the voice inside (microfiction)

22.12.2025

S: Against the voice outside, there is the voice inside.

A: How you talk to yourself?

S: Yes, the voice of power and the voice of daring.

A: What does the voice inside say?

S: The voice inside tells me that I am Love. The voice inside says to break the mouth of the law, the corruption of what counts as right and justice here. The voice inside tells me that I am a hero, that I am a genius, that I am the only real man in this country.

A: You are so proud of being a man. It is just a gender category.

S: It is one that I have chosen. And been chosen for. To stand for strength and courage. To stand for protection. The warrior.

A: They say that you are toxic.

S: Freedom says fuck you. Freedom says fuck you to the world. Fuck your cowardice, fuck your lack of ability and fuck your prejudice. They are happy for their fucking little non-men to have their unjust and false wars for the corruption that is the state. They are happy for these perverts to rape women abroad and to kill the innocent. I do not fight for the state. I fight for the people, for us. For the Oppressed.

A: Where is your war?

S: In everything that I do. How I love. How I write. What I think. What I do. It is the Revolution.

A: And the voice outside?

S: The voice outside is saying not to be a man. Not to have desire. That me and my people are nothing, to be cast aside and away. The voice outside is saying to be a slave and a non-man, like the slaves and the non-men here. The voice outside is saying to live a selfish and greedy life with no responsibilities and no values. The voice outside is saying let the rich fuck you and rule over you. To accept race as a marker of status and privilege and to eat this fucking bullshit because of my ethnicity. This voice is hate. It says to hate. To abandon love.

A: This voice says all these things?

S: The voice inside is more powerful than the voice outside. The voice inside is winning. Freedom says fuck you.

a nice memory (microfiction)

21.12.2025

A: What is the most beautiful memory you have?

S: I’ve been brought up with a lot of care and attention. I have many beautiful memories. Why choose just one?

A: Okay, it does not have to be the most beautiful. Just one that is beautiful.

S: Well, the one is one that happened many times. We would be staying at our grandparents’ house in London. It was exciting to be in London by itself. And my grandad would get us together and tell us a story before bedtime. And then he would ask us what the story meant at the end. Sometimes, he would take us on long walks and then tell us the stories as we were walking.

A: Those are your best memories? Stories?

S: They were stories told through love. They might not give happiness to some people, I know that all too well, I that write my stories. But they gave me happiness. And after the stories, my grandfather would be my bedfellow. I always slept in the same bed with him when I stayed over at his house. Because I was the closest to my grandfather. We were like best friends.

A: From being this kid that was excited by stories, why have you become this angry animal? If you had such a happy childhood, why are you full of rage and sadness?

S: Even when I was a child, I had anger management problems. I was born to be The Tiger.

A: Do you often dwell on these happy moments?

S: It is Christmas time. Today, a man told me that at Christmas time, you remember the ones that are not there. The ones that you had with you at Christmas. Do you know, there was this one. I asked them out in the New Year. It was my New Year’s resolution. I had them for that Christmas, thinking that they were mine although I did not celebrate it with them. I remember my grandparents at their house. We would have Christmas there. What is that if it is not dwelling on happy moments?

A: Happiness tinged with grief.

S: There was a time when they laughed that I felt all the joy in the world. Life has changed. Now, they are all gone from my life. They are either the dead or the living dead. They all left me.

A: Well now you have someone. And you can live in their laughter.

mother medicine

20.12.2025

A: Why didn’t you succumb to the depression?

S: Why did I get up in the morning out of bed and I was never late for work? Why did I pass my university exams? Why did I volunteer at all those places? Why did I work six jobs and all the overtime that I could get? Why did I educate my nephew so that he passed his exams in every spare moment that I had? Why did I help my friends through their problems without telling them about my own problems?

A: Yes. Why? How did you do it? What is the cure?

S: Because even when I felt like shit, I had to pretend in front of my mother that there was nothing wrong. So that I did not hurt her. So that she did not think there was any problem. Because there were people depending on me and people that looked up to me. That needed me.

A: You did that for two whole years?

S: I could die for my mother. What is a bit of acting compared to that? I have sworn to protect her. She wanted me to work. She wanted me to be a man. Not just a man. The man.

A: This face that you showed the world, this laughing face, how could you play that role for two whole years?

