tiger’s teeth (microfiction)

13.09.2025

‘They could easily have killed you,’ Alfonso admonished me. ‘There were eight of them and one of you.’

‘Death before dishonour.’

Earlier on in the evening, I had gone to a singles meet up in Hyde Park. I had arrived and there was absolutely no one there at the meet up point. I had sat in the beauty of the pink skies in Hyde Park pondering on this as a metaphor for life in London. There is no connection. There is no hope of connection. Whatever you do is destined to fail. Other people do not exist. It looks like they are there. They are not. It is an illusion.

On the phone, as I walked back to the station, my friend speculated that maybe they had been scared of the Far Right riots.

Later on, when I walked out of my dinner at McDonald’s in Leicester Square, I got my own experience of the Far Right.

There was a fucking little cretin with a flag walking along with his dickhead friends. He took a look at me and pulled a face at me. He was trying to intimidate me because of my brown skin.

‘Fuck you’ I said aggressively to him.

Suddenly, from being the aggressor and feeling safe in his little crowd of fucking Nazi scum, this piece of shit was surprised. ‘What?’ he asked me lamely.

‘Fuck you you piece of shit’ I said loudly.

From being full of stupid insolence and cheap impudence, this little shitbag was suddenly full of fear. Because my body had gotten ready to fight. I gave him a look of absolute ferocity. They were not just words. But he had his piece of shit Nazi friends to try and impress, to try and give them the illusion that they weren’t little coward non-men united by hate with no balls.

He took a few steps towards me gingerly.

‘What the fuck you going to do about it you fucking dickhead?’ I bellowed at him.

Ridiculously, I heard someone say ‘You little sausage to me’. It didn’t surprise me that these uncivilised dicks couldn’t even speak properly. And suddenly, all of his friends were standing between me and him, protecting him from me. I think bystanders got up to get between us. Because they knew. They knew that I was The Tiger. They knew what was going to happen to that little bastard.

I walked off. I didn’t look back. I’m not scared of anyone.

Alfonso was still telling me off.

‘What are you, my mum?’ I asked him.

Alfonso took a moment to laugh. ‘You are wrong. You are throwing your life away.’

‘I was born to fight. I come from warrior culture. He was up in my face. I taught him a lesson. These little fucking cowards melt before a real man. They show their true colours. Nobody in this society can handle a real man.’

‘You are wrong,’ Alfonso said to me. ‘You are risking too much.’

‘All I regret is that I wasn’t able to teach him his lesson’ I said sourly. ‘I love to fight.’

To show face in an encounter is the badge of honour. I don’t get scared. I don’t back down. They back down. That piece of shit was trying to put fear into us. Fear into The Tiger? Impossible. There was no one to write this little account of war. There was no one to sing the legends. But do you know what? People in my culture prayed that they could become The Tiger. They prayed for the will, the composure and the ferocity. They prayed for just one chance to become The Tiger. But who actually was The Tiger? It was me. I was built to be a machine of war. They didn’t just call me Tiger. I called myself Tiger. I had my real name and my real identity. It hadn’t been taken from me.

And that’s why these little chickenshits were scared of me. Even if they walked around in a group of eight and I walked alone in the night. Because the sheep walk around in a fucking herd. And The Tiger? The Tiger hunts alone.

Wherever The Tiger puts his feet, that is his territory. The sheep don’t count. They don’t have a territory. This is my country. Not theirs.

lost for words (microfiction)

12.09.2025

Not always too predictable as a whole, Alfonso had given me a bit of a surprise. We were going down the escalators at Kings Cross station after a literary tour through Hampstead Heath, the haunts of Coleridge the poet. It had been a long day, something in the region of thirty thousand steps. I was commenting forlornly to Alfonso that now, surely, at the end of the day, I wasn’t going to meet anyone.

Alfonso had looked up behind me and explained to the lady there that his friend wanted to meet someone, so would she be able to help him out? I turned around and the woman had smiled at me and introduced herself.

