ego and acceptance (microfiction)

25.11.2025

S: When someone returns your affection, you feel like the king of the world.

A: You feel like that anyway. You have a big ego.

S: You know me. And you are right. But it is different when someone likes you. Because then you feel even more like the king of the world.

A: Plenty of them like you.

S: It doesn’t matter if someone likes me or not. Because they do not act upon it. They do nothing. They let me do nothing. And therefore, it did not and does not count. What counts is action in love. Just as in war.

A: How do you know they like you if they do nothing about it?

S: That is exactly my point.

A: Clarify for me.

S: Romance is a guessing game. Do they like me? How much do they like me? What do I mean to them? We keep on looking for the signs in other people. But the real sign is how much they are willing to make time for you. That is what it comes down to. When people make time for you and want to meet you, to have you to themselves. When even if things are difficult, they make it happen. That proves that they love you and care about you.

A: That is the only proof you would have?

S: What else is there? Just receiving a look of like cannot give you satisfaction. It is not like holding someone in your arms. Just hearing the words that indicate that someone likes you, it doesn’t satisfy you. You have to be able to feel that something real is happening. And it feels real when you are there, looking into their eyes, touching them, whispering sweet nothings to them.

A: Your ego relies on acceptance?

S: When I was rejected, I wanted to die. I am not exaggerating.

A: Well now that you have been accepted, you should want to live. So live.

S: Life has embraced me now. She wears a flower in her hair and she dances with abandon. I follow her through the fields of summer. All the while, the chill winter wind blows. But when I am with her, I do not feel it.

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 conspiracy against love (microfiction)

12.10.25

They wanted to liberate the people from love. But instead, they were liberating them from their humanity.

In this era, online interactions had replaced real life ones. It was no longer fashionable to date in the pool of people that you knew. The desire was for the stranger because the grass was always considered to be greener on the other side. And the stranger was appealing because prolonged human contact was no longer desirable in and of itself. Superficiality reigned, not deep knowledge of someone. That was what was undesirable. Knowledge was regarded as poison, ignorance as bliss.

As a result, the online dating companies grew and grew in wealth. Love was an industry. It had always been an industry. The Victorians would sell off their women to the highest bidder while canting about love in their triple decker romance novels. The royals had always looked at possessions for their matches.

To preserve their wealth, the dating companies needed their users to be always single. Or only to be in a relationship briefly. They decided to make it so that it was so. It was the grand conspiracy against love.

They took their cues from the world of work. They taught the people that everyone was expendable. You could just throw away someone when you had had enough. They taught the people that the most important thing in life was to be independent. So that the people could never tolerate being in a relationship or endure being connected to anyone. They taught the people to be selfish and grasping. So that they could never be in a genuine relationship with anyone and to give rather than to take, to give their whole heart without ego. They taught the people that there were only workers. Not lovers.

So there was no longer any love. I watched the bodies move in a loveless world. A sordid, practical world of money. I was all alone. Everyone was all alone. Just like the book, it was a lonely planet.

the lie (microfiction)

06.10.2025

‘Imagine there is a lie,’ I said to Alfonso. ‘A great lie that you are told, that I am told, that we are all told. A lie we have all spent our whole lives trying to obtain.’

‘Is this a riddle?’ asked Alfonso, looking over at me from above the pages of his magazine. Again, it was just us at the end of the day. In the lonely night, he was the only one there for me. The only one to say the things of the heart to. My most intimate friend.

‘It is no riddle. The lie is connection.’

‘Absurd. You have friends. The obvious example is before you. You are connected.’

‘Real connection is romantic love. It is the highest order of connection. Romantic love is the highest form of connection, whatever form it takes.’

‘Some people have romantic love.’

‘Not people like me.’

Alfonso tutted at me. ‘It is the case,’ I continued. ‘They lied to me. They said to become something and you will find real connection. They are all fucking liars.’

In a patronising tone, Alfonso asked me how that made me feel.

‘I have learnt not to trust anyone. So now there is no trust in my life.’ Tut. ‘I have learnt that there is no connection with anyone. So now there is no connection in my life.’ Tut. ‘I have learnt that there is no warmth from anyone. So now there is no warmth in my life.’ Tut tut.