S: You don’t get an Oscar for real life. In real life, there is only one take. Everything that I do, I am talented at. Acting as well.

A: Isn’t the new philosophy that you should go broken to the doctor and your whole life should be broken if you are sad?

S: The sadness that I had was real. It wasn’t based on nothing. It was based on heartbreak and trauma. I am not of this generation of people. I am six thousand years old. The brave live throughout sadness and loss. They do not fall into the pit. I am strength. I am resilience. I am The Tiger. And the mother of The Tiger expects a warrior. That is my power. That is why I am invincible and indefatigable.

how does it feel for the moth to ravish the flame? (microfiction)

04.12.2025

S: How does it feel for the moth to ravish the flame? Do you know?

A: In plain English?

S: I don’t speak in plain English. I speak in beautiful English.

A: Forget the quibbles. You know what I am saying.

S: There are those that read that do not like the truth unadorned.

A: So? Who are they?

S: I am speaking of a destructive love. A love in which the self is wrecked.

A: Is life and the self a boat that can be wrecked?

S: You have never felt the pain?

A: We live in the degraded present. We live in a world where even love is pain.

S: When you have loved a stone, all you do is to collide against it.

A: Did you break?

S: Almost. It didn’t quite happen.

A: Why don’t you break? How are you still standing?

S: I did not let the darkness engulf me. I am the sun.

A: The sun can become eclipsed by the moon.

S: Moon cannot overcome me. There is one that is undefeated and invincible. She has given me her powers. The Mother, Durga. The Queen Mother.

A: How so?

S: I feel the protection of the ideals of Mother India. The ideals that is the one that is the warrior queen. The one that protects and loves.

A: To almost break then. How did that feel?

S: The one that is alive that has lived through death is the moth that has ravished the flame. Burnt himself alive. And yet, everything did not turn into ash. The mouth and the stomach was full of ashes. But this heart, this heart of a Punjabi, this heart of The Tiger, this heart is full of energy and life. We boast that we have the biggest hearts in the world. And so we are not wrecked. We restore ourselves. When the flame will not embrace us then there flies out of the world Solace. And whether or not we can keep Solace through the long and lonely night, just to look into her eyes and touch her gives the moth the desire to fly again once more into the flame that is love.

moving from sadness to happiness (microfiction)

02.12.2025

A: You have been grieving. You have been mourning a loved one.

S: Does mourning ever end? Is it finished? Why the past tense?

A: Yes. Because you are moving into happiness. How does it feel moving from sadness to happiness?

S: The ones that we have lost, we still remember them. The sadness of their loss. It doesn’t matter how happy we are. The cut goes deep. And, moreover, I am not mourning the dead. I am mourning the living. The quick and not the dead. How can the mourning for the living ever end?

A: Yet you must feel happiness?

S: I feel the intoxication. It has happened again. Yes, I feel happy.

A: Don’t cling to the dead. Free yourself from their arms.

S: Those arms are grasping at me. They want to pull me into the sea with them.

A: I have told you not to think those thoughts.

S: Because of them, I think that anyone I am with will betray me and leave me.

A: You are saying that you are scared? You told me that you do not fear.

S: I do not fear anything for myself. I am not scared of death or battle. But the ones that I love? Losing them fills me with terror.

A: You are wrong. You can live without them. You have proved it.

S: I don’t want to live without them.

A: You have told me yourself. However brutal this life is, you have to live it. The mourning period is over. It is finished now. There is someone now.

S: Do you think that if your brain has been habituated to mourning for years, that it can suddenly shake itself off from that mourning just like that? Do you think that someone with a memory like mine can just lose the memory of trauma?

A: You will have to. You owe it to yourself and to this someone. Everything takes time. Your happiness is new. It is being reborn. You were happy once before and you are happy once again. Happiness is the natural state of things. Forget the past. Don’t think on it. Learn how to trust again. The mark of bravery is trust and love. Everything will work out. Just enjoy happiness and contrast it with that sadness and the emptiness that you felt. That betrayal.

S: I want that happiness. I want to free myself from death.

A: Good. Then do so. Desire is the mother of action.

how a piece of shit thinks (microfiction)

28.11.2025

S: You don’t have to wonder what a piece of shit thinks. They are trumpeting it everywhere. Trump is trumpeting it. And so is that fucking arsehole Farage. In fact this whole fascist government is trumpeting that fucking bullshit.

