the writer does not know what the reader reads

31.03.2026

S: The writer does not know what the reader reads.

A: How so?

S: The fact is, that the reader hardly ever shares what they experience of the text. I am lucky. I am in research and write academic non-fiction. Therefore, I eventually hear what others have made of my work. And it is always positive. Because I work hard and I am extraordinarily intelligent.

A: The usual modesty.

S: Other people have said it. I merely echo their sentiments. You are allowed to be justifiably proud of your accomplishments. Because I am intelligent, I know my place in the world of thought. My best friend goes around telling his family and friends that I am an original thinker. I get good reviews for what I write. If I said it were the case and others didn’t agree with me, then that would be out of place. I’m not going to hide my genius under a bush. It is what other people want to be. I am it.

A: To get back to the topic and not your infernal vanity, why does it fascinate you so much what other people think about what you write.

S: There are those that hate it. They are not worth considering. There will always be haters. What is more interesting is those that read regularly. They are fascinated by what I write. They have been there for years and years reading. But what are they finding in this writing? Things have changed so much. Yet these people are reading and reading and reading. They want to be flooded by these words of mine. What emotions do they feel? What thoughts do they have? What is the identity of the author that they have built up in their minds?

A: You will never know. Because they will never tell you.

S: A villain to some, a hero to many. The author can only say what is in his heart. He stays true to his own heart. This is not a performance. This is life. Whatever reaction it arouses, envy, disdain, fear, contempt, adulation, praise. The author lives in a world that he considers vile, in a sickening climate of hate and conformity that he is too good for, in a world that he is much too good for but denies him his worth. Even though this world tells him to stop writing, that there is nothing for him, he writes. He is a writer. The writer is one that will defy this world and all of its rules, that will defy all for the sake of his voice. I am the real writer. I am what brings freedom into this world, the expression of the self. I am the one that retrieves the lost sense from this world, the lost self from this world. Whatever any reader thinks, I am the hero of this tale. The reader hears the voice of the hero and sees the deeds of the hero.

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.

the time after work

30.03.2026

A: How was your evening?

S: Rushed. Everything is always rushed. There is a lot to do and no time to do it.

A: Have you not heard that phrase? If there is something to do, get a busy person to do it.

S: It is true.

A: So what were you up to?

S: I went to the gym where I did heavy weights, got some Rosemary and Mint oil for my hair at Superdrug as well as some Rosemary and Mint conditioner, did some window shopping in M & S, had dinner with my parents, wrote pen pal letters to two friends and applied for a management job. Messaged my girlfriend and two friends, including one who I’m discussing Shakespeare quotes with at the moment. Then, I played Scrabble, anagrams, a crossword and a jigsaw online. The last thing was writing.

A: Is that all you did out of work today?

S: No, I also listened to my Hindi music and visited the Oxfam bookshop.

A: You like to keep active and connected.

S: I wonder what it is all for. I am living life at a ferocious pace. It is all rush, rush, rush. I’m trying to fit many lives into one life. And still, there is never enough that is done. I have so many different writing projects, so many ideas in this head, so many secret knowledges that have not seen the light of day.

A: You often say that Faust got into heaven because he strove for it.

S: All of these things. Someone will look back at this one day. Wondering why this life was so busy and unrewarded. All that attempt at self-improvement which really comes to nothing in this cold and hostile world. All that genius that was wasted when I could have been extending the boundaries of human knowledge, when I could have been focusing on writing exclusively and on thinking and thinking.

A: Can you not relax?

S: Who would do all of my things for me then? How would I have a life outside of work and study and volunteering? It all has to be crammed together. Just cramming and cramming and cramming with no rest. The desire to have a good work and life balance, to have a gym routine, to fit in everyone that I know into things. The desire to keep this brain stimulated.

A: This energy that you have, it is like you are on cocaine.

S: Whatever it is, it is what my brain naturally produces. All on about six hours sleep every night.

