it up from the chemist’s in the corner. I had begun joking around there and suggested to the cashiers that he was starting up his hair stylist business which had aroused a few smirks and then some conversation from the old lady that was sitting there waiting for her medicines. The visit in the hospital had not gone very smoothly but then our mutual friend was not very well and was having a bad day. We had told him that we would see him next week at the close of about half an hour.

We walked again back through the park and again to Alfonso’s house where he made himself some coffee and tea while I gulped down some water. The first stop was a woman’s brass band that was playing in Holy Sepulchre church in Holborn Viaduct. We then set out for a poster exhibition which was about politics, democracy and resistance in the Eastern bloc at Europe House. Alfonso was older than me and had lived through the events in the late eighties and nineties so he was teaching me about them while I made some comments about the aesthetics, intentions and meanings of the posters.

We decided to walk to St James’s park which was in the vicinity afterwards and ended up in the Institute of Contemporary Arts which had a 1K challenge to promote Puma trainers. We realised that we could pick up some free running T-shirts if we collected a few stamps so we did so.

Having gone through a day of medicine, music, art, politics and sport, we then settled back down into Alfonso’s house after buying much reduced price chocolate in the form of Easter eggs and then watched the film ‘The King’, which was a creepy thriller about Christianity and its interaction with the military minded and violence.

According to Alfonso, the film was about revenge. Alfonso asked me how it contrasted with the film I had watched recently, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, ‘The Master of the Field’.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘the difference can be encapsulated in one cinematic moment. The hero is rescuing his sister who has been gang raped. He kills everyone. We have a scene where he disappears from the camera. Then he rises. His head is brought up to a whirling circular firework behind him. We focus on his face. It is the face of his revenge. Why the firework? In the film, they talk about the energy that is required to have revenge. The hero says that not all have this energy. He is the firework. The revenge is within him. It is a whirling circle of energy. Whereas in The King, the anti-hero is silent and evil, seemingly low in all energy except for sexual energy, low-key and understated, in the Hindi film the hero is full of energy. In fact, the actor Ranveer Singh is known for his energy. In fact, he is Punjabi and we are known for our energy. The whirling firework becomes a halo around his head. It represents the energy of the Sikhs, because he is a Sikh in the film and in real life. He is a hero, a guru. The energy is full of light and power, it is dazzling. It is the splendour of Punjab. The firework is fire. Fire which will burn the world. Fire which is full of the sparks that will ignite this world. That is the difference between ‘The King’ and ‘The Master of the Field’. It is a difference in power. The Punjabi is powerful. The Tiger is powerful. We have endless energy which illuminates and burns this world, this energy of revenge. And remember the last thing. The energy is the law: it is the wheel of the dharma. It is the beauty of law.’