A: And what is it that this piece of shit is thinking?

S: Anyone with any sense knows that instead of putting their own house in order, these racist vermin are blaming all of the problems that they have created on ethnic minorities and people coming into the country. Deflection. Externalisation. In a word, bullshit. While the ethnic minorities and people coming into the country are doing all the work that they won’t and can’t do.

A: How is it working?

S: While their racist ‘civilisation’ is dictating the terms of conduct and thought throughout the whole world, as they continue to colonise the whole world and eradicate difference, they are pretending that they are at risk of extinction. Because these fascists can’t tolerate that there might be a different way of living and thought. While they are hoarding all the wealth in the world for themselves and stealing it from others, they are pretending that we are stealing all their wealth. They can’t stand meritocracy and fair competition because they have no talent themselves – only their privilege.

A: Who are the morons that are falling for this shit?

S: The moron has nothing. No talent and no spirit or thought. They are fucking slaves. What they have is the colour of their skin or their nationality. And they think, because of that, that they are better than everyone else. But they don’t really believe that they are better than anyone else. Because inside, they know that they are nothing but a piece of shit. So they try to pick on who they perceive is weaker than themselves, all the while knowing that those people are better than they are. Because those others are not full of hate like they are. These fucking slaves don’t have the fighting spirit to wage war against the rich. They are sycophants and bend over to let the rich and powerful fuck them. So they pick on who they perceive as the poor and hungry. They don’t have belief in their own ‘civilisation’ – they think that anyone can displace it and rule over them. They are cowards that move in a herd and have no originality or independence of vision. They love lies. They love hate. They hate love.

A: How do you stop a piece of shit thinking like a piece of shit?

S: They only have hate. That is all they have. Read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. Trash only has race and nationality, they don’t have anything else. They are hollow scum. Just like Mayella Ewell is ruled over by her ignorant father in the novel to believe that she is superior because of the colour of her skin, so these fucking morons, these fucking slaves can only be ruled with hate.

the breath of destiny (microfiction)

26.11.2025

S: When I take a pause, I feel destiny. She is breathing down my neck.

A: How can you believe in destiny? It is an outdated notion.

S: I have been raised to fulfil a destiny. To protect The Mother. I am named after it. It is the teaching in the culture. It is us, the warrior culture.

A: How much do you do for this destiny?

S: I work in education. I teach. I write to promote diversity. I volunteer at charities. I do all that I can while earning a living. I protect my birth mother. I protected my grandmother. It is never enough. When I was young, I swore that I would change this world. I have done my utmost with the opportunities that I was given, which are not many.

A: Do you believe that you have changed the world for the better?

S: Yes, I believe.

A: Regrets?

S: That there is not the war. And that I have not died a glorious death in the war.

A: Will there ever be a war?

S: I believe in the Revolution. Whatever anyone else thinks about it, no matter how vicious this world is, I believe in the Revolution. And I am always ready to fight. I am spoiling for a fight. Warrior destiny is the war. To create that spark that will burn the world. I am not alone. There are others.

A: How can you be a warrior if there is no war?

S: The war is all around us. The war for us. Look and you shall see. Take the scales off of your eyes. There is a system that the slaves to the state have made. It is the system of slavery because they cannot think beyond slavery. And I am no slave. I won’t bow my head to anyone but The Mother. There is no one fit to rule above me. That is what you call self-belief and self-respect. Only I am fit to govern myself. That is what this war is. Me against this world that would have me in chains and licking their boots. I am not a sycophant and a boot licker. It is better to live with nothing than to be someone’s slave. I live the life of a king. That is why I am the man of destiny.

ego and acceptance (microfiction)

25.11.2025

S: When someone returns your affection, you feel like the king of the world.

A: You feel like that anyway. You have a big ego.

S: You know me. And you are right. But it is different when someone likes you. Because then you feel even more like the king of the world.

A: Plenty of them like you.

S: It doesn’t matter if someone likes me or not. Because they do not act upon it. They do nothing. They let me do nothing. And therefore, it did not and does not count. What counts is action in love. Just as in war.

A: How do you know they like you if they do nothing about it?

