solitude in connecting with community

11.08.2026

S: How does an individual become a member of the group?

A: Why do you ask? Who knows?

S: I can give you an example from yesterday. I was waiting patiently by myself for an Indian classical music concert to start. I wanted to become a member of the Indian community. Am I Indian? To become something, you have always to keep on becoming it. I waited and waited and waited. And as I sat there by myself, I felt myself becoming more and more disconnected from the world around me and the people in it.

A: Why this disconnection?

S: Am I of this world? Am I not a god? In any case, I was reminding myself of the time I was single and all I ever did was to try and find some connection in this world. All that time of being alone. Doing things by myself. Going out by myself. And never really meeting anyone.

A: So, at the point that you were trying to connect to the community, you were feeling more and more atomised?

S: Precisely.

A: When the Indian music came, did you feel connected to the community?

S: In the moment of the music, I forgot all earthly cares and troubles. I became one with the music. With the community. I went from being the atom into one that was caught up in the flow of the beautiful singing. One with the voice of India.

A: Did you lose all thought? All introspection, sadness and loneliness?

S: Yes. This is India. You are entranced by her beauty.

A: But by yourself then, you are atomised always?

S: Atomisation calls for work. When by myself, I work and work and work. It covers the ache. Yesterday, waiting, I could not work. It was a loud pub. But let us never become the atom. Let us always be us. The atom works for thought. I am a thinker. But we are human. We are social animals. We are India and we have to become India.

A: Become one with the music and the voice of India.

S: What else is the roar of The Tiger but the voice of India?

a break in writing

03.08.2026

A: Why have you taken this break in writing? Your readers are missing you.

S: I do not owe anyone anything.

A: In some sense, you do. They come to your writing time and time again. They trust you to write something.

S: In any case, what changes with my writing? The world is corrupt when I am writing. It is corrupt when I am not writing. There is no transformation. There is no Revolution.

A: You have lost faith in humanity? You have lost faith in making a difference?

S: If you want to see how much notice people take of you, try pursuing writing, art, poetry and photography for a number of years. And see what it all comes to when you do not come from the dominant culture and you have no connections.

A: I thought you told me that you do not give up.

S: You will merely have to see whether I continue writing or not, won’t you?

A: Do you think that you can give up writing. I would say that is not possible. We all know you. Come, what is happening in your life? You have the most eventful life out of anyone that I know.

S: It is a round of concerts, friendships, romance, reading and rushing. Rushing, rushing, rushing. To fit everything in. To keep everything and everyone going. And then, stepping in where I am needed in this society. Helping old ladies with things in a restaurant. Breaking up fights on the street in the night time. Asking after elderly friends that are sick. Visiting old friends that are not doing so well.

A: You are still waiting for the golden opportunity? You are still waiting to transform this world? Remember what they said in Dhurandhar, ‘The Master of the Field’. To have one’s revenge, one needs energy. Do you have enough? Are you tired and old yet? Have you given up the fight?

S: You ask this of one from whom The Mother expects? You ask this of one that Punjab expects. That India expects. That the People, the Oppressed, that they expect? Do you know why Vishnu came to earth in every age, as in the form of my namesake Krishna? He came to expel sin from the world every time. To soothe the tears of humanity. I have been born for them. That is the destiny that has been picked out for me. You would have me fight against my destiny?

A: What have you done to right the world?

S: Everything. I have taught refugees and migrants English. I have volunteered in after school home work clubs for underprivileged children. I have tackled social isolation through reading as a volunteer. I have written and written and written for charities to spread education. I send money abroad to the poor for education. I give money to the temple so that they can feed everyone and build a community. I give money to charity. I give food to the homeless. I have coached my friends with their ambitions and dreams of advancement, helped them get jobs, supported them. I look after people in public whenever there is any issue, no matter how dangerous it is. I look after my friends and my family, nursing the sick, preparing them for university, teaching them. I have educated myself without mercy to right this world. I write to politicians to right things. Everyone looks to me to be the man and I act like the man. And I do all these things while I have been in a rigorous study for a doctorate or while I work sixty or seventy hour weeks in volunteering and working. No one can say that I do nothing. And the ones that do say I do not do anything? What do they do?

Partition 1947

29.07.2026

A: What was the highlight of your day?

S: Yours first.

A: Chocolate cake. Chocolate is always a highlight. Cake is always a highlight. So chocolate cake is doubly a highlight.

S: Everything I do, I enjoy doing. There were many highlights.

