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

your life is quite funny (microfiction)

26.08.2025

In that beautiful suit of his that was from some fine and expensive haberdasher, Alfonso was chortling away to himself in the corner. The smiles were radiant, but so also was that hair of his, that full, thick hair of which I was so envious at my age. I used to have hair like that. He smelt wonderful. Some guy on the street had given him an armful of perfume samples and he was wearing the sample apparently. He had given me one just yesterday.

‘Your life is quite funny.’

‘I’m glad you find it amusing.’

‘Look at all the places that you have gone to find love. Cultural institutions. Acting and improvisation workshops. Volunteering in a play with six hundred volunteers. Clubs for learning. Events all around London. Flower shows. Even a floristry course. You’ve been doing it for three years. All that time, effort, distance, investment. Anywhere but a pub or a bar where you would actually find someone. It is laughable. You are undateable. Nobody cares if you have anything in common with them.’

‘It looks like it.’ What was the point of arguing? He was right. I was going to be alone forever. I had given up. There was no one in my life. I was living in a loveless world. At least he was finding some enjoyment out of my situation.

‘So I guess,’ Alfonso continued, in his casual and cruel manner, ‘that you are going to tell me about how everyone is against you, how everyone devalues you, how much you are suffering and how you do not fit into this world?’

‘It is my usual repertoire.’

‘What do you think went wrong in your life?’

‘Do you know,’ I asked Alfonso, ‘how many medicines I am on? It is a lot. And all those medical problems come from rejection. That is what started everything off. Yet despite the pain and the things I go through, I am carrying on, working and volunteering in all these places. I have a finger in almost every pie. Because I am strength and will. I am named after a god and The Tiger. They look to me for protection and inspiration. The people expect.’

‘You were rejected, so you are sick.’

‘Those problems are going to plague me all my life. Yet it doesn’t stop anyone from rejecting me. They cannot face the brutality of the rejection that I have had to face. When you are rejected by someone you love so much, it is a dagger into your brain and into your heart. That ‘no’ has wrecked me.’

Suddenly, Alfonso stopped smiling. He had actually winced. ‘To be alone is not so bad. You cannot be like them. Therefore they do not like you. Forget about it.’

‘What else is there to do? I am trying to forget. From a mind that remembers much.’

‘You have not tried dancing. Dance. Meet someone there.’

‘The leg…’

‘After the doctor looks at it, dance. You will be fine. Come on, let us talk about something happy and hopeful.’

‘Hopefully I will die soon.’

Alfonso shook his head at me. ‘Don’t be naughty. A warrior hopes for a glorious death in battle. Not to ease his problems.’

‘You want hope? University will start again soon. It will be time to work on a dissertation. The voice of the people.’

‘Yes, the voice of the people. You say that you are it. What do they say?’

‘They say ‘inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab saada zindabaad!’ (Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution Live Forever!’)

‘You believe it?’

‘It is always the time for the Revolution. There will be justice. I cling to life because I cling to that hope.’

‘Hope is a dangerous thing. You hoped for someone for years. What did it get you? Grief. Disappointment. Failure. This Revolution…’

I interrupted him. ‘The tyrant rules. But he will fall. The liar controls communication. But he will be caught out. The idiot teaches. He will be exposed. Corruption and filth saturate the universe. It will be cleansed. The cockroach is the ideal. The ideal will be torn down. Against the say of the rich and powerful, there are the words of the community of the dalits, the community of the oppressed. I am the prayer of my mother, the prayer of the people. It is my destiny. And if I cannot do this work, it shall be done by one in whom the spark is lit. Live for the Revolution. Die for the Revolution. Writhe in torture in hell for the Revolution.’

‘Has anyone told you that you are the Indian Don Quixote? You are tilting at the windmill.’

‘Not so ludicrous as you think. The windmill took away jobs from men. It was the awfulness of technology which made humanity expendable. Quixote was right to protect the people from it, just as I am right to fight against this society.’

‘They ignore you. Therefore they have slain you.’

‘There are still the words I write. In my mind I am free. In my mind I love freedom. In my mind I am difference. And in my mind I love difference. Amongst the sheep, there is The Tiger. Amongst the people, there is god. Amongst the weak, there is supreme power. The life spirit amongst the dead.’

‘It is not quite clear whether you are dead or not,’ Alfonso remarked. ‘But time will tell. Let us hope it is not too long into the future.’

