medicine in the body (microfiction)

20.11.2025

‘You are looking considerably better’, remarked Alfonso, surveying me up and down. He was looking particularly dashing today too.

‘Was there any issue before?’ I asked him, raising my eyebrow archly.

‘You would not like the answer’, he grinned at me. ‘What is it do you think that is doing it for you?’

‘Having someone to hold.’

Alfonso smiled. ‘So, at last! But how is the holding doing so much?’

‘Before, I was wandering about this world, as lonely as a cloud on high. There was no love that was being offered to me. In fact, I was given refusal, disdain and rejection. Over and over again. Now, love is being offered to me and being taken from me in this hold.’

‘You think that love cures?’ asked Alfonso. ‘I heard that it is a sickness of itself.’

‘Holding someone is connection. What else do we search for in this life? We have it before we are born. We are in our mothers. After we are born, we stay close to our mother, skin upon skin. Looking into her eyes the whole time. Connection is our beginning and it is what forms our minds. That is why holding someone is medicine. Their body is medicine. The medicine of connection.’

‘Says the one that is healed.’

‘Jesus healed by laying his hands on others. Not by magic. But by touch.’

‘How does it feel, this healing?’

‘The ego is boosted. There is someone for me, someone that cares for me, someone that loves me, someone that holds me in this moment. There is someone against my skin that protects me from this cold and hard world. I feel secure, supported, greater than myself. I feel that now I am a true part of the human race.’

‘Someone to hold. A simple cure.’

‘The cure is simple. But to get someone to hold? It is not simple. It is fiendishly complicated. But we will not go into that. There are those that object to the truth because it is not in their interest and does not serve their agenda. And we live in the cancel culture. Instead, I will enjoy the cure.’

the drunken gait of love (microfiction)

19.11.2025

S: One in love moves as though drunk.

A: A cliche. They are always saying that love is like being drunk or being high.

S: Sometimes a cliche has some truth to it.

A: Do you believe?

S: That love is like drunkenness? Would you have me elaborate on the drunken gait of love?

A: Go on then.

S: Reason flies out of the window. They might have a thousand faults. Yet you love them. So they say that love is blind. Reason could be seen as sobriety. So sobriety goes out of the window.

A: And then?

S: You need more? Happiness, the happiness that comes when you are drunk. When you forget this miserable world. You drown your sorrows. That is the drunken gait of love too.

A: You are saying that you cannot have happiness without intoxication, either that of drink or love?

S: How else can you be happy?

A: Why else do you say there is this drunken gait of love?

S: If love is a journey, it is conducted as though one were a drunk. You meander here and there. It is impossible to move in a straight line. You go somewhere, you cannot leave that place. You are stuck. What else is it if not a drunken gait?

A: You told me that you disapprove of drink. Do you then disapprove of love?

S: I disapprove of what masquerades as love when it is not love. A love that comes from fascism, control, convention and conformity. Not to mention its other undesirable attributes, which I won’t, so as not to get myself into any trouble.

A: People must learn to love from somewhere.

S: Do you know why they despise love marriages in India? Because they are not based on reason. They are based on temporary emotion. Reason is more enduring than a moment of passion. Reason is more enduring than drunkenness. And it is better for society to work on reason.

A: Who has ever followed reason? Whose reason? What reason?

S: You speak to one that does not follow reason in love. That has the drunken gait of love. That chose what his heart said. Instead of thinking they are different, I thought that I loved them. Instead of thinking that it would not work, I thought that I loved them. Instead of thinking that society was against me, I thought that I loved them. And that love would do and be everything. If there is one drunk in love, it is me. Them, with their practicalities, they are what kill the lover. Them, with their reason, they are what kill the lover. Them, with their sobriety, they are what kill the lover. I would rather be drunk. It is better to leave this life than to leave the drink of love.

holding hands (microfiction)

16.11.2025

S: When I got into the station, a young hooligan pushed the gates to get free entry. Then, when I came home from London, again at the same station, I watched someone push through those same gates to get out. The workers there did nothing to stop it both times.

A: I feel like this is not over yet.

S: When the bus was pulling out of the station, it had to stop. Some idiot had parked his car in the bus lane so that we couldn’t squeeze past.

A: Why focus on these things?

S: I’m trying to tell you about the people that I live with in my area. What I have to live with.

A: Forget about that. Talk about something different.

S: Why do people hold hands?

A: To connect?