And I? I laughed. I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Hadn’t I been trying to connect and communicate with others for my whole life? Who was there for me? I turned around and got on with my life. There was no point talking to anyone.

Alfonso had asked me afterwards whether I understood communication at all. No, I replied. I did not understand communication. I did not understand connection.

‘But,’ Alfonso said. ‘You are friends with me.’

‘It is an exception,’ I had told him. ‘I am struggling. I don’t understand other people.’

‘I think,’ Alfonso said, ‘that the problem is that you understand them all too well.’

‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘I don’t understand anything or anyone.’

‘Why then,’ Alfonso continued, ‘do you then characterise this world as what it is according to your agenda?’

‘Who doesn’t?’ I had asked Alfonso.

Promptly, he then changed the topic. He asked me what I wanted. He said, ‘I thought you wanted to meet someone? I introduced you to someone there. You did nothing.’

‘I want to be left alone and in peace if I am never going to have any genuine connection with anyone.’

‘You cannot be alone. You live in a society. And you do not want to be isolated. Your body and your mind is sickening because you don’t have a genuine connection in your life.’

‘You have no evidence of that,’ I told Alfonso. ‘When anybody looks at me, they cannot tell if I am sad or if I am happy. I laugh. I joke around. Whether I am acting or not, nobody knows the difference. Even those that think they are closest to me don’t know what I think or feel about anything. I am inscrutable. You do not know that I am sick or sickening. I keep it to myself.’

‘There is something off in you,’ said Alfonso. ‘Why do you think nothing is working for you? It is because there is something off.’

‘Possibly,’ I told him. I was wondering what it was that I wanted. Did I want anything at all now? Or had I just given up? There is a psychology experiment with dogs, ‘learned helplessness’. At a certain point, you realise that nothing you ever do is going to make any difference to your predicament. And then, you just give up. Had I reached that point now?

a flirtation with destruction

11.09.2025

‘It is the death instinct versus the life instinct.’ Alfonso was drinking a lime cordial in soda water. It was a drink that I had introduced him to. I would admire the green bubbles of fizz and savour the coldness of the refreshment as it went down. I wondered what he made of it. You can never step inside another’s body. Another’s mind, perhaps. Not the body. That was why they could not understand what it was to be me and to have this hungry high testosterone form. I was an alien to them.

In the morning, they had killed that aide of Trump’s. It had been a topic of conversation. But that was not what we had been talking about. In the evening, as I staggered home from fatigue and sadness, I had not looked when I had stepped into the road. A car was just a few metres away from me. Instead of walking back a few paces, I had sprinted across the road.

‘Did you not care that you would get hit?’ Alfonso asked me.

‘No, not really. What difference would it make if I did get hit? Who would really miss me?’

‘How close did the car get?’

‘I’m fast. Not too close.’

‘Don’t you feel that you are worrying the drivers when you do this kind of thing?’

‘It’s only happened a few times.’

‘You obviously do not care if you live or die. You just want to take stupid risks.’

I didn’t say anything. Alfonso had shown some real anger. It was what I felt inside. This anger. I was trying to control it. I was trying to stop the fire from ravaging through the world.

Instead of letting the fire out, I was typing a few words in my bed. I was dying of tiredness. I had overstretched myself, done too much. And it was never going to get me anywhere. The more I dug, the more stuck I was. I was trying to live but everyone wanted me dead. The only difference was that no one was going to shoot. I was going to have to live the pain.

meeting on the moon

08.09.2025

‘It is a full moon tonight,’ Alfonso remarked.

‘Full and beautiful. Do you know, there is someone looking at that moon at the same time that I am looking at it. And our gazes meet on the moon.’

‘Forget about your romances,’ Alfonso remarked drily. ‘No one looks at the moon and thinks of you. They think of someone else. Or themselves. Only you think of them.’

