a dream of sadness

07.11.2025

S. was woken up in the morning from a dream of sadness by the alarm clock.

He was at the context where everything had happened with the one that had broken his heart. And it was a lunch time. He had gone to a shopping mall outside with another friend. It wasn’t any friend. It was a friend with a tragic past whose mother had died as a child. His company was sadness. Someone who had been separated from a woman, a mother.

The shopping had been torturous. His friend had walked in front. S. was following him. But he couldn’t follow him. S. was so sad that he had lain there face down on the ground in front of everyone. S. wanted to give up. It had consumed a lot of time. So S. had to take a taxi back. He was running late.

The taxi driver, an Indian woman (S. was Indian) had charged him an extortionate amount of money on arrival back to the place where the breaker of his heart was. Twenty five pounds. And, on arrival at the place where the breaker of his heart was, because he had to go back, he saw the Indian women’s children there. She was the mother.

He had to pay. He fumbled around in his little plastic seethrough bag of things. He kept on looking but couldn’t find the card. The Indian mother’s daughter was approaching him, looking for a tip, demanding more money.

Suddenly two bouncers appeared. They were accusing S. of trying to get away without paying the Indian mother. And then, S. found the card. Finally, he could pay the mother.

That was when the alarm bell rang and S. woke up.

In his dreams, the sadness of heartbreak was being processed. And his duty to the Mother was being processed. His debt to the Mother. She was being processed in his dreams, the women in his life and in the realm of his ideas, India’s ideas. The words he couldn’t say out loud, the things he couldn’t say out loud in a world of judgement, enmity and hostility. His past. Who could understand? Only an Indian in England.

survival (microfiction)

25.10.2025

Yesterday, he had been in a car accident.

An unaccountable crash had deafened everyone on the bus. A moment of shock and surprise. Its origin unclear, a bastard noise.

The explosion had come when he had been getting off at his stop. He had been gloating to himself about how quick his journey from work had been. He had cleared it all in about thirty five minutes. The train had come exactly on time. And then the bus had come exactly on time. It had even stopped raining.

In the first few moments, while the public were immobile and dazed, the duty of a hero called. He was a man of action and a man of quick thoughts. He was the only real man on that bus. Investigation to see if there was anyone that needed help. Instinctively, he had jumped out of the bus and gone round to the back. Without knowing what had happened. It could have been a terrorist with a gun. In the eventuality, it was an expensive white car which had collided with the back of the bus. They were fine. Stupid and incompetent. But fine.

As he had walked home, he had reflected to himself that it is never the ones that are tired of life that die. The ones that are tired of life, they are preserved. Priam in the Trojan war longed for death and it would not come. He had to watch all the ones that he loved die all around him. It could have been so easy, so peaceful. A loud noise and then sleep…

Even the stupidity and ignorance of these people around him, their sheer incompetence, these things could not kill him.

It was just a fact that the hand of the Mother Goddess was upon his head. Nothing could touch him. So many incidents in his life. So many encounters. The blood clot. Assaults. Being mugged. The bombing of London. The sickness. She had given him the strength and endurance to last in this cold and hard world of enemies and suffering. He would always live to fight another day. Whether he wanted to or not.

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 contest of difference (microfiction)

19.10.2025

Their culture was based on the mirror. Conformism. Emulation. Mimicry. They were all clones of each other. Whoever the original had been, that had been lost to time. Their uniforms? Black or sombre. Camouflage to become invisible. Their philosophy? Money and the self, individualism. The worship of the rich. Consumerism. Their knowledge? Pretence and arrogance. Ignorance, distortion. Lies.

Where did he begin with this? He had been imported into their land. His origin had rejected them. At first, the combined strength of their indoctrinations had proven too heavy. He dressed like them. He thought like them. But he was not one of them. Because he was brown. And because, at home, he was raised in a different version of being. Those teachings from the old world, they were slowly taking root in the cosmos of the self.

When he discovered that they would never accept him, when he found that all the important things they would keep from him, the home in him erupted into the public. He wore what was extraordinarily bright, the rainbow robes that his mother wore. He would not hide. He would stand out. The colours were difference, diversity. Their philosophy he attacked. He had been given his own path. Family first. Service before self. The community and the People over everything. The Revolution…

They had made him into the foreign woman. He knew it. He was she. Poor, excluded, marginalised, degraded. Difference herself. And they thought that would make him weak. But he knew that she was power. She was the goddess. It had become the contest of difference. He modelled his speech on her. He modelled his dress on her. When they attacked her, he fought for her. Family first. Us over I. Our language. Our culture. Our thought. The community and the People. She was the mother of his self.

Not integration but independence. Real independence and not the selfish scam that passed for it in their lies. The authenticity and integrity of being, the freedom to be, the confidence of selfhood. Honour. Love. Unrivalled power. The mother goddess who stands triumphant. The way that had lasted through eternity. However much he lost in the world, in the contest of difference, he had chosen the play of the winner: What the judge does not consider/because he has been corrupted by the highest bidder.

burnt (microfiction)

15.10.2025

Diljale. Which means ‘burnt at heart’. It describes a cynical, distressed or disappointed person.