A: Okay. So what did you do outside of work? What were these highlights then?

S: I went and got a haircut first thing after work. Zero on the sides. Looks much fresher. Then, I had a cool shower. It felt amazing in this heat. After that, I had a home cooked dinner of chicken and rice, a phone call with my girlfriend and then a beautiful walk in Valentine’s Gardens. When I got back home from that, I applied to do my Master’s in Art History at the Open University and messaged several of my friends to organise a graduation summer part for my First Class Honours, as well as others to arrange a visit to the Henry Moore exhibition this week. Then…

A: There is more?

S: It is not so much.

A: How do you fit all of these things in?

S: I’m fast. What can I say? Anyway, I also enjoyed chocolate. Cadbury’s Creme eggs that I got for sale after Easter. And one especial highlight was watching the trailers for my favourite director coupled with my favourite actor. Rajkumar Santoshi with Sunny Deol. For Batwara 1947 (Partition 1947).

A: The story?

S: What else would it be? The hero is Sunny Deol. He is protecting The Mother. That is my name and my honour. That is why Sunny Deol is me and I am Sunny Deol.

A: It is always protecting The Mother with you.

S: I am named after it. What else do you expect? I have been born to protect her honour. And she has many enemies. Many that would dishonour her and do away with her. We fight against the patriarchy for The Mother.

A: Non-Indians claim Indian men are misogynistic.

S: It is the Indian man that can honour The Mother. Lies we don’t listen to. And cowardice we do not follow.

results day

27.07.2026

S: You know, about five hundred people have read about my results at university, that I got a first class honours degree in Art History and Visual Cultures.

A: It’s a big readership. It’s a good thing that you didn’t fail.

S: Indeed. I’ve been spared the egg on the face.

A: Why mention this?

S: Because, despite all of those people reading, only a handful of close friends congratulated me on the degree. The reality of life is that most people can’t spare a couple of seconds to write congratulations for a major milestone in someone’s life. It shows you what the reward of success really is. Indifference.

A: Perhaps they are not indifferent? Perhaps there are other reasons for not writing?

S: It is always friendship that trounces the objective recognition of achievement. That is why there will never be a meritocracy.

A: You should have written about all of the challenges you faced while doing this degree.

S: You want me to talk about how I overcame the heartbreak, depression, isolation, loneliness and the massive amounts of work and volunteering that I was doing throughout this part time degree? I think that you are wrong. Nothing will ever impress these people. They have never recognised my achievements and they never will. In fact, all of the barriers that I have had to face, it is them that have put them before me. Instead of helping, they obstruct. They are the ones that gave me heartbreak and isolation and depression.

A: If you will never be accepted, forget about wanting to be accepted.

S: One should forget. But then, the People have asked for acceptance. And this is the fight that we fight. Climbing mountain after mountain. Achieving success after success. But yet, never finding that acceptance and warmth and love.

achilles without a heel

23.07.20206

S: Achilles was the greatest because his mother’s love protected him. She gives him invulnerability.

A: You have spoken of this before.

S: Harry Potter has it too. The protection of The Mother. I, too. I have the protection of The Mother.

A: You believe that you are invulnerable?

S: You forget the basic truth. I believe that I can do everything and therefore I can do everything. And that belief comes from my mother’s belief in me. That I am not just a man.

A: And what else does this mother’s protection give you?

S: Not just confidence. Not just a can do attitude. Love itself is strength. The love that you get from someone, that is strength.

A: You are channeling her energy?

S: What else? I am her and she is me. All of her desires, I have achieved. The ambition that she has had for me, I have achieved it. Anything I have wanted, I have taken.

A: What else has she given you?

S: Language. Culture. Style. The destiny to be her voice. Her love has been an armour against this cold and hard, hostile world. It has sheltered. This love has been home. The refuge, the sanctuary.

A: When The Mother gives Achilles his invulnerability and strength, it is lacking.

S: This is the misogyny and the anti-Mother attitude of the Greeks and the West. In fact, there is no lack. Achilles has no heel.

A: You mean this Achilles?

S: In Indian culture, it is The Mother that is all-powerful and triumphant. It is The Mother that is all conquering. She is the one that protects. That is why no one and nothing can stand against me. They all fall. It is me that remains standing. It is me that achieves. It is me that becomes The Man.

small accomplishments

18.07.2026

At about the stroke of midnight, I suddenly had this irresistible urge to write to A. Whatever A. was doing, perhaps sleeping, I always thought A. was free for me. Accessible and open, welcoming even. I wanted to tell A. about my idea of small accomplishments.