S: But how did it originate? Why grab someone’s hands?

A: It is the primary way that we touch, through our fingers and hands.

S: That might be one explanation. How about this for a theory? If you hold hands, you can never lose anyone. You are attached to them.

A: What makes you think that?

S: Over the past three years, with the brutal treatment that I received from those that I loved, when you suddenly snap apart and there is nothing any more, when before you thought you would have them forever… You need to hold hands to stop that happening. You need to be attached to someone.

A: Isn’t attachment just connection?

S: Attachment conveys more of an idea of sticking together.

A: How about this for an objection? When you hold hands, you don’t just hold hands. You also caress the hand and the fingers.

S: And how about this for a reply? When you caress, you are looking at more places to attach yourself to, to connect to, to love.

A: Well, I hope for you, you find many places to love.

S: What is this journey in life but finding those many places to love? And then loving in those places?

the machine (microfiction)

14.11.2025

S: How do you build the perfect warrior?

A: Haven’t you seen those action films? You inject them with a serum. Or you give them a bionic body.

S: It is not the body. It is the mind.

A: How so?

S: The perfect warrior is one that has anger. He is a berserker on the battlefield. Anger gives you strength and valor.

A: Surely anger makes you make mistakes?

S: You can get away with many mistakes in a fight. The other thing you need is loyalty. Loyalty to the cause.

A: Undying and unthinking loyalty?

S: Not unthinking. And undying except in special cases. There are many such qualities. The most important one is love.

A: I knew you would say that.

S: It is a complete misunderstanding of war and love to say that ‘I am a lover and not a fighter.’ In fact, the lover can only be a fighter.

A: We have heard this before.

S: The perfect warrior can only fight for love. The perfect warrior can die for love.

A: What if there is no love in this warrior’s life?

S: You need motivation in life. You rush home to talk to someone. You rush to where you are going to see someone. It is love that gives energy. Freud said love and work. That is what makes a life.

A: And the body?

S: India made a machine. The machine came from the farmers and the serfs. Full of natural muscle. With an insane stamina. A body that can do a hundred hours of work a week for over twenty years. A natural athlete. Strength personified. But the body? It is nothing without that iron will, the indomitable spirit and the audacious, powerful brain…

A: Who do you talk of?

S: The one that scares the cowards. The one that bows his head to The Mother. The one that is the boast of Punjab…

A: The Tiger…

the kardashian factor (microfiction)

13.11.2025

S: Writing really is a loser’s game.

A: Why do you say so?

S: What do you actually get from it?

A: Satisfaction. That you have completed the craft. Expression of the self.

S: You cannot eat those. They do not assuage your hunger.

A: You are touching other people and their minds and hearts.

S: Some hate. With absolute viciousness. They choose not to understand. How many do you think read what I write? How many do you think understand The Tiger?

A: What brings on this negativity? You are complete negativity. How do you do anything with this negativity?

S: I read an headline about Kim Kardashian. That she has a five billion pound business.

A: So what?

S: Here I am, having slogged away at writing for about twenty years or so. And I am still writing for free or for peanuts.

A: You are the one that chose to be socially responsible and to talk about serious issues. You could have written fluff to make money. They would have rewarded you for that.

S: Christ knew. The choice is between Mammon and god.

A: You are not religious. Even now, you could sell your pen. You would do well in whatever you wrote. You have the styles.

S: Sell myself? To the highest bidder? Impossible.

A: Well then, do not compare yourself to Kardashian. You do not have to have any message to be successful financially. In fact, they prefer you not to have any message to be successful.

S: Be content with nothing. That is this society all over. Be content with nothing. When the ones that have and get, you look at their contribution and what is even there? Out of nothing, they have made billions.

A: People want to be her. They do not want to be you. That is the secret of success. In fact, you are actually better looking than her and your life is actually full of more interest. But the problem is that Indian culture does not sell. It is not big in the public imagination. And you? You have dared to be different. You have done this to yourself. You should have tried to fit in.

S: I can’t fit into this. What this is, nobody should try to fit into it.

A: Yet they do. And therefore, you lose.

S: That, we will see. It depends on what you think winning means.

fighting fate (microfiction)

12.11.2025

S: Today I was in haste to get somewhere with someone. But when I arrived at the line, everything was down. There were people swearing down their phones, people with anger and annoyance on their faces, people rushing off in a huff…

A: Sounds hellish.