‘You are suggesting,’ Alfonso said, ‘in your wallow of self pity, that you are a meaningless, isolated atom that is removed from the whole of humanity. When all you do is build communities around yourself. You have literally hundreds of people that you know. If it is the case that no man is an island, you in particular are no island.’

‘They are all strangers.’

‘Because you can’t fuck them?’ Alfonso asked incredulously.

‘There is no need to downgrade the sexual act. That is real connection. The chemicals that it creates. Its alteration of the mind.’

‘You only feel lonely in the nights.’

‘We only talk together in the nights.’

‘You are not lonely.’

‘When I lie in my bed alone in the night time, I feel the loneliness of death.’

‘Love is heartbreak. Love is sorrow. Be thankful you don’t have to have your heart broken every minute.’

‘What do you think this world has done to me? Why do you think I am like this?’

We sat in silence, ruminating on things. It was past eleven in the night time. Soon would come the witching hour.

race (microfiction)

24.09.2025

It was eleven fifty five in the night time. I was still full from the dinner I had eaten at ten o’clock because I had been out singing with my group. Alfonso was sitting in another country. An expensive country for a holiday. I was writing to him:

Black was the night. At the end of a long day, I was coming home. As I came out of the tube station, shining in the lights was the red livery of a bus. Without thinking about it, I started running towards the bus station at full speed.

In front of me, quite a few paces in front, there was a young man. He had also started running. Now I do not like anyone being in front of me in a race. And this was a race. Why? I made it a race. Because I have an ego. I am a narcissist. And I am a narcissist because I live in a world that tries to devalue me and tries to tell me that I am nothing. And I fight against it. I refuse to be nothing. I am special.

I am not a narcissist like other narcissists. Because I am a narcissist for my community. For us. I am the champion of my people.

I was a schoolboy athlete. I won because I had the body of a god, nerves of steel and self-belief. My mind is stronger than anyone else’s. I am invincible, undefeatable. Even at my age, I am still quicker than most people.

And then, even though he had started so ahead of me, I was running past him. Now, it was me that was miles in front. I was the winner. I never doubted it. It didn’t matter how far ahead of me he was when he had started.

The difference between me and anyone else is that I will run to my very limit, even so hard that I feel nauseous and dizzy at the end of it. Because nobody else can bear the pain that I have had to live with. No one else is as hard as me.

You are wondering why I am writing this anecdote of these very real events. You are wondering why I race against buses on the streets to the next station. Because I love fighting. I love running. I love winning. I love a challenge.

I have always been the underdog. In India, they scorned us as Untouchables. In the United Kingdom, they treat me like an outsider even though it was my grandfather that first came to this country. I will fight until my last breath against the disrespect and hate that is given to my people and to Mother India. It is why my mother gave birth to me. She prayed for someone to save the honour of Mother India.

Even after a major leg operation a few months ago, there was no way that I would lose to that young man. People see the white hairs on my head and think my age has passed. I am still fitter than everyone, I still have more stamina than everyone and I still have more ability than everyone. You can’t beat good genes. My grandfather was a university level athlete. The top in his university. I come from farmer stock. My parents married young. It is hard to match the power in this body. It is not a boast. It is reality.

And I have been expected to be the best at everything every since I was a baby. And so I am. My ego is absolutely unassailable.

That’s why I win. I was born to be a champion and raised to be a champion. I was born to be Tiger and I am Tiger.

the fruition of desire: a philosophy (microfiction)

18.09.2025

Dearest Alfonso,

It was a certain time in the night. The thoughts would come.

But then, the mind rebelled against the absurdity of it all.

After all, what is the fruition of desire? Friction. That’s all it comes down to. Friction. Two bodies colliding against each other randomly, meaninglessly. That’s what we call sex.

It is absurd. However much you love someone, that is the consummation of your love. However much you connect with someone, that is the consummation of your connection.

Your whole adult life as a man you seek out the act. It is the prime motivation in your life. The act sculpts out who you are, who you become, what you want, who you want.

However complicated life becomes, however complicated society becomes, however complicated the brain becomes, at its kernel lies one simple rule: touch.

Beneath everything, in spite of everything, we are bodies. We are absurd. We are meaningless.

They like to talk about civilisation. What is the story of civilisation? Sex.

They like to talk about the arts. What is the story behind the arts, the story of the arts? Sex.

They like to talk about happiness. What is happiness? Sex?