‘While I think that they would spare a thought sometimes of me, what can I do about it if they do not? In any case, I made no mention of romance. You did.’

‘The moon is the apt figure for any romance in your life. Because you do not talk to any of them. And they do not talk to you. You look in silence, if that.’

I did not respond.

‘Do you not have any romance in your life?’

‘I will not disclose whether I have or not. There is nothing in talking about such topics except for disdain, fear and loathing from anyone that hears. That is this culture. Love is outlawed here. Hate is legal.’

‘You think you are a prophet? Why make such pronouncements? All they do is to upset people.’

‘I am spoiling for a fight. I am a fighter. Come at me. I will take them.’

‘All you do is fight. Come, rest. Talk about the things of peace.’

‘This dishonourable peace? You want me to talk about the things of this dishonourable peace? The world is burning because of the excesses of the rich. The future is being torched because of the worship of status and rank and possessions. The poor are being enslaved because of the iniquity of the world. The oppressed are starving. The corrupt politicians are building their walls. Everywhere there are lies and injustice. And you want me to talk about the things of peace? In this world?’

‘Constant criticism will not win friends.’

‘I don’t want friends that live in a sugar coated reality. A warrior looks for an army and a warrior fights for the truth. If you cannot bear the truth, you cannot be a warrior.’

‘Wars are lies.’

‘Not just wars. If I did not believe I fought for the truth I would not be alive.’

‘Do you think you have what it takes to fight? You live in a world of fantasies.’

‘They are not fantasies. They are ideals of love, truth and justice. If you cannot bring your ideals to life but you spend your life fighting for them, then you have not lost. You have won. The one that tries never loses.’

‘Yet you told me yesterday that the hero always loses.’

‘In the Ramayana, Rama who is of perfect virtue fought against the villain Raavana because Raavana had abducted Sita, the perfect woman. Rama won. But could he keep Sita with him? No. Because the people thought her honour was tarnished. It is the duty of the king to follow the wishes of the people. It is the duty of the king to maintain the honour of the people. Sita had to go. The earth swallowed her alive. And Rama? Rama wept. The hero always loses. It has been known for thousands of years in India.’

‘Do not import your love stories into your explanations of myths,’ Alfonso admonished me. ‘You are not Rama and there was no Sita in your life.’ Alfonso sighed. ‘Come, it is getting late. Let’s retire. Tomorrow is another day. Forget these ill-fated romances. Read another book.’

the hero never wins

07.09.2025

‘I have just finished reading the Divergent books,’ I declared to Alfonso.

We had not spoken for a short while. He was elsewhere, both physically and mentally. Life events cause ruptures. But not separation. That could not happen with me and Alfonso. He was not like these fair weather friends of convenience that were around you all the time. He was as solid as a stone.

‘I am surprised that you read it.’

‘They have told me that I do not understand women of this generation. I make the attempt.’

‘And what did you understand?’

‘The false narrative. That the hero should and must die for love. In fact, the hero has to live for love. That is what I am doing. Living for the ones that I love. Not for myself.’

‘Any other observations?’

‘That you cannot escape your destiny. She was brought up in a culture of self-sacrifice. So was I.’

‘You confuse yourself for a hero. When this society has you as the villain.’

‘Who is there to believe? Them? Or the dreams of my mother and the dreams of the people?’

‘You hate the people. They are disorderly, mean, grasping, selfish, repugnant in every way.’

‘Yes. But that is all the more reason to fight for them. Because they could be good if they were given a chance.’

‘What do you make of the book, this western story about heroism?’

‘It is the same as the Eastern story in the Indian films. The hero never wins. Do you know the basic story of the Indian action film? Someone in the hero’s family is killed. It is the duty of the hero to get revenge. But even when you get your revenge, do you really win? In the film Sholay, when the Thakur kills the enemy, he weeps afterwards. Because the villain killed his whole family. Even the children. The hero can never win. That is this world. Not just fiction. The hero cannot win. The people that win are the monsters.’