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.

something happy (microfiction)

21.08.2025

‘For once, why don’t you write about something happy?’ Alfonso looked at me kindly. At heart, he was soft. Despite the sneering, the taunting and the criticism. He had a heart of pure gold and he looked after me. He would spend time with me and always give me advice because he cared about me.

‘Is it only what is happy that is beautiful?’ I asked him.

‘For your persistent reader, why don’t you try and give them joy instead of the pain?’

‘Do you want a moment of sheer joy? I have always been the lover of music. And one time, my father went abroad to work. He asked me what I wanted from there when he came back several months later. More than anything else, I wanted my own personal music player. He brought me the top model – at the time it was a Sony. It was black with gold writing on it and shaped like a little box. It played my Hindi film cassettes and, even better, it had a radio inside. That was happiness. Because music is happiness and family is happiness.’

‘You got what you wanted. Is that what you think happiness is?’

‘Is it not? What else could it be?

‘Things that are unwanted can be happiness. You have told me often enough in life that your life has not gone exactly to plan.’

‘Do you want another moment? A good book.’

‘But were the thoughts of another happiness, or were your own thoughts about the book happpiness? It is harder to arrive at a supposition.’

‘What does it matter what causes the joy?’

‘Because you want to replicate the result.’

‘Happiness was a relationship.’

‘Of course. Get another one.’ Alfonso smiled at me. ‘See, it is not so difficult to have happiness. Just good company, a good book or good music.’

‘In the moment, I am happy. In a film. In a book. In a play. Acting. Singing. Dancing. Making art. Talking to people’. I frowned. ‘It is when I go home and sit in my empty room and then lie in my empty bed…’

Alfonso frowned back at me. He shook his head. ‘We are talking about happiness. We are not talking about sadness or loneliness or emptiness.’

‘Happiness cannot exist without sadness, loneliness or emptiness. You would not feel it. Only the loser knows that it is to win.’

‘Do you think that only you are sad? Do you think that these people here enjoy lying in their beds at night all alone?’

‘Yes. Otherwise they would have someone.’

‘Life is not as simple as you make it.’

‘All it is is hanging out with someone that you like. That is not difficult.’

‘Says who? Perhaps it is the most difficult thing in the world.’

‘Alfonso,’ I said. ‘It is time for the lonely night. Let us sleep. Sleep might not be happiness but it is at least a break from this tired life.’

let us not talk about love (microfiction)

20.08.2025

‘Let us not talk about love,’ I said. ‘It is too dangerous.’

‘To love someone is dangerous. It is a danger to give someone your heart. But to talk about love? Why is that dangerous?’ asked Alfonso.

I had just come back from a comedy club. I was the only one that had sat there by himself. And I was the only one that could not laugh at much. A rare laugh. That is what this life gives you.

I looked at Alfonso who was always ready to question, argue, inspire. ‘We live in a world where it is wrong to say you love someone. Because we live in a world full of hate. We live in a world where you can spout hate and become a President or become a serious contender to become a Prime Minister, like with those evil, ignorant privileged motherfuckers Trump and Farage. When that hate is called ‘free speech’ – what a fucking joke’.

‘Well then, don’t talk about love. Your exploration of topics has become too repetitive. All you talk about is how the world is against you. It might be true. But do you really think that anyone cares? After all, the world is what reads. They will not judge themselves and find themselves wanting.’

‘My subject is that I do not accept this world’s valuation of me. I object to their processes of valuation and devaluation.’

‘Tell us a story instead. Stories are safe. Because no one can pin you down to anything in a story.’

‘There once was a flower. He wanted to grow. To shine. So badly. But they put this flower inside a box with no light. The flower had a fierce desire to live. He battered his being against the sides of the box. He screamed with a silent fury. Inside, there were no other flowers. There was only him. And the desire to live and to grow. He had to learn to grow by himself with no help from anyone, no resources, nothing. And there he is in the box, growing and growing, hidden away from the world. The tumult in the box cannot go outside into the open.’

‘It would be very simple to say that the flower is you’, remarked Alfonso. ‘But sometimes the elegant solution is the one that is the best.’

