all before eight thirty in the morning

31.03.2026

A: You like listing things that you have done. Go ahead.

S: I’ll tell you what I did in the morning before 8.30 am.

A: Let’s see how much you were capable of.

S: On the train, I did language learning in German, Spanish, French, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. Reading poetry, dialogues and news stories. I also read the Metro newspaper, particularly on the Iran war which is affecting my friends. Then, I did the quick crossword and the anagrams on the puzzle page. Finally, I read a poem on the way up the escalator at Holborn, a woman’s poem about the body and its relationship to various metals.

A: Then?

S: First I bought a chicken and mushroom slice from Sainsbury’s, then I walked over to Ole and Steen and bought a £2 offer, which was a berry and pistachio treat. I got in to work then ate that with some tea in milk. Which was followed by working on my fashion photography and charity work by uploading some photographs to my social media after messaging my girlfriend.

A: More and more.

S: There is still more. Then, I wrote letters. I told my mentors in my academic discipline about the book review that I got for my first book and also thanked the academic that had taken his time to write such a glowing review.

A: I hesitate to ask. But is there more?

S: I haven’t even included everything. But there is more. Then I did some writing. And now, I am about to do some reading. Stendhal’s ‘The Red and the Black’. It is about love and power.

A: The work day has not even begun.

S: All hours of the day are work. Even play. Because I work to make that play happen and often the play is itself work. If we were not busy, then we would be dead. And then there would be quiet. That is the difference between the quick and the dead.

misunderstanding

19.02.2026

S: The poet is raised on poetry. And this world is raised on prose. All there will be is misunderstanding.

A: You say that? But you write. You write incessantly. If you did not believe that there would be one that understood, why would you write?

S: Can you not write knowing full well that you will be misunderstood?

A: It seems pointless.

S: What is of point in this life? The average person in this culture is working to make even more money for the rich. What could be more pointless than that?

A: You believe that you have a destiny though.

S: My destiny is to have been born amongst those that cannot and will not understand.

A: Make them understand.

S: You cannot give intelligence to stupidity and ignorance. You cannot talk to those that will not listen. Arrogance makes them impenetrable.

A: Why then write?

S: The truth is the truth. My truth. I am the truth. I am my truth. The truth will out.

A: Why become Sisyphus?

S: All there is is Sisyphus. There is no one else. And, do you know what? This has been the problem of the writer in every age. The true writer, the writer that is true. They are centuries ahead of their time. Because common sense is common stupidity. The herd think in ignorance. They are cheap thoughts. Not worthy of men. They cannot catch up with the real men, the real writer. If the real writer is saved from the ravages of time, then men look at them and think that this was a real man in the midst of the herd. They say that these men were ahead of their time.

A: You are so egotistical it is unbelievable. You worship yourself.

S: I know my place in the world of thought. I am a genius. I am what has come through six thousand years and more of Indian civilisation.

A: Even Indian people do not agree with you.

S: There are few that can agree with a genius. They are not on the same level.

A: Remain the poet. And remain incomprehensible.

I baked this strange letter in the oven

the fragrance was indescribable

the taste was beyond words

each that held the letter

they were confounded by the cook

each bite that they took

made the letter more and more illegible

they ate reluctantly

it was all gone

the letter was dead

and they turned instead

to a more familiar dessert

the moon and the star of the lovers

18.02.2026

S: In the love songs of the Hindi films, the male lover is always telling the woman lover that he will bring her the moon and the stars.

A: A lover’s conceit?

S: Of course, literally speaking, he can never bring her the moon and the stars.

A: True. And what about her? Does she ever offer to bring the male lover the moon and the stars?

S: I’ve never heard it.

A: Why talk of the moon and the stars? We are on earth?

S: What would you like him to say? This is poetry. And it has its own meaning.

A: Which is?

S: That the lover will bring his beloved heaven.

A: Absolute falsity.

S: You lack the spirit of romance. It is entirely true. He will bring her the moon and the stars.

A: In what sense.

S: He will bring her heaven upon earth. That is what love is.

A: You have too much of the spirit of romance.

S: Romance jostles with pessimism and cynicism. Love can be entirely hell and the complete opposite of heaven.

A: So why do you support the poetry in these Hindi film songs?

S: Without love, what else is there? Life is insipid and bland without love. It is love that gives life its character.

A: Says you. There are plenty around that won’t love and will never be willing to love.

S: Bland food sells in copious quantities in the supermarkets. Those with the bland tastes of the bland cannot stomach the taste or the food of life which is love.

A: It always veers off into criticism.

S: You criticise love. I criticise the lack of love and what masquerades as love when it is hate. I am Indian. I am the philosopher of love. I am the lover. I am one that lives through the storm and the fire.

A: What song would you sing? What words?

S: Forever I have sought the spark inside the ice/

Forever I have sought the freedom in the vice/

When you look at me with this desire/

Inside consumes the unquenchable fire

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 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.

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.

the children of genius (microfiction)

22.10.2025

S: When you think about it, there are millions of children that I am producing in a day. But none of them ever see the light of day.

A: And? It is the same for every man. You can’t regret potential for not happening. Everyone is full of potential.

S: Are they though? Is talent that common? I doubt it. But the point that I am making is that there are possibly hundreds of geniuses that I could be producing.

A: Here is this claim again. What qualifies you as a genius? Presumably you are saying that you want to pass on your intelligence?

S: Being able to see what no one else can see. I have proved it time and time again. Look at each of my publications. For these famous authors, they have been studied by experts for their whole life. And those experts still can’t see what I am seeing.

A: If you are such a genius, why don’t you have any recognition?

S: Racism. Ignorance. Difference is marginalised in this culture. If you can’t take my word for it, look at the studies that prove it statistically. The intelligensia in this country is one of the most racist in the entire world. Do you know why I was rejected from Cambridge? I passed the interview. It was my brown skin that got in the way. So they pooled me and eventually did not have me. It doesn’t matter what anyone says about it. That is what they are like. Full of racist shit. There is always the reluctance and the excuse. Any excuse. Exclusion on the flimsiest of pretexts. How many of those people they chose over me have published books and articles like I have? Exactly.

A: If you are a genius, don’t you owe it to the world to write?

S: I don’t owe this world of shit anything or anything to anyone.

A: You are squandering your talent.

S: Fuck these people. Let them drown in their ignorance. The gift is too precious to give to them.

A: Yet you told me that you are writing that new book, that colossal and earth-shattering book.

S: I will write it. Because one has been chosen to know all alone of the countless. Because one is a genius. Because a genius is proven by work, not by recognition.

A: If you are this genius, work out a way to pass it on. The waste if you are right…

S: I am working on it. In love, like in work, like in life, genius is not rewarded. Whereas ignorance…