‘What monsters? They are human beings.’

‘They are evil. Those bastards like Trump and Farage, the whole lot of them. That bastard Starmer. All these fucking pieces of shit. They are vermin. If I…’

Alfonso stopped me by raising his hand. ‘Don’t. Think it. Don’t say it. That is the policy that you have to adopt with things. Truth is not to be borne here.’

‘I know it,’ I said. ‘I don’t write stories. Because the real story is that only the evil and the mediocre prosper. The fucking sheep. In a story, the good and the best prosper. And it can only happen in the imagination. Because this world is full of shit. It stinks of it. The stink is fucking everywhere.’

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.

the early early night (microfiction)

01.09.2025

‘I was so tired of life and angry with life that at seven o’clock after dinner, I just went to sleep. I was out cold. I didn’t call up my friend and go out like I said I might. I couldn’t read my book. I missed several messages from friends. It was not like I had not slept properly the last night. It was the first evening of my holidays.’

I finished writing to Alfonso. I wondered what he was doing at twenty to one in the morning. What he would make of my message.

After that deep sleep, which had cured the anger and disappointment that I had felt all day, that empty ache in my stomach, this anger and disappointment that was over two years in age, I felt full of energy and I felt okay. Because now I was away from everyone for a while. I wasn’t away from their unfairness but I was away from them.

I replied to all the friends that had got in contact. Then I reflected on life.

That sleep was a way to process my feelings. It had been an intense day. In life you have to control your feelings somehow. Talking does not help. It does nothing to communicate your feelings. Because other people will not understand and they will not change. You can communicate to them for two whole years and it would make no difference. But sleep? In sleep, everything would be resolved.

When conscious life cannot help you, sleep can help you.

My life was going nowhere. It is your relationships that make your life complete. It was going to be like this now. I had just a few people I could really rely on. No romance.

But I had Alfonso. I could always speak to Alfonso or write to Alfonso. Even at twenty minutes to one in the morning.

the first madness of a first love (microfiction)

29.08.2025

‘Her hair.’

‘That’s what you remember?’ asked Alfonso. He had been asking me about the first woman that I loved. He asked with some surprise.

‘She had strawberry blonde hair. Like gold with a touch of red.’

‘Is that all you remember about her?’

‘The Victorians would keep lockets of hair of their loved ones who had passed away. It is enough.’

‘Anything else.’

‘She had a twin sister who I also met.’

I did not say any more. Alfonso did not probe the issue. I would probably never see her again and I did not know what she was doing now.

‘All that happens in life,’ I was telling Alfonso, ‘is that you meet people that you think you have connected with. But all there is is disconnection.’

‘That is not true,’ said Alfonso. ‘You have many friends. Including myself.’

‘I am talking about romantic connection.’

‘It is not true for everyone.’

‘It is true for me.’

‘You should give up your despair in life. You are mistaken if you think that you can’t live without love. Everything is possible in this life. You can adapt to any situation.’

‘It is not a question of what I can do. I can do anything and everything. I never doubt myself. What is there that is too difficult for me to do? I am a genius. It is about want. About hunger. About masculine needs, emotion and sense all together.’

‘To achieve your wants is not the definition of happiness. You will always want more. Let us change the topic. There is no point counting what you do not have. The more you think about it, the worse it will be for you. Think of something else. Come, a new subject.’

‘Do you know why we worship the mother?’

‘Go on.’

‘We are warriors. For a war, soldiers have to be produced. We look to the mother to produce them.’

‘That is quite simplistic.’

‘But true nonetheless. Look at Western feminism. When the World War came, they needed the women to be workers. They needed workers for the war effort. That was what changed the status of women from before. Now, all they can be seen as in a capitalistic economy is as workers. It has become unusual to be solely a housewife. It is war that decides the fate of men and women.’