‘Assume, presume, resume,’ I intoned. ‘The writer that says what he thinks is crucified. The one that remains silent – he is worshipped.’

game theory and genius (microfiction)

18.08.2025

‘You know, game theory is the truth. It’s how humans behave.’ As usual, it was me and Alfonso. It would always be just me and Alfonso. Because there was no one else in my life. We had our own little world, our little kingdom together. Yes, we were both kings together. And I, a solitary king.

‘Of course, you must go on,’ said Alfonso. He was wearing exquisite jewellery today, bedecked like a Hellenic dream of Persian magnificence and luxury. For him, fashion was everything. Style and substance. It suited him well, gold. He was a golden man.

‘Game theory says that no one will change the brute stupidity that they run their lives by, because they have set it down as the rule.’

‘Is this the usual rant about stupidity and conformity and the stupid conformists?’

‘You know me well. Could a genius say anything different?’

‘And what would a genius say about game theory?’

‘Game theory also applies to genius. Look at myself. My research was revolutionary and interdisciplinary. I am the last generalist in a world of pedantic specialists with their disciplines and their tunnel vision. They could not take it. The brute stupidity of their rules in a putative academia could not take real intelligence. They insist upon their stupidity as their rule. The way I can put things together into new combinations and innovative formulations. It is the same wherever I go. No one can keep up with me and therefore they try to marginalise me and throw a shade upon my magnificence.’

‘You are all ego.’

‘I deserve the recognition. You know it yourself.’

‘I do know it!’ Alfonso slapped his thigh and laughed. ‘Only you know things. But remember, the stupid hate the clever. It is in the Greek tragedies with Medea. The foreign woman…’

‘I am the foreign woman.’

‘Yes. And therefore your cleverness is abhorrent. It will get you nowhere. It does not matter if you achieve, educate, learn, do.’

‘And that is something that I know. I am the genius that suffers from game theory. I am cleverness against stupidity and limited perception.’

‘Dont worry’. Alfonso sighed. He often did so when we spoke. Alfonso believed in me. No one else could but he could. And he believed in me because he knew my talent. He had recognised something in me. Others recognised and still they shunned and still they sinned with their unfairness. But yet, truth exists. Philosophers thought the whole world was a lie. That all learning was a lie. It was not so. I had discovered the truth. I knew truths about justice, injustice and human nature as it had been corrupted. However anyone tried to keep me down, I knew. I was wise.

‘The inventor of game theory,’ continued Alfonso, ‘descended into madness. Be careful what you know and how it affects your mind. Remain a genius. Do not forget yourself in insanity. Pride yourself on sobriety and avoid intoxication. Cling to the truth while others drown around you. And voice what is rather than what is not. In the Gita, work is done for the sake of work, not for the reward. For neither love nor money. And money…’ Alfonso smiled, ‘is something that you have.’

But not love.

the world of the unbalanced elephants – ten minutes of story (microfiction)

17.08.2025

Alfonso had given me just ten minutes to write a story. He had odd whims. And he knew that I had a busy schedule, so he did not make inordinate demands.

So what could I write?

I thought about an elephant that was climbing a wire over a city. The elephant was making its way across the wire sedately and elegantly. It was definitely possible. However, then a child let off a balloon from the crowd, a red balloon that veered into the elephant’s delicate trunk. Instability had been introduced, and missteps. The elephant desperately tried to regain balance. Everyone thought that the elephant was done for. Then, either from a stroke of luck or from a generous and hopeful intention, a crow landed on the uneven side of the balance. The elephant was saved. However, the unscrupulous bookies and organisers of the event decided that this was cheating on the part of the elephant, notwithstanding the fact that the bird had actually saved the poor creature’s life. They disqualified the elephant straight away. Yet the elephant was a beast of dignity. The elephant finished the walk across the wire. The silly child who had let off the balloon kicked up a fuss for more ice cream and treats from its entitled parents and the world went back to doing what it was doing: destroying, killing and hating. It is the world of the ignorant, not the world of a balanced elephant. And for that reason, because of the mindless mob, it is the world of the unbalanced elephants.

Alfonso did not deign to comment on the story. He asked me why all the characters in it were genderless, nonetheless. I asked him what difference he thought it would make. He was silent and suggested that we both go out for a chocolate sundae.

life as a bus (microfiction)

14.08.2025

‘You don’t have a reason to complain. You have a good life.’

Alfonso wasn’t wrong. I did have a good life. A disposable income. Savings. Food and shelter. Nice things. An interesting job. Interesting friends. The best education that money could buy. My health was pretty good and I had high energy levels. But was I happy? There was something very important that was missing from my life. Not something but someone.