It was the word that came to mind to him when he passed by the restaurant and looked into the window. There she was. And then, there he was. The two of them. Together. She was smiling and laughing. She was happy.

And he was out alone in the street.

It was cold, dark and windy. Specks of rain flew into his eyes. The beautiful warm light from within was closed off to him and nobody inside was giving him the slightest notice.

This was what it felt like to be a cliche of the pathetic fallacy. He should tell the story to his colleagues in the literature departments. It would be good for a laugh or two.

He had made a desperate effort not to look into the man’s face. Because he did not want to inflict any further traumas upon himself. That was a memory that he would have to return to time and time again. Why did she choose him over me? Why did he have to see them before him?

He walked off. He tried to forget. He tried to ignore the dirty hungry invisible rats that were gnawing away at his insides and eating their way up to his throat and that horrible feeling of nausea.

You are alone. You came into this world alone. You are going to go out of this world alone.

It was not fair. It was not fair that this happiness was their’s for the taking whenever they wanted it. And never his.

Diljale. The burnt heart. It was really going up in flames. A doctor would deny it, but it was burning. He was a corpse on fire. In India, they cremated their dead. He really was dead. He was burning in the rain. The rain could not douse these flames.

What was funny that they criticised him for being cynical and pessimistic. So many disappointments in this life. All he had was disappointment to look in the face.

And what was there to walk towards in the rain? But he would walk in the rain by himself. He would have to keep on going. And he would never be sitting in that restaurant with her. That smile was going to burn in his dreams of terror.

a dream of heartbreak (microfiction)

14.10.2025

The night before, he had watched a play. And unexpectedly within the performance, the players had begun talking about heartbreak. It was a complete departure from what had been taking place and an absolute surprise. It was an outpouring of mourning.

He had watched uncomfortably, trying to forget their words as they spoke. He had thought that he had succeeded. That he had diverted his attention.

In other words, he had fooled himself.

Because in the morning, he woke up from a dream of heartbreak. He could see her face, more clearly than in a photograph, the face in life. Someone was telling a story about her. Her face was sad. They were saying that she was to marry someone else.

The mourning was not over. It had been years and he was still mourning her. She was alive and he was mourning her. It was never going to end.

He could not cry. He could not let it out. So his stomach churned with nausea and his thoughts kept on returning to her. His dreams cried for him.

He wanted to be free of her. He wanted his freedom. If he couldn’t have love, could he at least have freedom? He wanted her out of his mind. That mind was his. If she could not be his, she was not wanted in his mind.

Recently a fantasy had begun to take hold. To drink himself to death. It would be so easy, complete oblivion. Like the Indian film ‘Devdas’. Which was surprising. Because he abhorred drinking. But it was just an alteration of the usual fantasies of extinction aroused by his romantic failure. He was going to be haunted by the ghosts of the living dead forever. And there was never going to be any consolation in his life.

tiger’s teeth (microfiction)

13.09.2025

‘They could easily have killed you,’ Alfonso admonished me. ‘There were eight of them and one of you.’

‘Death before dishonour.’

Earlier on in the evening, I had gone to a singles meet up in Hyde Park. I had arrived and there was absolutely no one there at the meet up point. I had sat in the beauty of the pink skies in Hyde Park pondering on this as a metaphor for life in London. There is no connection. There is no hope of connection. Whatever you do is destined to fail. Other people do not exist. It looks like they are there. They are not. It is an illusion.

On the phone, as I walked back to the station, my friend speculated that maybe they had been scared of the Far Right riots.

Later on, when I walked out of my dinner at McDonald’s in Leicester Square, I got my own experience of the Far Right.

There was a fucking little cretin with a flag walking along with his dickhead friends. He took a look at me and pulled a face at me. He was trying to intimidate me because of my brown skin.

‘Fuck you’ I said aggressively to him.

Suddenly, from being the aggressor and feeling safe in his little crowd of fucking Nazi scum, this piece of shit was surprised. ‘What?’ he asked me lamely.

‘Fuck you you piece of shit’ I said loudly.

From being full of stupid insolence and cheap impudence, this little shitbag was suddenly full of fear. Because my body had gotten ready to fight. I gave him a look of absolute ferocity. They were not just words. But he had his piece of shit Nazi friends to try and impress, to try and give them the illusion that they weren’t little coward non-men united by hate with no balls.

He took a few steps towards me gingerly.

‘What the fuck you going to do about it you fucking dickhead?’ I bellowed at him.

Ridiculously, I heard someone say ‘You little sausage to me’. It didn’t surprise me that these uncivilised dicks couldn’t even speak properly. And suddenly, all of his friends were standing between me and him, protecting him from me. I think bystanders got up to get between us. Because they knew. They knew that I was The Tiger. They knew what was going to happen to that little bastard.

I walked off. I didn’t look back. I’m not scared of anyone.

Alfonso was still telling me off.

‘What are you, my mum?’ I asked him.

Alfonso took a moment to laugh. ‘You are wrong. You are throwing your life away.’

