the strategy of victim blaming

26.01.2025

S: You know when they killed those people that stood up to ICE, the fascists blamed the victims and not the perpetrators. Even when they looked at the video evidence which was absolutely fucking clear that they were innocent victims, they still blamed the victims.

A: Why do you think they do that?

S: Because bullies and fascists are fucking scum. Their ideology makes them blind and deaf. And there’s more.

A: What?

S: They blame the victim because they are unjust. Because they have to justify their inhumanity and violence to themselves. It is not just ICE and Trump, is it? All these racist vermin justify their racism and exploitation of anyone that is perceived as different from them.

A: Example?

S: Do you know how much experience I have and how many qualifications? And yet, at interviews it is just rejection after rejection from these people, these racists. And who do they blame? Me. They pretend that I am not doing something right. When, in fact, even if I pass their stupid fucking interview, they still won’t give me the thing. They have a reserve list and then you never hear back from them. Because they make a point of never choosing me because I’m brown. You hear the victim blamers saying that I am overqualified too – that I am literally too good for any job. It is the truth. I am better than any opportunity that is offered to me. But it is still fucking ridiculous the shit that comes out of their mouths.

A: What is the point of this victim blaming strategy?

S: What else is it? They want the victim to feel inferior. That he is not doing something right. That he should change his behaviour. When it is them, these racists that should change their behaviour. They want to pretend that their racism is the natural way of things and that they have a meritocracy. They want to pretend that they are just when they are unjust. They don’t want things to change. They want to be monsters forever. That is why they are fucking vermin. This shit has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. Do they change? Fuck no. All that there is in the world of the racist is injustice. And yet this is what goes on, this injustice.

A: Can the monster ever become beautiful?

S: The monster thinks that he is beautiful and that anyone different from the monster is ugliness personified. The monster stinks of shit and thinks that he smells of roses. The monster speaks corruption and thinks that honey and gold flows from his mouth. The monster is appalling. He thinks that he is god. But he is not god. I am god. I am The Tiger. I have been blessed by The Mother. I am truth and I am justice. I am the prayer of the people. I am a genius. I am a hero. Them? They are villains. They are not fit for me. It is not the other way around. Who the fuck are they? Nothings. Non-men. Incapable and corrupt. You see what is around ourselves. Pure mediocrity and incompetence.

oh fleeting moments

25.01.2026

S: There is this Hindi film, ‘Border’. The sequel is just out now. It stars my favourite actor. And it has this song in it, ‘Oh Fleeting Moments’ (Ae Jaate Hue Lamhon). The lover is singing to his beloved. He hopes to halt time. Because he has only a few moments with the one that he loves before he goes to war.

A: It is always the war with you.

S: I have told you the philosophy of the warrior. It is the philosophy of love. War and love go hand in hand. They are not opposed to each other. They are one and the same.

A: Why talk about this song?

S: I remembered today the gone. The ones that had the highest place in this heart. But what a fool I was, that I did not understand false friendship.

A: If they were false, why remember them?

S: It is not so simple to forget. If only it were. But the point is that if I could have frozen the moments when I felt connected to them, would I do so? If we could dwell forever in the happiness of a moment, would we appreciate it?

A: What do you mean?

S: The song ‘Fleeting Moments’ relies on a contrast. It is the happiness of the moment that is going to give way to the horrors of war. You only appreciate the happy moments because of the atrocity that there is when there are not the happy moments with the beloved.

A: I tell you once again to forget these false friends of yours. They do not remember you. They forget and move on instantly. You were and are nothing to them. So make them nothing to you too. Reciprocate the feeling.

S: They are stone. They are ice. I am the fire. They might have been false. I was true.

A: How true were you? You played the part too. You didn’t reveal your real feelings.

S: They knew what I felt. It is in the eyes.

A: How can you still be grieving? You have someone.

S: It is called loss for a reason. You never recover from it. The ones that you care for, they are not expendable.

A: They are not dead.

S: There was no connection. It was false. It was an illusion. You cannot chase an illusion. Something breaks down because they want it to be broken. The ones that are closest to you, you can never let them go and they will never let you go either. Instead, what do these do? At best, they are reading my words. Through a great distance.

the age of independence

20.01.2026

S: You know, when people tell me to become independent, I just drone it out. They are constantly saying it.

A: Are you not sick of it and them?

S: The problem is the problem of the zealot. Independence is their religion. They will have no blasphemy of their god, independence.

A: There is a criticism here.

S: This is the age of independence. And look what it has brought them. They are all sick and suffering from depression. Because they are alone and they are not connected.

A: Is that just from their independence?

S: Most likely. Do you think it is normal to live without human connections? Obviously it is not. They have made themselves sick. I’m not going to make myself sick. They have made themselves poor. I’m not going to make myself poor. It is against reason. Why would I court precarity, the precarity of independence? Again, look at their politics. They are the politics of independence.

A: What do you mean?

S: Brexit and the solitary isolation of Great Britain. Trump in America deciding that he is going to make enemies with all the world and separate himself with walls and with hate from everyone. Keeping out of the climate accords and Nato. No togetherness and no community. Not so splendid isolation all over the world with the far Right. Trade tariffs and other bullshit to try and keep the world disconnected and countries isolated from each other. It is the politics of isolation and independence. Yet these politicians are not different from the people in this country. The people always say it is not us, it is the politicians. However, these people and these politicians are all one with each other.

A: What do you think?