In my life, every day, I tried to achieve something. Small things that built up to a general sense of achievement. They did not have to be earth shattering. They were ways of self improvement. Ways of challenging and stretching myself. Ways of stimulation.

So, I wrote to A. I told of my day. It was one of the humble practices of writing. The list. And in order.

Meditation and chi building.
Light weights, stomach crunches and push ups.
Language learning in Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu through reading short stories, newspapers and novels.
Reading The New Scientist and great stories from British history.
Messaging friends and writing to my pen pal.
Juggling.
Playing at Scrabble, a jigsaw puzzle and a quick crossword.
Researching volunteering places in science for my nephew and sending him over a list so he can choose what he applies to over the summer holidays.
Listening to Hindi film songs on my headphones on my train.
Shopping for lunch and eating while I was exploring the area in London.
Going to various art exhibitions with my girlfriend. I also read poetry today while at the art exhibitions.
Photographing my girlfriend.
Shopping with my girlfriend.
Looking at a cultural destination with my girlfriend.
Editing photographs of my girlfriend with me on my phone.
Eating a dinner of fish and chips with my parents.
Watching ‘The Seven Year Itch’ to watch Marilyn Monroe after going with friends to see her exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery yesterday.
Looking at artwork and photographs on Instagram.
Doing a quick digital art doodle and posting it on Instagram.
Phoning my girlfriend good night.
Writing.

what it feels to miss love

15.07.2026

S: Do we miss other people?

A: Yes.

S: You answer immediately. But is it them that we miss? Or do we miss how they make us feel? Do we miss their love?

A: Those are aspects of them.

S: Is an aspect them?

A: One is one’s attributes. Do you miss someone?

S: There are those that I think of that are gone.

A: The dead?

S: There are those that are living too. The quick and the dead.

A: The biblical reference. Always with the books with you.

S: The living, I can feel their eyes on me. I know who it is that looks upon my words.

A: Friend, lover, enemy? Who do you talk of?

S: The secret rests within this breast.

A: Why not bring them near to you?

S: It has been a long time. There are distances.

A: You miss them. You will not make it up with them. That is perverse.

S: Humans are perverse. They themselves are perverse. They that hate, they know that I understand them. They hate because I understood, not because I did not.

A: Perhaps that is conceit. Perhaps you misunderstood.

S: Whether or not I understood them, which it is impossible to tell, they did not understand me.

A: The poor misunderstood man.

S: No one understands genius.

A: Why then do they fear it?

S: Precisely because it is an unknown.

A: What say you to the lost?

S: I say that I see your eyes before me. I say that I see your face. I see you saying the words of friendship to me. I remember how I would rush towards you. I remember how I would look forward to seeing you.

A: And yet you cannot bend and they cannot bend.

S: Some things are destined not to be. Everywhere, men build walls around themselves, around others. Such walls become the stuff of life. Such walls determine one’s destiny. Find me one that does not build this wall.

A: Some walls, you have broken through.

S: There is always a wall. To open one’s heart, one has to become a god. One has to become fearless. One has to shed all doubts. One has to become The Tiger.

the embrace of difference in thought

07.07.2026

S: When these English Literature types make the students write out their thoughts about novels, short stories, poems, anything at all really, what are they aiming at?

A: What indeed?

S: Is it difference in thought or is it conformity in thought?

A: Why do you ask?

S: Well, why do they never let you outright disagree with any critic that has had anything published before you came onto the scene?

A: So you are saying that they are the supporters of conformity?

S: What else then? Can they really value genuine difference? If genuine difference existed, would we even be able to comprehend what was being written?

A: You tell me. You are always boasting about having an interdisciplinary project that defied categorisation.

S: If they really valued difference and other orientations, why would they try to keep all of the students to their disciplinary confines?

A: Not everyone is like you. Not everyone can invent, invent and invent. You are perhaps too original.

S: There, you have said it. Because I do not conform, I cannot fit in.

A: Would you want to fit in? The ones that have read your book, the ones that have reviewed it, have they not lauded your innovations and your originality? Have they not said that you stand apart from everyone else? Accept it. That you are different. And, despite you being radically different, you have received praise for it from at least a few souls.

S: What is a piece of praise? You cannot eat praise.

A: Bread you can eat. But does it really satisfy?

