jealousy (microfiction)

03.11.2025

S: I was insanely jealous. With an emphasis on the insanity.

A: You are insecure?

S: Where was the security? I had nothing. I was not theirs. I was clutching at a speck of a straw in the storm of the river.

A: And?

S: Seeing them with another… It was like a pickaxe to the brain and to the gut.

A: You have said that you WERE jealous…

S: Life taught me a lesson. To give up.

A: You? You gave up?

S: You cannot force.

A: You could love from afar. Like Dante.

S: Preposterous. A waste of life. To long and to yearn. And never love to earn.

A: And now? Where has the jealousy gone?

S: When hope is gone, jealousy is gone. Jealousy is the hope that one is mine. When there is still a bridge that connects. When there is no bridge that connects?

A: That bridge that you built, you destroyed it so easily.

S: Mine was not the hand that held the fire.

A: But you swallowed the flame willingly.

S: Not willingly. I was much loth to do it. The body and the mind fought me valiantly. They are the body and the mind of The Tiger. I am strength. Years of strength. That is why I am invincible. One lesser would have succumbed.

A: But what comes now instead of jealousy?

S: Nothing. The numbness.

A: You told me that you are fire.

S: You can be fire only for what is yours.

A: You are lying to yourself. You are still fighting yourself.

S: You don’t believe that love dies? Our world is one in which love is for a moment. And only that. It is a faint murmur that is forgotten against a deafening noise. There is no loyalty. There was no encouragement. In short, there was nothing.

A: The heart of a Tiger, the heart of a traitor?

where there is no bond there is no treason

the wheel of survival knows no season

loss is what we hide

why lie? we have died

Complaint (microfiction)

01.11.2025

‘Shikayat’ (from “Gangubai Kathiawadi” soundtrack)

I was writing to A. About a song.

In this song, there is complete understanding. The understanding of a woman. The story is that there is a man who is upset with her. And she understands that he is upset with her because he loves her.

He does not look at her.

He does not think about her.

She passes by him. He does not stop her.

He complains about her.

She even says that he hates her.

But yet, she still believes in his loyalty. She believes that they are not separated. That he complains is that he loves her.

The song plays with the concept of ‘roothna’ or ‘ruthna’, being sulky or sullen. It is ‘when someone close to you gets UPSET, OFFENDED or SLIGHTLY ANGRY and STOPS TALKING/COMMUNICATING for some period’. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-English-word-for-the-Hindi-word-ruthna

“Ruthna” implies a temporary emotional withdrawal often intended to prompt reconciliation; “to sulk” and “to pout” capture the behavioral aspect, while “to be offended” or “to take offense” capture the feeling. (Ibid.)

So, in the song, she understands that he complains because he loves her. And she loves him too. The complaint is evidence of their love. It brings them together instead of breaking them apart.

Obsessively, I listened to this song. In it was the mystery of love. Of an Indian man’s love. I have not watched the film. However, the form of the song is important. It is a qawwali. This was originally a song form in Sufi Islam designed to be hypnotic and to inspire religious ecstasy and love. Hindi films use the form to convey earthly love. The divinity of love is being expressed in ‘Shikayat’ (Complaint).

How different, I thought, the Hindi film is from life. The understanding of this song, does it happen in real life? Real life is full of misunderstanding and confusion. As we know it, real life is full of misguided assumptions, tangle and confusion, mind games that meander and go nowhere.

The song has inspired me to watch the film. Perhaps in the film, there is the reconciliation of the lovers. A happy love story for a change. Instead of another witnessing of the death of love. And the death of the lover. Who is reviled for being in love.

a bubble of happiness (microfiction)

31.10.2025

A: Halloween comes once again.

S: Every day and night the dead haunt us. What is special about this day?

A: You are haunted. You always speak for everyone. When, in fact, you are different from everyone else. Do you ever feel happiness in your life?

S: I feel happy sometimes. I felt happy yesterday. You know that, naturally, I have a positive disposition. All my friends tell me that I have a positive energy. Unhappiness has been forced upon me. And I only feel the unhappiness most keenly in the night time and in the morning when it is hard to rise.

A: Yes, it is indeed remarkable that despite the amount that you complain, you never actually seem to be that low. Then we have your words in the night, a shocking contrast. Like Jekyll and Hyde. But to the question. How does a jaded and cynical, pessimistic person like you even feel any ounce of happiness?

S: There are people that make you happy. Everything comes from other people. They can make you happy. And then they can hurt you and make you sad.

A: Why talk about sadness?