And this act itself? Villified, misunderstood, cheapened, even, foolishly, resisted and deliberately prevented. In a culture of repression the act loses all of its beauty, its joy and its giving of joy, its ultimate significance as freedom and connection. I myself am almost succumbing to the false picture that they paint of sex.

The struggle is to retain a sense of the act’s urgency, its importance in life, the happiness of the act and its role in creating happiness and healing. Against the denigration of the act, against its attempted exclusion, its supposed meaninglessness.

The struggle is to fight against the construction of the act as a giving and a taking of power, as an abuse in and of itself, as not being important in its own right.

The struggle is to see the art as not absurd. As necessary. As light. As guidance. As the realisation of beauty in this world and all worlds. On the walls of the Indian temples are adorned the acts of love, the energy of sex. The power of union, the power of connection. The amalgamation of the divine feminine with the divine masculine. The meaning of being a god or a goddess. Shiva as the lingam. The Mother Goddess as the yoni.

when skin channels skin

when we just are

and stop crying virtue or sin

when the animal regains the flesh

then

then there will be no fear

then will come the freer

then the bodies will truly mesh

Poetically and prosaically, above all philosophically and loverly,

The Tiger.

The Indian Vocabulary of Love and its Meaning

14.01.2024

I’ve been watching Hindi films since I was a child. It is how I learnt to speak Hindi (my language at home – my mother tongue – is Punjabi, not Hindi). Hindi speakers have many words for love. Not like English speakers. Here are some – Ishq, Aashiqi, Mohabbat, Pyaar, Prem, Lagan, Chaahat… There’s probably more. Hindi is a rich language.

Here are some more metaphorical ones, which touch on some of the ways that love is experienced and conceptualised in Indian culture:

Ibaadat – Worship. When you love someone, you love them like a god or a goddess. They are important, powerful, masterful over you. They rule over your heart. They take the place of a god or a goddess, commanding all your loyalty and faith. You trust them without question. You hope everything from them.

Aetbaar – Belief. When you trust them with your heart. You can rely on them without question. They are the one person in the whole world that you can count on the most to stay with you through thick and thin. You expect everything from them, total commitment.

Wafaa – They hold your loyalty. You will never stray from them. The trust and the bond between you is unshakeable.

Behosh/Mere hosh udhgayee – Unconscious/My senses have flown – How love is experienced. Your mind goes on a holiday when you see them, think about them, are around them. They command all your attention. You can’t focus on anything else.

Amaanat – They say that your lover (usually a woman) is your ‘amaanat’ (‘thing or property committed to the trust and care of a person or group of persons’ – https://rekhtadictionary.com/meaning-of-amaanat?lang=hi ) A red flag for Western feminists, but indicates the possessiveness that a lover will have over their sweetheart – and even in English, you still say to someone ‘You are mine’ or ‘You are my girlfriend’.

Here are some terms of endearment which further indicate what love means in Indian culture:

Jaanu/Janaam/Jaaneman – ‘My Life’. Love is for life. Your lover is your life. They are everything for you and they are for you forever, like your own life. They are precious like your life.

Mitwa/Yaar – ‘Friend’. Indian culture does not make a distinction between friendship and love between a man and a woman in this term. Which perhaps indicates the truth – that your lover is your best friend.

Humraaz – Someone who has the same secrets as you – you share your secrets with them. You trust them. They are the only ones you can share your most personal thoughts with.

Humnava/Humsafar – Someone who is a fellow traveller through life’s journey with you (the ‘ride or die’ chick). You are committed to the same journey. You have the same mission in life.

Humdum – Someone who has the same life force/breath (‘dum’) as you, your soulmate, someone who is the other part of yourself. The sense of connection, of seeing yourself in them.

Humdard – Someone who shares the same pain as you, because you are so connected. What you feel, they feel. They are the mirrors of you and you are the mirror of them (love’s mirror).

Huzoor – Master – they rule over you because you love them. And you accept their sovereignty over you.

Deewana – Crazy one – because you go crazy in love for someone.