The loss of one person. When there are several billion people in the world. It was a marginal loss. I was stupid to feel it. I should be like them. Forget everyone. Have no one as special. Forget about caring about someone. They did it and they were happy doing it. Why couldn’t I be like them? Nobody really cared about losing me from their lives. I sincerely doubted whether I could get more than ten people to come to my funeral if something happened to me.

‘When you search for a metaphor for life,’ I told Alfonso, ‘you would think of a maze or a dark forest. That is the stereotype. However, something happened today which I think is the perfect metaphor for life.’

‘And?’ Alfonso sniffed peculiarly. His guard was up and he eyed me warily. He knew that I was going to say something cynical and suspicious.

‘As I was crossing the road, a bus came that would make my walk back home redundant and conserve my energy after I had been on my newly healed leg all day. I sprinted to catch it. I got there at the door. The bus driver was letting some passengers off. I waited patiently at that bus door for it to open. The bus driver didn’t even give me a look while I was standing at the bus door. He drove off. That situation explains my life. Not a portion of my life. But my whole life.’

‘How so?’ Alfonso looked scrupulously at his fingernails. It was good of him to always ask for elaboration, when no one else ever did and I often wondered if they ever listened to anything that I said.

‘I beat that driver who had an unfair advantage to me in a race and then he still would not pay up. He would not give my reward. I was faster than him, more courageous than him, more talented than him. Yet he had something and he would never give it to me. He did not care about fairness. He did not care if he upset me. He would not do the right thing.’

‘That is your life?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have a chip on your shoulder.’

‘You would have too if you were a genius and had to live with these people.’

Alfonso harumped. He knew that I was right. This was how they treated me. This was the treatment of our people. We were a threat to them so they tried to keep us down.

‘You have done well if that’s how you think you have been treated.’

‘I don’t think. I know.’

‘Life as a bus,’ continued Alfonso, pretending that he had not heard me, ‘is not very appealing. But it is moving.’ He smiled at me naughtily. I did love Alfonso. I smiled back at him. You do not have to agree on everything, not at all. It was about friendship. You could always listen even if you did not agree. It was sad that people had not learnt that lesson yet.

the saddest thing in the world (microfiction)

13.08.2025

‘What is the saddest thing in the world?’ Alfonso asked me. He looked sublime. The hot pink blazer, the perfect blue jeans. His handsome, handsome face and those piercing eyes. It was sad that I was only interested in the opposite sex. Because otherwise, he would have done very nicely.

‘Love.’

Alfonso stared at me with surprise. ‘You cannot be serious.’

‘It is a deadly serious answer. Love is what makes you sad. Do you not agree?’

Alfonso just looked at me. Then he changed tack. ‘Let us forget about your personal situations. Let me ask you instead when was the last time that you really wanted to cry? Don’t tell me that you can’t cry. We all know that now. But when did you last want to cry?’

‘I was on the tube. I was coming home. Then I read a passage in a novel that I was reading about how some youngsters stumble about when they have to tell a brother that her sister is dead. It reminded me of a situation that happened in my life. I had come home from wherever I was and I sat down to dinner. My grandmother had gone to a doctor’s appointment with my parents earlier in the day. I asked what had happened. My parents told me that nothing had happened. I then told them off for having such long faces if nothing had happened. I told them to be happy that there was nothing wrong with grandma. After dinner, when I had quite finished, my mother told me the truth. My grandmother was going to die from lung cancer.’

‘They hid it from you? Why?’

‘So that I did not spoil my dinner.’

‘They lied!’

‘My mother did it out of love for me. So that I could eat my dinner.’

‘And so you wanted to cry because what happened in the novel happened to you? Why didn’t you cry?’

‘I could have. I wanted to. Badly. But then I sneezed. And then I lost the will to cry.’

‘Saved by a sneeze.’ Alfonso sneered at me. He was prone to do it. ‘Would you have really blubbed in front of the other passengers on the tube?’

‘What would they care? Do you think it would even register on their radar? This brown man crying? Have you watched that movie? No one would even care if you died on the tube. Your corpse would probably ride on it for three days before anyone noticed and even then the only thing that would give it away would be the emerging stench.’

‘Do people tell you that you are cynical?’