S: Because that is what gives happiness meaning. Death and sadness, intolerable suffering, this is what gives happiness its meaning. In the old paintings, happiness was depicted as a child playing with a bubble. Happiness is a bubble. It is fragile and delicate. It is a shining orb of light which will only exist for a moment in this hard world. Look carefully at the surface of the bubble of happiness. It shines with light. It has all of the colours within its iridescence. It is beauty. The roundness of the bubble shows its perfection.

A: You can have the bubble forever.

S: The bubble has its enemies. What they should have shown in the old paintings is that the child has to protect his bubble from the world and the others. They are watching it jealously, hoping to prick at it and end its brief soujourn through the world.

A: So that is how you approach happiness? With fear?

S: Not fear. Caution. A warrior does not know fear. Do you know what the hero, my hero, Sunny Deol, the Punjabi Tiger says in the film ‘Jaat’? They ask this warrior who he is. He says that he is one that knows the value of life, but still puts his life in danger. What is most precious is what we risk in this life. That is the warrior culture. The bubble is precious. It is the most precious thing in the world. And we have to protect it. But we also put it at risk. In India, they believe in the evil eye. The eye of envy. It is real. Suffering in this world is created by people. But without risk, there is no meaning. And who am I? The biggest risk taker. The Tiger is known for his daring. Find someone braver. It is impossible. Because Tiger dares his whole heart on the people that he cares about and the things that he loves. Knowing the pain. Find someone else like that in this wretched universe.

sorry (microfiction)

28.10.2025

A: Your anger is too much. You are hurting people. You are saying things just because you are angry.

S: I am an angry person. I’ve always been an angry person.

A: You need to find some other way to get rid of it. You know how much it upsets you when you upset someone. The guilt completely consumes you.

S: Not when I’m angry. But yes, I genuinely feel sorry that I have hurt anyone. I did not mean to do it. I didn’t think it out. I made mistakes.

A: Why not just say sorry?

S: No one ever accepts an apology.

A: Really?

S: Well, a good friend did recently. But usually not.

A: Find some way to control your anger. Then you would not have to say sorry.

S: It seems like every emotion I have, I have to apologise for it. Maybe the best thing would be not to have any emotions at all. Isn’t that the ideal of Hinduism? Emotion is a cloud…

A: Your problem…

S: My problem is that when someone upsets me,maybe I should tell them I am upset with them. And then maybe I would hear sorry instead of having to say it all the time. Maybe I should only talk to people that can communicate directly in words what they are saying too. Because then I don’t have to read their expressions and their minds. Which I can’t do.

A: No one is going to communicate directly to you. They don’t. You can’t do it yourself. That is the problem for everyone.

S: The problem is that I’m sorry. And I can’t say it. And what good would it do? It is another emotion that you cannot express, regret. And then you wonder why I am so angry. It is the one emotion that a man is allowed to express. And even my anger, I am not allowed to express it fully. You see? There is no emotion that you can express. Tell me something, how do you express your anger fully? Surely you would not have me bottle it up inside?

A: Listen…

S: Everyone has moved on in life. The bridges have all been broken. I don’t have any bridges connecting me to anyone any more. Anything I did that hurt anyone, I am sorry for. But what is the point of anything now? The boats have floated away from each other. Some things, I am still not sorry for. Some things I am sorry for. The people that I most wanted to impress, they are disappointed. That is life. And I am not going to offer explanations and excuses. No one listens to them.

A: Has anyone ever said sorry to you?

S: Yes.

A: And what did you do?

S: I accepted their apology.

A: How long ago?

S: Just yesterday. Many times. Certain friends.

A: What do you think of the sorry?

S: If someone feels bad and wants to say sorry for something, I just forgive them. Because they are reaching out to you and they care about you and want to keep things as they’re going. That’s what I see a sorry as.

A: But you realise, for some people, sorry doesn’t mean anything.

S: Maybe nothing means anything in this life. I am going to sleep. One time a Punjabi guest came to the house. And when they left, they said to forgive them if they had committed any mistakes. Maybe that is all you can do in this life, whether the sorry is heard or accepted or not. There is an intention behind a sorry, if you could recognise it.

the shock of the racist (microfiction)

28.10.2025

S: It’s ludicrous, isn’t it?

A: What?

S: The shock of the racist.

A looks at S quizzically.

S: All they do is spout hate. Every single word is a hate crime. But then when you point out that they are racist, suddenly there is shock and surprise.

A: You are talking about someone in particular?

S: Look at that piece of shit Farage…

A: Here we go again.

S: He is lucky…

A: Stop there. Don’t say it.

S: Okay, I won’t. But look at their strategy. Hate crime after hate crime. The persecution and oppression of anyone perceived as other because of their culture or race. And then, if you ever point it out, then there is denial, denial, denial. Outrage even. That is the thing about a racist. If you point it out to them, they think that they are entitled to anger. They love lies and lies only.