See more terms of endearment from the Hindi movies here:

150 Urdu-Hindi Terms of Endearment To Call Your Lover This Valentine’s Day

Abstract Love vs. Situated and Local Love

25.09.2018

The choice between abstract love and situated and local love is evident in a quote by E. M. Forster –

“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”

Let us characterise abstract love. Abstract love is love of the country in the above quote or the supporting of “causes”, which are “public”, or, rather, “publicly accepted”. A “cause” can be defined as either a “charitable undertaking” or “a principle or movement militantly defended or supported” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online). Abstract love supports “principles” rather than human beings (the opposition is between friends and the abstract entities of country and cause). The country is an imaginary entity which is also largely publicly supported in the idea of abstract love. A country is largely an idea. It only has status as a piece of fiction. There is no such thing as a country. There is just a varied collection of people in a geographical space, who all live varied kinds of lives, not some kind of unchanging, abstract entity. Abstract love says that you should love all these people that you don’t know for whatever reason because of the abstract idea of a country and for abstract principles. Think about that in detail. There are no intimate human relationships required, no close contact with the recipients. In abstract love, the love that is most supported is the love of the stranger, of the anonymous. In abstract love, there is a morality which is that you should love a fictional idea more than you love those close to you: politicians tell you to love the country. This is felt like a compulsion by Forster who has to resist it strongly. What is the object of love in abstract love, the idea of the politicians? The country is seen as something larger than a single human being, as more universal. There is an idea of the larger versus the smaller, or the general versus the particular. The country is public, the individual is private. The country is emblematic of “good” group membership, community, etc. Love of the country is therefore contrasted to the love of the individual human being who just stands for personal love.

Let us now characterise situated and local love. In this form of love, you support individuals who you love. You know them. The reason that you love them is that you know them. You don’t love strangers and help them: it is those close to you that you love. This love is entirely intimate. It is situated because you just happened to be somehow connected to the person by complete chance. It is not about principles, it is about your own situated love. Biographical details are more important in this form of love than principles and sharing publicly accepted group affiliations. This love relies on an idea of the domestic sphere rather than the private sphere: you love those close to you, not those that political figures tell you to, as in the case of the country. It is about what you yourself choose to support as an individual. In situated and local love, you are not a removed and detached “objective” thinker with ideals of “universality” (abstract love pretends it is this – it is not, as you will know if you meet any nationalists). You are subjective. You favour the particular over the general, the smaller over the larger – the individual over the nation state. That is, you choose your own private group of membership (in friends) over what is publicly accepted as the main form of membership (nationality).

I have already said which love I choose. Why did I choose the smaller over the larger, the particularistic over the general? Because who else is going to help the poor members of my family in India? I have noted that they are systematically oppressed. Yet, for all the talk about altruism and abstract love, they have no support.

You might say that the abstract thinkers are in the minority and that is the problem with the world. After all, there is no one helping the people that are starving. But there is a morality to local and situated love. This is that you should tend to your own garden first before you start addressing other issues. First of all, my mother helps her family. Then, if she can, she helps people from our socially disadvantaged community on the basis of group identity. My mother is particularistic, not abstract and general. It is the same with the rest of our family. According to lovers of abstraction, this is seen as self-serving, selfish, etc. It is seen as a bad form of group identity and belonging (i.e. tribalism). It is seen as the inferior form of loving since it is situated. But the strength of situated and local love is that it is from insiders and local: who else is going to help anyone in that community that is outside that community? How many thousands of years of oppression have my people faced? No one helped us except our own. That is reality: people are selfish.

What would a place without relationships of power look like?

I look aghast at the world around myself, the outside to my being. The outside is structured by relationships of power. There is the exploiter-exploited relationship. There is the ruler-subject relationship. There is the majority-minority relationship. Every relationship is one of power.

Throughout life, I have been involved in each of these relationships. I have also been systematically corrupted by power and its effects on my mind and body. I have been the most horrible of villains. In each case, context coerced a state of being.

As I sit here with a fresh page before me and a flight into anonymity, I wonder to myself if there could ever be a place without power relationships. What would such a place look like, where there was perfect equality? Where each had all the power and none the power? Can such a place exist?

In the Sikh religion, Sikhs all sit on the floor to promote an ideal of equality when they attend a place of worship. However, even there, power relationships must exist. Some have more wealth, some more influence.

One thinks of a picture where there is no power. All that I can think of is a place without any relationships. One man as an island. And even then, power will already have corrupted the individual.

We cannot live our life without power. There is no freedom from power. You wish to escape from politics? Perspectives collide everywhere. One form of seeing, reading, being clashes with all others. Without the clash, could there ever be anything?