S: Recognition, is it something that can quench this yearning?

A: If yearning could be quenched, there would only be satiation and complacency. Live. Write. Strike again. And again. The greatest are never defeated. They defeat the world.

the shamelessness of truth, the shamelessness of racism and unlikeability

02.06.2026

S: Truth is absolutely shameless.

A: How?

S: However much truth costs, its expression must never be arrested. Truth can never be ashamed whatever the consequences and how they attempt to silence it. This world, it wants to listen to sycophancy and hate. It wants to listen to ignorance and prejudice. It wants its own way. I say fuck no. What is so good about your way? What about our way? Fuck your lip service about inclusion and diversity when you are all narrow minded and arrogant and completely non inclusive. Fuck your so-called ‘tolerance’ which really shows what you think of us and the lack of respect you give anyone that is in any way different. In short, fuck you. We do not agree with you. We do not sympathise with you. We do not want to be like you. We do not want to fit in with you. It is you that are wrong. We criticise. We denounce. And we aim to be as different from you as we can.

A: And even when truth is controversial?

S: Yes. When this world is one of sexual repression. When this world denies the reality of the body and desire. When this world is one of addicts and those who shape their whole culture around drugs such as alcohol. When this world is full of philistines and sickening conformity. When this world is full of poor judgement and unfairness and ignorance. Yes, we will say the controversial truths. What the fuck can anyone do about it? No one can argue against the truth. They can try, with their lies. But they can’t demolish the truth. It is the truth alone that is triumphant. And what if they hate us for saying so? Unlikeability in this culture is a badge of honour. Because we are unlikeable because we are not racists and don’t agree to their racism. We are not ignorant and do not agree to their ignorance. We are diverse, that is why we are unlikeable. We have our own minds. We have our own thoughts. We do not conform to them. And if that is unlikeable, so fucking what? So fucking what if it costs you something to be unlikeable? It is the unlikeable people that are the shapers and movers of culture. Not them. They are just pricks.

A: But have you not said that racism is also shameless?

S: It is. Absolutely. These people are not ashamed of their racism. They are not ashamed of their unfair assessments and bigotry. They are not ashamed of their superiority complex. It is obvious to see in who they choose amongst themselves and their leaders. In their policies and in their thinking and their laws.

A: Be true and be unlikeable then. They don’t like anyone to call out what they are doing.

S: Yet, it is the truth.

A: They accuse you of being pig-headed and never blaming yourself.

S: What is it that they are doing? Exactly the same thing. And I am right. It is them that are wrong. They just have more power than me through their racism. But I don’t want power that comes from racism, the power to say that what is wrong is right. I want the power of the truth, to say what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. And therefore, I will remain unlikeable, hated and not succeed to the power that they have. Because their power is oppression and I do not want to oppress.

those it does not work out with

28.05.2026

S: The question is, when it does not work out with someone, was it supposed to have happened or was it supposed to have not happened?

A: What do you mean by supposed to?

S: Does not fate control our lives?

A: There are many that do not believe in fate. But explain. Why would a relationship be supposed to have happened?

S: Love is either necessary or it is redundant, don’t you think? Surely matches are made by fate. One does not choose who one loves. It happens. It cannot be forced.

A: But then, surely it would have worked out if the other loved you?

S: Is not love more complicated than that? Sometimes, they love. But they will not do anything about it?

A: Why?

S: They are scared about what others think. They are scared about a difference in age. They are scared by a difference in culture. They are scared by status, appearances, race, everything that should not matter.

A: You say this confidently. How do you know? How do you know that they were scared by those things? How do you know that they never loved you?

S: No one knows anything. And yet, surely the person that was in the interaction knows more than others, those that were outside of the interaction?

A: The point of what you are saying is that you had hoped for something. And now you are wondering what would have been. You are regretting.

S: Not at all. One thinks about those in the past. One does not forget about those that one cared about. However, the question is, was it meant to be? Was that what destiny had chosen for me? If it had worked out with those ones, I would be saying to myself that it was the culmination of destiny’s efforts. But then, if it didn’t work out, if misunderstandings crept in, the situation caused failure of connection, was that a disorder in destiny and the path that was chosen? Or was that destiny unfolding?

A: As I have said, destiny is an unwarranted assumption.

S: You can say that because you were not born with a destiny. You were not born to be The Tiger, the hope of the Mother, the hope of The Oppressed. Warrior destiny is the war. And love is also war. Therefore there is the destiny of love.