S: It was. All because one or two trespassers had come on the line. So they shut down all the services. One train was cancelled. One train had a failure to launch… I had to leave it. I had to cancel my plans. All there was was frustration.

A: And what were you thinking about that?

S: In life, there is always some kind of obstruction. It might not happen to you. It probably doesn’t happen to other people. But it does happen to me. Over and over again. I can never win.

A: Reason?

S: You could call it bad luck. You could call it fate.

A: And what happens when the lightning of bad luck strikes at your head?

S: It shows you that you can never plan anything in life. Because something will come in the way to disrupt all your plans. It shows you that every time you try to arrange happiness in life, all that comes is sadness and frustration. Desires are never met. Wishes remain unfulfilled. The bad luck…

A: Give me an example.

S: Just before Covid, I got this wonderful opportunity. I got trained up for it. Then? Covid and it got shut down.

A: Another one? Maybe that was just an exception.

S: At my Cambridge interview, I passed it and I got pooled. They didn’t contact me again. I passed a prestigious job interview after graduation where over one thousand people had applied for that post. They pooled me, they reserved me in first place. They didn’t contact me again. They pooled me for the PGCE when I passed the interview for a funded place. They didn’t contact me again. Even during my PhD, they pooled me for working in a prestigious art gallery. I passed all these interviews.

A: Bad luck or racism?

S: Both. It is the same with everything. I won’t go into my personal life. This is what I am up against. The curse. How they keep us down. Just one other person will destroy your life. You wonder why I am negative. What they did to me was absolutely appalling.

if death came (microfiction)

11.11.2025

A: You do not want to die.

S: There is a Hindi song. You have the desire to live. You have the wish for death. Everyone wants to die. No one wants to die. While I live, I eat healthy food, exercise and look after myself. I haven’t lost my discipline. And discipline is oriented towards long life. Yet in the moment of sadness and separation, we stare longingly at death. Our mouths water…

A: That’s enough of that. But if you did die, what then?

S: Who would care?

A: Irrespective of that, what about your ideas?

S: I notice the things that no one notices. They have lain there for over a hundred years. Maybe somebody would notice. Maybe there would be one that comes that could be as wise as me.

A: And what if it is just you? Only you that can see these things? Why have they lain dormant a hundred years or more until you have come?

S: You do not believe me when I say I am a genius. Someone like me only comes once every hundred or two hundred years. Do you know how much I have studied? I haven’t just studied the three undergraduate degrees. I have done university courses in every subject in the humanities. On top of that, I have the natural cunning of a Punjabi villager. I see. Probably, if I die, what I have discovered will remain undiscovered forever.

A: If you really are that important, if you really are a genius, why then do you not work and work and work? And write and write and write?

S: For these people? For these fucking people? You cannot be serious. They would starve me. They would put me in the corner and turn their backs to me. They have made life hard, a life of suffering. Work for them? Them? With their pettiness and frivolity? Their lack of any kind of understanding? The lack of any kind of meritocracy or value?

A: Do not become Achilles. He was the greatest. Yet he would not fight if he was not awarded the spoils.

S: I am ego. Ego must be fed. The Tiger is hungry, ravenous. For what is his. But I will give what I give when the time is ripe. I will not kill myself for it. For these people? No. For my people. For the Revolution.

love without fear

06.11.2025

S: Have you ever wondered what love without fear looks like?

A: Do they that love fear?

S: There is a famous Hindi song from one of the all-time classic movies. It is called ‘If you have loved, then what do you have to fear?’

A: And?

S: The question is whether that film is an exception to the rule. Because in the film there is an Oedipal situation between Akbhar the Great and his son Salim for a dancing girl.

A: Why do you mention this film?

S: Because an Indian professor that I used to know used to call me Salim. He recognised that I was Oedipus.

A: Is it only Oedipus that can love without fear?

S: That is the question, isn’t it? Salim’s love was the Revolution. In an India where the young fear the judgement of their parents and their family and society.

A: Why do you think people fear when they love?

S: Biology. In the past, childbirth might mean death. Or stigma in a society of monogamy and religious fanaticism.

A: So that is reason number one.

S: Secondly, when you love someone, you give them a licence to hurt you badly. Irretrievably even in many cases. It is a very risky business. And therefore, there is fear.

A: Why else?

S: The law. So if you ever love anyone outside of the law, there is the fear of stigma and the repercussions.

A: And you? You do not fear?