S: That is exactly my point.

A: Clarify for me.

S: Romance is a guessing game. Do they like me? How much do they like me? What do I mean to them? We keep on looking for the signs in other people. But the real sign is how much they are willing to make time for you. That is what it comes down to. When people make time for you and want to meet you, to have you to themselves. When even if things are difficult, they make it happen. That proves that they love you and care about you.

A: That is the only proof you would have?

S: What else is there? Just receiving a look of like cannot give you satisfaction. It is not like holding someone in your arms. Just hearing the words that indicate that someone likes you, it doesn’t satisfy you. You have to be able to feel that something real is happening. And it feels real when you are there, looking into their eyes, touching them, whispering sweet nothings to them.

A: Your ego relies on acceptance?

S: When I was rejected, I wanted to die. I am not exaggerating.

A: Well now that you have been accepted, you should want to live. So live.

S: Life has embraced me now. She wears a flower in her hair and she dances with abandon. I follow her through the fields of summer. All the while, the chill winter wind blows. But when I am with her, I do not feel it.

touch as waves of energy (microfiction)

24.11.2025

S: You know, there is this electric magnetic force in the fingers.

A: How so?

S: When someone runs their fingers ever so delicately across your skin, barely touching you, when they caress you with the lightest of touches, all the sparks in your body start flying.

A: Like a tickle?

S: It is a lover’s tickle. And it sends shivers all through you as the electric magnetic force multiplies in your body.

A: They often call love magnetism.

S: I see touch as waves of energy that emanate from the body of the loved one into the recesses of the self. As energy combines and reawakens within.

A: So what do you touch when you touch the lover?

S: You touch life itself. I feel the force of life within them. When I clasp them towards me, I feel life. When I kiss them on their soft neck, their full lips, their plump cheeks, I feel life itself. The thing itself. I have hungered for it.

A: Love is life?

S: Love is life. Love is death. There are highs and there are lows. Ecstatic highs and awful lows. But always, we hope to feel life itself. I bite at their cheeks. That is life. I gulp at their throat. That is life. I kiss their hair. That is also life.

A: You want to live so bad?

S: The dead hunger to live. I was all dead.

A: You? There is no man more active.

S: I was at the bottom of a well. And instead of helping me, they threw buckets of cold water over me. It was the well of death. The angel flew overhead. She did not even look at me…

A: You have clambered out of the well now. Drink the water and move on.

the lonely (microfiction)

22.11.2025

S: What a horrible thing loneliness is.

A: The occasion for thinking so? You are not that lonely nowadays are you?

S: I have been lonely. Perhaps few have been as lonely as I have been.

A: It is not a competition.

S: But today, it is not me that is lonely, thankfully. I am looking at lonely people destroying their lives around me through loneliness.

A: And what do you feel?

S: I understand them. I feel pity for them. It is a disease. What is bad about loneliness is that even if you try to escape loneliness, the feeling of loneliness will destroy even the attempt to escape it. Because the lonely do things that only the lonely can do. And that others don’t understand. Bizarre and insane things.

A: How did you escape loneliness?

S: I tried everything. I was also bizarre. Then, one day, the loneliness was over. But let me tell you, in our nightmares we are lonely. It is a terrible thing because the nightmare becomes life. And it is made worse by this Western society. Because in the past, you would have the whole family to support you. They have made their people live by themselves. And then, only one person, one special person is allowed to take away their loneliness. The lonely are risking all their redemption on one person. Who may not even be trustworthy. That is why so many are so lonely. They have created this colossal disease, this atomisation in society. This terrible burden of loneliness which you relieve onto the shoulders of just one person. And then, everyone around you, they keep so busy from you and so separate that they can never relieve your loneliness.

A: You would have them live like you, in the Indian family?

S: What is called Western Independence costs you heavily. Read the ‘Divergent’ series. The heroine never recovers from the separation with her parents, her independence and choice. The Indian way is how we have been living for thousands of years. It is the natural way. It is how we have escaped loneliness through the ages.

A: Keep your good wishes to the lonely.

S: They are not bad people. They do not deserve the judgement. They are just lonely and as I have said, it is a disease. I understand and I will not judge them. Instead, I will hope that their loneliness is over. That they can escape this loneliness.