‘Is there nothing else in the warrior’s worship of the mother?’

‘I’ve said it several times before. The mother gives protection. That is why she is worshipped. She fulfils the role that the warrior wishes to fulfill. He wants to become her.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The mother is the life force. She gives birth.’

‘So what would you say to these people that criticise the warriors for thinking of women as mothers? For daring to talk about the biology of women?’

‘No comment.’

‘Caution?’

‘Disengagement from the culturally insensitive and those blinded by their own assumptions and prejudices.’

Alfonso snorted at me. I remained silent. We did not need to explain ourselves to them. Because they persisted in being them rather than us. And because they were them, they could fuck off.

…

Visual Diary 29.08.2025

‘forgive me for my sins’ (bhool chuk maaf) [microfiction]

27.08.2025

Today, Alfonso had been worried about me. I had ended up in the Accident and Emergency department in the hospital again. I clung to danger. Danger clung to me. Of course, it was the leg. The leg again and again. The scars of love will ache and hurt never goes away. The world did not want me to stand upon my feet. But I stood upon my feet. And I swaggered when I walked. I was Punjabi. I was The Tiger.

It had been touching to see him so worried, with that diamond veneer that he had which was so hard and polished. At times, he could be cruel and dismissive. He had a pretence of insensitivity. But he was like me, sensitive and, ultimately, loyal.

Because it was unclear what the risks were, I had had to cancel my evening plans for working before I had found out. It had turned out to be alright and I had got the all clear. So I had a whole evening free. I had watched the Hindi remake of ‘Groundhog Day’ which was one of my favourite films. Alfonso had asked me to tell him about the film. Who knew India better than me? I was her most loved son. The one that had married her, Mother India. Her son and her most devoted lover.

I wrote:

A common story in India for all, the film is about unemployment. And not only unemployment, but also the unfair demands that the families of women have. Which is that, as a man, you not only have to be working, but that you have to have a top government job to have their daughter. Indirectly, the film is a criticism of the slaves to the state and their corruption, their slavish mentality, their sickening and conformist, selfish and materialistic grasping of the resources of the oppressive, exploitative state and the inhumane bastards that sustain it, those who do not care about preserving life in a world of corruption.

It is not enough that the state steals, pillages, rapes. Worse than that, you have to dedicate your life to its atrocities.

The film explores the nature of altruism, goodness and the preservation of the life force through the lens of the Bhagavad-Gita. The motto that you should do good actions and then not worry about the results or the rewards that you get or the cost that it will take. This is the philosophy of the warrior from thousands of years ago. The philosophy of war. Because Krishna who I am named after persuaded Arjuna to go to war for justice against everyone he knew and loved when he was going to withdraw from the battlefield. And I have been raised on that philosophy and the Mahabharata where those scenes come from. I have been raised in that warrior culture. The film is about us, the warriors.

As I watched the film, I thought about my own youth. I did not want to work in a job where I was making the rich richer. That was not my destiny. I wanted to work in a job where I did service for society. For justice. And so, I could not get married. Because I did not have a high status, high paid job. The unfair demands of other people could not be met.

In the film, the hero is stuck on the day before his wedding. He is stagnating in a life without marriage and love. After all, that is my life. That is the life of the man that does not want to be a slave to the state in a world of slaves to the state, to the rich and the powerful. Instead, this man wishes to be good. To do good things. He wants to be a hero and not a slave.

The woman that he loved, Titli (Butterfly), she spent all of her time arguing with the hero. Her voice was magical. A memory came back to me. But what was she? The one that seduced the man into the evil and oppression of the state. She was a siren.

The story is a comedy. There has to be a happy ending. Yet in real life, if you are not a slave to the state, then you cannot catch the butterfly in your hand. You watch it dancing away in the air, like her, the angel.