S: What is there to fear? I cannot die giving birth. The ones I have loved have stamped all over my heart and mind. I am still here, aren’t I? I haven’t died. I am still as strong as ever. Because I am invincible. And the law? I do not believe in it. In fact, the law is my enemy. Above everything….

A: You are a warrior. Yes, I know. You have crowed about it often enough. You come from the warrior culture. Where cowardice and disloyalty are the gravest sins.

S: Besides me, I hope there are those that can love without fear. Because fear breeds insecurity and unhappiness. There is this feeling. They will leave me all alone. All alone. Often, they do. But I do not fear. The Tiger never fears. Even the lonely are living. And loving.

the warrior of love

05.11.2025

A: You hate this world. You hate the people. You hate everything.

S: So? What have they done for me? Them and anything? They hate me and mine. Ours.

A: But you have the hypocrisy to say that you are full of love.

S: It is not hypocrisy. Why do I serve them then? That is my love. My philosophy is love is work.

A: You have a funny way of expressing love.

S: You want me to lick boots? Kiss arse? I’m not a fucking sycophant. They do wrong. I point it out.

A: That is why you do not get love in return.

S: You do not love to be loved. If you do, then you are not a lover.

A: You are still calling yourself a lover?

S: The warrior fights because he is full of love. The warrior is a lover.

A: Elaborate. It is not convincing.

S: Love is a battle. Of wills and wits. Defence and attack. Only the warrior can love. And only the lover can fight.

A: A cliche.

S: Because it is the truth.

A: You are from the warrior culture. That is what you think of love. You again attempt to speak for all.

S: You want me to endorse and promote the coward’s love? Where there is neither defence and attack? And therefore nothing?

A: You think you are so brave.

S: Yes. That is why, whenever I have felt love for someone, I have acted on it. I have no regrets.

A: Yet you are alone. You do not regret the aborted attempts?

S: If someone does not choose me, they are mistaken. I am the best.

A: You still believe?

S: Who can stand up against me?

A: Arrogance.

S: Confidence. Self-belief. The recognition of talent.

A: What good does it do you?

S: Against everyone, I followed the way of love. Against the family. Against this corrupt world and its corrupt values. I am the only lover in the world. No one else has had to pay the heavy cost that I have had to pay. I gambled my whole heart on my love. I am a hero of love. Because I am a warrior. These cold fucks with their cold love, what are they? What do they risk? Jackshit.

A: The Tiger’s love, reckless.

S: Lose everything in love. Except courage.

emptiness (microfiction)

04.11.2025

[written on the train home from work, 6-7pm)

A: You said that there was nothing. After the jealousy. After the fire. What did you mean?

S: The numbness. The ache of the emptiness. The place that is not filled. The void. The abyss. Many words. For the feeling of hollowness. Of incompleteness.

A: These are words. They do not describe the feeling.

S: You want to know the feeling of emptiness? It is complete numbness. It is nausea. It is the inability to arise from the bed in the mornings. Read the novel by Sartre. That is its literary expression. Why ask me?

A: It is you that is my friend. Not Sartre.

S: You do not want a wise friend? You prefer my company?

A: I prefer the company of The Tiger. He is also wise, the wisdom of nature.

S: It is a dangerous game. The Tiger has teeth.

A: Didn’t you tell me that the Punjabis have a phrase, ‘Friend of friends’? Isn’t that the philosophy of friendship of The Tiger?

S: You are one that appreciates care, attention and consideration and kindness. An anomaly. An exotic rarity.

A: You have many friends. You exaggerate. Perhaps you should keep better company if you feel like that.

S: The special friend I am looking for… Where do you find the better company? I have looked in so many fields. So many that I thought had embraced me only to watch them scatter in the wind…

A: When the kestrel cannot find a catch in one field, he haunts another.

S: The kestrel is free. He does not have a golden manacle upon his claw. He has no ties to a place.

A: You too are free. More free than anyone else. The wild ungovernable beast…

S: It is true what they say. Emotion is a cage.

A: Forget emotion. Become cold and hard like this world.

S: Impossible. They have a phrase in Punjabi, the language and people you are so fond of. ‘Dilwala’, the one with a heart. I am ‘Dilwala’. Not them.

A: Forget being one with a heart. Become one that has power.

S: It is accomplished. The power of The Tiger is unrivalled. He has transformed the world around him wherever he goes. The light that he sheds is like the blinding rays of the sun. And for them and those, it is unbearable.