Farthing Downs and Happy Valley – 27.03.2026

39,000 steps/17.31 miles (equivalent to 66.6 circuits of a soccer pitch)

Birds seen: parakeets, crows, possibly a raven, blue tits, pigeons, goldfinch, starlings

Highlights

The Flint Game

Strewn about all over this area, there were pieces of flint. We are hypothesising that the area might have been a major hub for prehistoric man. We were talking about the craftsmanship required to make the flints into weapons and then, suddenly, I had the idea that we should each of us have a go at doing it.

So my friend and I picked up two pieces of flint, one piece smaller and one piece larger and we placed the smaller piece onto a piece of flint that was embedded in the ground. Then, we struck at the corners and edges of the smaller piece of flint with the bigger. Unlike in cinema, there were no sparks. We were both wearing our glasses as eye protection. My friend went first and he struck out a piece quite quickly. I put it into my pocket and felt it. It was incredibly sharp. I did my piece next. It took a few goes to get going as I wasn’t firmly onto the embedded flint bed but then a satisfying sharp tooth came off. We had both reconnected with our prehistoric past. I kept both the pieces and now they are on my bookshelf in my bedroom. A reminder of what? Our ancestry? The trip? Friendship?

The Chaldon Doom Painting

After getting slightly lost, we entered Chaldon Church which was a pretty construction to do the art part of our walk. We were going to see the Chaldon Doom painting. This had been created by a monk that fancied himself as an artist and was about the sins, a bit like Hieronymous Bosch’s masterpiece, ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’.

As we entered, we came across two friends, R. and A. One was a young woman with dyed blonde hair who was the very picture of silence. The other was a stout man with black hair that chatted to us amiably about the mural because he was a local. His first words to me was that we are all a part of god so that we are all gods, a statement fit for a church. He had watched a video on YouTube about it and chatted to my friend about what he knew while I studiously read the labelled diagram of the mural and read the extended curator label about it.

The mural was reddish and quite ugly, although interesting to look at at the same time. The church was not particularly impressive but it was a novel experience to go to look at art and actually find a stranger that you could talk to about it. It never happens in London.

The View from Farthing Down

At the top of Farthing Down, there was this stone compass which pointed out all of the things on the wonderful view that you could get from this vantage point. We were looking at the mast for Crystal Palace, at Canary Wharf and also trying to see what else we could get our eyes onto. After you struggle up a hill, the view is the reward. And the rest and the sense of accomplishment that goes with it.

The Hive Garden in Coulsdon South Library

Noticing that there was a library around when we got into Coulsdon South, we decided to go in and check out the Ordinance Survey maps for our walk. Then, when we circled back to it to get on track onto our walk and were walking past, I noticed a charming little garden to its side. It was a delightful little construction, with little statuettes of fairies strewn about for the children. There was a wonderful yellow bench and it was wondderfully organised. Such a pleasant place for reading in the summer. We only spent a few minutes there but it was a lovely experience.

The Beauty of the Woods

We walked past decaying logs overlaid with green, green moss, past Yew trees and also delightful looking fungal growths on the ground. It was much warmer in the woods than in the outside world and also there was no rain like there was in the exposed elements. It was the usual but always relaxing and soothing immersion in nature. The birdsong was particularly beautiful, incredibly loud too. Like a concert that nature had put on for us specially.

Coffee in the morning

When we were drinking in Caffe Nero, we had a conversation with the Irish barrista. It turned out that the owner of the cafe was actually a Londoner and that he had only gone to Milan for university.

The Museum in the Pub

When we stopped for a drink at about two o’clock, the table where we sat in the pub had a framed document from the king at the end of the war, thanking the schoolchildren for their share in the hardship and struggles of the war. It told the children that they were worthy members of the sacrifices and the grit of the nation. This was an insight into that momentous time and the lives of the schoolchildren who lived then.

the days of great sadness

25.03.2026

We had just finished some ice cream topped with chocolate buds, chocolate sweets and then both chocolate and raspberry sauce. Alfonso shone with the shine of a satiated stomach. I was telling him about Dhurandar 2 (The Brave Hero 2), which I had watched last night.