‘I was born to fight. I come from warrior culture. He was up in my face. I taught him a lesson. These little fucking cowards melt before a real man. They show their true colours. Nobody in this society can handle a real man.’

‘You are wrong,’ Alfonso said to me. ‘You are risking too much.’

‘All I regret is that I wasn’t able to teach him his lesson’ I said sourly. ‘I love to fight.’

To show face in an encounter is the badge of honour. I don’t get scared. I don’t back down. They back down. That piece of shit was trying to put fear into us. Fear into The Tiger? Impossible. There was no one to write this little account of war. There was no one to sing the legends. But do you know what? People in my culture prayed that they could become The Tiger. They prayed for the will, the composure and the ferocity. They prayed for just one chance to become The Tiger. But who actually was The Tiger? It was me. I was built to be a machine of war. They didn’t just call me Tiger. I called myself Tiger. I had my real name and my real identity. It hadn’t been taken from me.

And that’s why these little chickenshits were scared of me. Even if they walked around in a group of eight and I walked alone in the night. Because the sheep walk around in a fucking herd. And The Tiger? The Tiger hunts alone.

Wherever The Tiger puts his feet, that is his territory. The sheep don’t count. They don’t have a territory. This is my country. Not theirs.

the world of the unbalanced elephants – ten minutes of story (microfiction)

17.08.2025

Alfonso had given me just ten minutes to write a story. He had odd whims. And he knew that I had a busy schedule, so he did not make inordinate demands.

So what could I write?

I thought about an elephant that was climbing a wire over a city. The elephant was making its way across the wire sedately and elegantly. It was definitely possible. However, then a child let off a balloon from the crowd, a red balloon that veered into the elephant’s delicate trunk. Instability had been introduced, and missteps. The elephant desperately tried to regain balance. Everyone thought that the elephant was done for. Then, either from a stroke of luck or from a generous and hopeful intention, a crow landed on the uneven side of the balance. The elephant was saved. However, the unscrupulous bookies and organisers of the event decided that this was cheating on the part of the elephant, notwithstanding the fact that the bird had actually saved the poor creature’s life. They disqualified the elephant straight away. Yet the elephant was a beast of dignity. The elephant finished the walk across the wire. The silly child who had let off the balloon kicked up a fuss for more ice cream and treats from its entitled parents and the world went back to doing what it was doing: destroying, killing and hating. It is the world of the ignorant, not the world of a balanced elephant. And for that reason, because of the mindless mob, it is the world of the unbalanced elephants.

Alfonso did not deign to comment on the story. He asked me why all the characters in it were genderless, nonetheless. I asked him what difference he thought it would make. He was silent and suggested that we both go out for a chocolate sundae.

life as a bus (microfiction)

14.08.2025

‘You don’t have a reason to complain. You have a good life.’

Alfonso wasn’t wrong. I did have a good life. A disposable income. Savings. Food and shelter. Nice things. An interesting job. Interesting friends. The best education that money could buy. My health was pretty good and I had high energy levels. But was I happy? There was something very important that was missing from my life. Not something but someone.

The loss of one person. When there are several billion people in the world. It was a marginal loss. I was stupid to feel it. I should be like them. Forget everyone. Have no one as special. Forget about caring about someone. They did it and they were happy doing it. Why couldn’t I be like them? Nobody really cared about losing me from their lives. I sincerely doubted whether I could get more than ten people to come to my funeral if something happened to me.

‘When you search for a metaphor for life,’ I told Alfonso, ‘you would think of a maze or a dark forest. That is the stereotype. However, something happened today which I think is the perfect metaphor for life.’

‘And?’ Alfonso sniffed peculiarly. His guard was up and he eyed me warily. He knew that I was going to say something cynical and suspicious.

‘As I was crossing the road, a bus came that would make my walk back home redundant and conserve my energy after I had been on my newly healed leg all day. I sprinted to catch it. I got there at the door. The bus driver was letting some passengers off. I waited patiently at that bus door for it to open. The bus driver didn’t even give me a look while I was standing at the bus door. He drove off. That situation explains my life. Not a portion of my life. But my whole life.’

‘How so?’ Alfonso looked scrupulously at his fingernails. It was good of him to always ask for elaboration, when no one else ever did and I often wondered if they ever listened to anything that I said.

‘I beat that driver who had an unfair advantage to me in a race and then he still would not pay up. He would not give my reward. I was faster than him, more courageous than him, more talented than him. Yet he had something and he would never give it to me. He did not care about fairness. He did not care if he upset me. He would not do the right thing.’

‘That is your life?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have a chip on your shoulder.’

‘You would have too if you were a genius and had to live with these people.’

Alfonso harumped. He knew that I was right. This was how they treated me. This was the treatment of our people. We were a threat to them so they tried to keep us down.

‘You have done well if that’s how you think you have been treated.’

‘I don’t think. I know.’

‘Life as a bus,’ continued Alfonso, pretending that he had not heard me, ‘is not very appealing. But it is moving.’ He smiled at me naughtily. I did love Alfonso. I smiled back at him. You do not have to agree on everything, not at all. It was about friendship. You could always listen even if you did not agree. It was sad that people had not learnt that lesson yet.