However much the warrior craves the sweetness of the siren, however sweet it is to die in beauty, he has to resist. Odysseus was tempted by the siren. He had to impose deafness and silence on his men and get them to tighten his own bonds so that he did not fall into the death in the mouths of the siren. But Odysseus is not Indian. He failed to stop his own ears and accept deafness and silence himself. He is the pawn of the state. When he feigned madness, he was still trapped by the state. He is a slave. Odysseus listens to the song of the siren. He is enamoured by the trap of the state, the trap of the siren. The trap of slavery.

The warrior has to forsake love if love is from the slaves to the state. The warrior has to forsake status if that status comes from the state. In a world of false wars and corruption, the warrior only has one duty. To not only forsake the state, but to destroy the state. Because to do good work, that is the only way. The way of the warrior. When Krishna taught Arjuna in the Gita, it was to go to war against the state, the evil usurpers and oppressors. Arjuna was the son of a god, he was divine. God cannot serve the state, he must be against it. It is our duty to take the power away from the state and to become truly noble, to serve the people and justice. This is warrior culture.

I can live a life in sickness and without love knowing that I am not a slave to the state and knowing that I have not killed my humanity. After all, it is better than the alternative.

In this film, there is the spirit of The Tiger. Of Krishna, the liberator and the revolutionary. I am not alone. India courses through us. I am India. Six thousand years of knowledge and war are in us. We are the Revolution and the days of the state are numbered. The state is a mere blip and dead end in human history.

Inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab saada zindabaad! Jai Maa Kaali! Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution live forever! Hail the Dark Mother!

gifts (microfiction)

25.08.2025

‘I spent yesterday and the whole day today giving out gifts,’ I was telling Alfonso. The first time I had met Alfonso, I had been utterly charmed. But I had also thought there was something dangerous about the man. I thought so now as well, but I was less wary now. I embraced the danger. After all, I was fearless. And he was a man that you could follow.

‘You have always been generous,’ remarked Alfonso.

‘And yet, I receive gifts very seldom,’ I told him. It was true. Nobody wanted to give me anything. Nobody thought enough of me to give me anything. I wasn’t worth it to other people. It didn’t surprise me. Nobody that I loved had ever loved me back. People that I thought were friends were not reliable. Just a thank you for helping or listening – you didn’t even get that. Even family… Everyone always liked everyone else more than me. There was no point talking to other people.

‘Don’t worry,’ Alfonso assured me, ‘they are only material possessions. They mean nothing.’

It was easy for him to say. Although I couldn’t make anybody be my friend or make them love me, I could do one thing. Which was that I would not talk to the fake people. There was no point saying anything to them or listening to their fake words when they did not regard you as a friend or a lover or anything. Whatever the delusional mind constructed about the history of me and them, it had all been a mirage of connection and communication. All that happened there was disconnection and miscommunication. I had just thought them better than they were. They were not good enough to be with me. That was the end of the story.

Alfonso persisted. He asked me what I wanted as a present.

‘The whole point is the unexpected nature of the thing. If you only got what you asked for, that would not make you happy.’

‘You do not look happy,’ Alfonso remarked.

‘I am not happy.’ I said. In fact, I was tired of living. I was tired almost of everyone. I didn’t want to be where I was any more. The good good friends were what kept me going. How rare kindness and fellowship was in this world.

‘And your leg, why has it started hurting again?’

‘Oedipus walked on his lame legs. I am Oedipus. I killed my father and married my mother. You cannot escape from your fate and the stories. The one that is born to fight for the revolution has to be Oedipus. In mind and in body.’

‘Oedipus, Krishna, The Tiger, god himself. You have to choose who you are.’

‘I am all and more. In the old legends they sing about me. I am the hero of this tale.’

Alfonso laughed. ‘We are heroes, all of us. But where is our heroine?’’

‘Where indeed? If any of us knew the answer to that, we would be merry.’

Instead, we sigh winds and stop the tears rolling down our cheeks. We jest without mirth and laugh without enjoyment. Everyone says we are fine.