A: And what of it? A bastard is a bastard. They cannot be legit.

S: You know what it is? The racist pretends that they love the Other. They have this deceit that they love the Other. They won’t countenance any exposure of the stuntedness of their hearts.

A: That’s going a bit far, isn’t it? How do you reckon they are fabricating a tale of love?

S: Look at imperialism. They pretended they loved us so that they could rule over us. They said they loved us so much that they were going to ‘civilise’ us. When they had no civilisation because unjust rule over another is not civilisation, it is barbarity. Thinking yourself better than another because they are different and excluding them is barbarity, not civilisation. A civilisation of barbarity.

A: You are importing your experience of that one into things. I know you. And your constant sneering is why you are unloved.

S: Love at the cost of conscience is not love.

A: Have you not heard that all is fair in love and war?

S: Stoop to their degraded level for love? Impossible for The Tiger. That is the cant of their culture, their celebration of injustice. Love is justice or it is nothing. And justice itself is love. That is why I stand apart from them. That is why there is one Tiger. And a world of sheep.

love cancelled (microfiction)

27.10.2025

S: All that this world does is to cancel love. We are not allowed to love.

A: Anyone? Everyone?

S: Us.

A: I knew you would say that.

S: Why not tell the truth? If we dare to love someone, everyone stands in the way of it. The family. This society. The one that you love themselves. Years even of a lover’s endeavour for a refusal…

A: Forget love. It is a snare. You have done well to escape it. The tragedies of your love only appear to be pitiful.

S: The real snare is loneliness.

A: This love that you wish to end your loneliness, do you really think it will do so? Enjoy freedom.

S: The solitary freedom of a Crusoe. Without a Friday or love in his life.

A: Why has your love been cancelled?

S: Because of my freedom. My heart is too free for this world. The lover’s love is the love of the Revolution.

A: You have said this before. What do you mean by it?

S: The lover does not look at status. The lover does not look at race. The lover does not see another culture and despair. The lover does not follow convention or care about what anyone else thinks about it. He looks into the eyes of the loved one to find unity and connection across status, race and culture. The lover has humanity. The lover has the prize of love. And in this world of hate, separation, the oppression of unjust power and differences, in this world of inhumanity, the lover is the Revolution. Because the lover only loves. That is why his love is the Revolution.

A: You are not the lover. Your loves were all unfulfilled.

S: They could not stomach it. But you know, I am named after the god of love. He that came to all the women at once. The power of love itself.

A: A name is not an identity.

S: I disagree. I am love. The love that goes against the sword.

A: Love itself is a venomous blade.

S: I tell you I drink the poison. And I smack my lips at it.

a duet of love (microfiction)

26.10.2025

Without a fault, that was what this duet of love was. Voice, perfect. Words, beautiful. Music, immaculate.

Then why did the song inspire such sadness?

Melancholy ran through the melody and his mind. In his life, there was no duet of love. In his life there was either a song of yearning and unslakeable thirst or a lamentation of grief. Out of all in the world, there was not one that would make the music with him, share the song.

These Indians, these Hindi speakers, what words of love they would sing. They would promise their life. They would promise their love the stars and the moon with her peerless radiance in the night sky. And his own promises of love? They had never let him fulfil them. Instead, them and their world had stood up against him, threatening to crush him if he expressed what was inside his heart.

But India knew this. He had known it himself. Still he had dared to love. He had had to love stealthily in a world full of hate. Dressed in black in the night, like he was a thief in mourning.

Difference does not find love.

Integrity and love do not hold hands.

For resolution there is no romance.

Desire does not dance.

The classic Hindi song and the classic Hindi film pursue one theme: love in and against a world of hate. This new generation with their inexperience and their betrayals mock the Hindi film and the Hindi songs. The traitors to love scoff at her, pursuing practicality, power and convention.

For those of the old world, for those full of love, loyalty and passion – even obsession – the Hindi love song is the template of ourselves. For our love, we can give our life. For our love, we can give the moon and the stars and the sun. What we cannot give is our honour, our promise. And that is what a world without honour asks for. But honour has been promised to the Mother Goddess. You can’t live without love but you can live without a love duet. It is poison. But we swallow it.

diwali

20.10.2025

Once, his friend had read his writing. And told him that he had never read anything so alienated and jaded. But, he had explained to his friend, life is really like that. Life really was like that.

Again, it was Diwali. Diwali would always come. India had a religiosity that was irrepressible. In this Diwali, he suffered.

For three years, he had been chasing love all over London. He had travelled everywhere, been to everything, met literally hundreds of people. His phone was absolutely full of numbers of those that he had been after. But it was Diwali and he was still completely alone. He had to spend the evening by himself. He had to get into that bed by himself.