‘Yes. They have asked me to change. But if my life cannot change, why would the way that I cope with it change? Don’t expect any happiness in life. Don’t expect any recognition or reward for fighting for the truth and knowledge, for dignity for your people and Mother India. Don’t expect love. Don’t expect anything that you deserve for being the best. Expect instead indignity, marginalisation, unfairness, stupidity, ignorance.’

‘One day, make yourself cry,’ said Alfonso. ‘But aside from that, be happy. You have a heart still. That is better than most.’ He looked at me. I sensed pity. What good does pity ever do anyone?

russian roulette

09.08.2025

At the most, I had twitched my lips as a prelude to a word. Essentially just the moment before the action. Alfonso raised his finger aloft and intoned, ‘Enough of your vileness about love. Perhaps one day…’

‘There is no now, there was no before and there will be no before me.’

‘That’s the positive kind of attitude!’ Alfonso smirked at me. ‘Stop wallowing in pity.’

‘It makes for a good bed.’

‘The bed is precisely what you have to free yourself from. Your late mornings have started again in earnest.’

‘Do you know what the dream is now, Alfonso? While I am awake, I see myself with a black pistol. It is very elegant and very beautiful. Irresistible. And I am sitting at the table with this little fiend. She is inviting me. I stroke her. I love her. It is a seduction that is hard to resist. And there is one pretty little bullet in this sexy little fiend. I open the gun and roll the barrel. Now, no one knows where the pretty little bullet is. Does it have my name on it like I have its name upon my heart? Who knows. I aim the sexy little fiend at my temple. There is an audience. They watch. They have thirsted for my blood from before I was born. I am what they have to kill to survive. Then…’

‘And then?’ asked Alfonso coolly.

‘That is the thing. At first, this waking dream was that it is all over. But then, do you know what my luck is? I have never been lucky in anything. This society is against my luck. Then, perhaps I get the bad luck. Perhaps I survive. Perhaps there is no big BANG.’

‘It is only a dream. You detest guns. You have told me that they are for cowards. It is against your culture to use a gun against yourself. The dream signifies nothing.’

‘Still, it is a pretty dream.’

‘Get a prettier dream. Put some flowers in it.’

‘The flowers are a tired metaphor and a false one. There is no romance. There is no beauty. There is no life principle against the death principle. There is nothing and no one in this world and there are no flowers.’

‘Pull yourself together,’ Alfonso admonished me. ‘You would let them win over you? You would accept defeat on their terms? In the world, there are flowers. You just have to find them.’

‘I have looked my whole life. Even the flowers are impure.’

‘Purity is a fiction. Hence so is impurity. It is the impure that are capable of holding power.’

‘An impure power or a pure powerlessness? What would you prefer?’

‘You want to bandy words around when you should be living life? Tomorrow you could be the happiest man in the world. Tomorrow, it might be impossible to prise the smile off your face.’

‘Who lives in tomorrow? We live in today. Today has always been foul.’

‘What is foul is your mood.’ suggested Alfonso. ‘Did not even the chocolate ice cream I gave you add a moment of joy to your day? Why did you eat it then? Remember,’ said Alfonso, ‘even the cat that gets the cream is not satisfied with its lot. Remember the Hindu philosophy: life is suffering, life is pain, life is a punishment.’

‘Some are punished more than others,’ I responded.

‘Even when you are sad, that troublesome tongue of yours looks to argue and to defy the world. One man cannot defy everyone else. One man cannot argue against the huddled voices of the world.’

‘Let me die in the attempt.’

‘There.’ Alfonso clapped his hands and a brilliant smile lit up his face. ‘Spoken at last like a man. Keep that wild mind in your head and that wild tongue in your mouth. Keep fighting. Die a noble death. Die fighting. You are the warrrior.’

I watched the smile on Alfonso’s face. What a curious thing a smile is. How do these people smile? And almost all the time? What do they have to be so happy about when there is no happiness in the world? Together, they had all decided to apportion happiness across the world. And when it had come to my share, they had decided to scrimp and save, so that I had almost nothing. I was teasing happiness and joy out of consuming scraps of chocolate, inhaling scented bars of soap and an insane clinging to the cultural evenings around London so that I almost was not sleeping any more.

And yet, there it sat. The smile. Alfonso’s belief in me that I would keep on fighting without any victory. Against all. The Indian man’s belief in The Tiger.