S: Fuck their so-called independence. We come from India. We come from Punjab. We are Tigers. We have a community. We live for the community and connection. We have a family. We live for the family and connection. We have real independence. Because we do not believe in the state. We hate the state. We believe in ourselves. The village and Punjab. We do not believe in false superiority based on race and ethnicity. We do not believe in the injustice of ‘independence’ which relies on exploitation and the mongering of hate and superiority. We are not wage slaves because the family supports us. We are not selfish, greedy and grasping because the family supports us. Our reliance on the family is not dependence. We are independent because we rely on the family. In the village and in Punjab, we have the politics of togetherness. The community comes first, not the individual and his isolation. Belonging comes first, independent identity afterwards. We don’t have the ego and arrogance to be independent in the way of these selfish countries and their politics. In their countries, we are the only ones that are independent. Because we copy no one. We follow no one. We follow our own path. The path of The Tiger. The path of the truly independent. And that is why we have self-determination. And them? They have nothing and are nothing. There is no way that they can last. Because their independence will lose them all of their power. The way of power is connection, not arrogance. The way of power is togetherness and not loneliness. The way of freedom is not the solitude of the tyrant, but the laugh of the crowd. They deal with atoms. We deal with the universe in its connections.

the bravery the pride the manhood of tiger

13.01.2026

S: In the film ‘Jaat’, Sunny Deol, my favourite actor, a fellow Punjabi, he says that ‘I am one who knows the value of life, yet still I put my life into danger’. That is the philosophy of the hero.

A: You have quoted this line before.

S: Yesterday, like so many times, I put it into practice. The one that wants to be a hero does not fly from danger. He runs into it.

A: What happened?

S: There was an argument on the train when I boarded it. About six young men involved. As usual, the non-men on the train were not intervening. I was on the phone to the one that is mine. I stopped the phone call and walked over to break it up. I did break it up. One group walked off. One of the young men expended his ire on me.

A: Did you have to do this?

S: I have been raised to be a hero. I come from a Sikh background. We have been raised to be brave and to serve the community. They look to us for help.

A: Now you will boast?

S: I did the work. I was the only man on the train.

A: You are so proud of being a man. It will get you into trouble.

S: It is the coward and the non-man that is scared. Not The Tiger. I am proud to be a man. I am proud to be Punjabi. I am proud to be brave. I am proud to be The Tiger. It is not just my name. It is who I am. I have never been scared of anyone.

A: They call you toxic.

S: The coward has many names. But no heart and no conscience. It is the man that does the work. It is the man that protects the community.

A: Life is not about proving your bravery.

S: Who says? That is exactly what it is. The one that is the strongest, it is his duty to look after the weak. No matter how contemptible many of them are.

the happiness of duty (microfiction)

26.12.2025

S: When he died, he said ‘Thank god I have done my duty.’ There is no satisfaction like the satisfaction of duty.

A: Who says? You might have a better life without duty. It can’t be duty all the time.

S: How can you have a moment’s peace or happiness if you haven’t done your duty?

A: What brings this on?

S: I have someone. I feel happy. But I can’t be fully happy until I have fulfilled my duty. I don’t want happiness to take over my responsibilities.

A: Does it have to do that?

S: There is a risk. There is always a risk with duty. Because it is much easier and more convenient not to do your duty. That is what most people do. I do not want to be like them. With me, duty has to come first.

A: Just enjoy your happiness.

S: There is this worry. That this happiness will end.

A: If duty does not make you happy, forget about duty.

S: You know, when we got the news of my grandfather’s death, I had to take the phone call. I was the man in the house. I was the only one that could speak English. I had just been told that my grandfather had died. My beloved grandfather. Do you know the first thing that I had to do? I had to walk over to my grandmother’s house and get her so that we could take care of her and console her. I knew that she would know what had happened when I went there because I had just walked over from her house. I was sleeping over there at the time. I forced myself to walk to her house. I forced myself to pretend that nothing had happened, like I had been told to do. I forced myself to do it. I did it because it was my duty. It was my duty to protect her and look after her so that she was not alone.

A: Don’t think about those moments. They are gone. Forget about them. Heal yourself from those moments.

S: I forced myself to do it. I forced myself to act that part. I did my duty. And every time, I will have to do my duty. It doesn’t matter if I don’t want to do it and it is hard. It doesn’t matter what it costs. I will do it.

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.

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.

insults (microfiction)

07.12.2025

S: Shylock can’t take their insults. For the violence of their words, he wants the violence of the law. Because the insults are words which are a law and they are violence. The language of this society is violence. It is the law of this society. There is no concealment of it. He wants to answer them in their own tongue. With the law of revenge. The violence of justice.

A: That was then.

S: I don’t write about then. I write about now. But the worst of it? They steal Shylock’s own daughter away from him. She who he loves the most in the world. They take his love away from him. They turn his love against him. That is the ending of the play. It is the unjust that win, not the just. It is the destroyers of love that win, not the lovers. It is what the poet knows. Shylock suffers the same fate as Romeo. They separate him from his love.

A: That happened in the past to you. Will it happen now?

S: In a relationship, there are not just two people. There are others. And others intrude. That is the downfall of every relationship. Here, those that intrude are the haters. They are filled with hatred and cannot bear that anyone can be filled with love. They want to kill love and the lover. That is their stupidity. You cannot kill love. There has been love in every era in human history.

A: You are saying that love is always destroyed. And then you are saying that love cannot be destroyed. Which is it?

S: That is the question, isn’t it? Which is it? Does hate win every time? Or does love win once in a blue moon? Is it true as the literary critics say, that Romeo and Juliet are joined in death? And what about Shylock? Is his love only going to be heartbreak?

A: You don’t have the answers?

S: The answers are in my heart. Because in my heart is love. Real love. There is a Hindi song. They say do not break my heart because the heart is the house of god. She broke my heart anyway. But you cannot break the house of a god. This heart, this body, this mind. It is formed after the god of love, my namesake. I am god.

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.