When he had been walking out in London, he had thought to himself how nice it would have been to collapse crying in the street as a piece of wreckage adrift in the storm of life. How nice it would have been to have the people pretending to ignore him as he cried, to be a performer of tears for that little shabby part of London in the dark and cold and wind and rain.

And then, when he had finished working all day at his two jobs, well into the night, when he had finally arrived at the local tube station for the local bus home, he had heard the explosions of fireworks in the night. But he couldn’t see the fireworks. That was the thing. That was what life was. Fireworks going off all around you and not even being able to see them. All there was: frustration, obstruction, missing out.

There was never going to be connection with the fireworks, with the thing.

Yesterday, when he had been buying drinks in the pub, a blonde woman wearing a skimpy outfit had approached him in his pink blazer. She had asked him if she could try it on. She had modelled his blazer to her friend, striking poses and then pulling his spectacles out of the pocket and then putting them on her face to get some photographs. Curiously, he had watched her. Why was she imitating him? Why did she want to wear his clothes? Why did she want to be him? She had handed back the clothes and glasses and then gone back to her party with her friends. Other people, he did not understand. You just watched them walk off.

It would be nice just to pack everything in. All those activities that he went to to try and meet people. Just pack them all in. Give up completely. Stop working. Forget about everything and not do anything. What was the point of doing anything? It did not give you love. What was the point of work when you got no love for it? He only worked for love. He was not getting it. Nothing he was doing was getting him love.

What would it actually feel like to be loved for once?

the game of dying (microfiction)

17.10.2025

Life had become a thing with thorns in it for many. A complicated and crushing thing. It was evident that happiness was only for the others. So now, the people did not want to live.

So they would go to the game of dying.

You could die any way that you wanted to. For a moment, you could feel the ease of death. Just for a few pounds. You could escape this thing called life and this trap that was the world.

The game of dying promoted itself as moksha, the Hindu ideal of freedom and departure from the chain of being and constant rebirth.

The downside was that even after dying, you had to go back into the world.

You could choose how you wanted to die. Poisoning. Being stabbed. Burning.

First, I started off by being poisoned. After all, was this world not poison that one had to swallow? It was exceedingly painful. The throat would swell up, there was severe nausea. It was hard to breathe.

My next death was the revolver. I would sit there with it, staring into the barrel of it, completely focused. I would forget about all the many problems and the unfulfilled cravings, of the friends and loves that had betrayed me. Then when I pulled the trigger, the beautiful oblivion…

But now, the death I chose every time was burning. It was the most painful death. Excruciating and unbearable. The most intense death.

They would watch us. The ones that had led us to death, they came in droves to watch us. The ones that had taken all the happiness would watch, eating popcorn, smiling at each other. It was an amusement for them and we were their clowns. They had always watched our suffering and poured petrol upon us while we burned. That was how the world went around.

the maximalist of doing (microfiction)

15.10.2025

He was known for work. But why was he known for work? Why did he work so much?

First of all, there was the empty ache in him. No one had come to fill that space. So he crammed it in with works. Time yawned open unforgivingly. The loss of her and the family that there would have been… There had to be some substitute, some forgetfulness in the work. When he was not working in culture for money, he taught, wrote, photographed, drew, painted, sang and acted. When he worked, he always had the desire to meet someone through that work. He did not. So he kept on looking and looking. So that was why he was the maximalist for doing.

Secondly, there was the relentless energy. No one had come to claim that energy. So he crammed it in with works. And still, despite that, he could never get tired. So that was why he was the maximalist of doing.

Also, the ambition. To be someone. That monstrous ego. To be everywhere, to be god upon this earth. To shape the world in his own imprint. Ambition was a monster that had straddled his back. The self belief: I am one that will live eternally in my name. Not just for himself, for his people this ego, the ego for the Oppressed that had been crushed into the ground for thousands of years. To be their champion, their light and guide.

Then, there was the background. A father who had always been working. A family who had always been working. His working culture background. A family and a culture that always kept busy and productive. That had worked as farmers and shoe makers. A background of hard, labourious work. So that was why he was the maximalist of doing.

And what about the commitment? The desire to change the world. The desire to contribute to society. The desire to be a productive member of this reality. To not just take but to give.

Do not forget the money. To have those savings. To always be ready to provide for a family. Money not for the self but for the family which never came.

And what did he get from the work? Did Sisyphus cry? When you move the rock up the mountain and never succeed, do you cry? Does the maximalist of doing ever cry? He did not cry. He could not. But he wanted to cry. His life was a punishment for some grave sin. He did not have the happiness of undoing, only its tragedy. Because the more he did, the more he was undone.

So that was why he was the maximalist for doing.