‘The film finished at about quarter past midnight.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘Almost one. I went to sleep at about half past one in the morning.’

‘Why do you watch these action films? It is just violence and revenge.’

‘You are wrong. They are about honour. They are about protecting the family. They are about the duty of being a man and a hero, about attaining your revenge. They are about sacrifice and true grit. They are about energy and power. They are the films that relay our culture, the warrior culture. The hero is Punjabi. It is always about us. We are the superheroes of India and this world.’

‘Well I hope you indulged your bloodlust. You are going about London doing everything there is to do in this city. I hope you are happy.’

‘I have met my girlfriend many times recently. But despite this happiness, these are the days of absolute sadness. The days of great sadness. We look at his world. This wretched world. The real peace and happiness would be in death. This struggle that has gone on forever, this struggle for status and honour, for a just reward, for true diversity and equality, for the community, this endless striving. Then and finally then, it would be over. It is the days of death. We remember the ones that have died, our most beloved.’

‘And what philosophy is there to counter sadness?’

‘There is nothing that can counter sadness. There is nothing that can counter the suffering that The Oppressed have to face in this world. We fight our hardest against a cowardly and dishonourable foe. The whole world is our enemy.’

‘One man cannot fight the entire world.’

‘From birth, you contend with the fairness of the allocation of resources. Milk, love, food, money, recognition, power and status. If I had ever been content with the share that I received, that we have received, then I would lay down my arms. Then I would forget my sadness, our sadness. But this resource allocation has always been unfair. It is unfair. And therefore, The Tiger bares his teeth. He shows his claws. In the essence of The Tiger there is this great gaping wound, sadness.’

‘You who have chased every happiness, you have everything noble and great in this world, everything, how can you be sad? You are the most fortunate. You are the one they envy. Hindu philosophy says sadness and happiness are unreal. Emotion is a cloud.

‘Humne apnein shakaal ke dorh dikhai gaheen aini ke gum mein

Chahein hai humnein uske tudkhrein ekh mudat sein’.

‘We have seen the run of our shape in the sadness of the mirror

We have wanted its shards for an age’.

the attempt to make life beautiful

22.03.2026

A: You are always telling me that you are trying to make life beautiful.

S: I do make life beautiful. Today, I had a wonderful day.

A: Why?

S: I work at the most beautiful places in the world, the most fascinating, the most interesting. However, I will not talk about work. I will talk about what I did outside of work.

A: What did you do?

S: In the first break in the morning, I shopped at the local Oxfam Charity Bookshop. I bought several books, including those on typography, writings from women travellers and also an exquisite little tome on gardens.

A: Then, at lunch?

S: I went down to the National Maritime Museum and went through the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition. I had a wonderful time immersed in space, nebulae and the planets. I was travelling there. I saw a beautiful video about a couple that went on an adventure to photograph the Northern Lights, such a nice and kind woman, such an aid to the photographer. It was heartwarming.

A: The next thing?

S: Another break and this time I went aboard The Cutty Sark to gaze at the views around me on a boat. Followed by a cheap snack at Macdonald’s.

A: Then after work?

S: A visit to Canary Wharf to look over the buildings and the waterfront. Then a shopping expedition to Marks and Spencer’s where I picked up some wonderful dessert and tomorrow’s lunch, Thai Red Curry and Sweet and Sour Chicken. I then ambled about in the park at Canary Wharf where I sat amidst the cherry blossoms and camelias, having a conversation on the phone with my girlfriend.

A: Then when you got home?

S: I had a feast for dinner. It was chicken and spinach curry with freshly prepared chapattis. The salad was wonderful: tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce of two descriptions, red onions and a special favourite – mooli (parsnips) with garam masala. This was also washed down with 100% lychee juice and a glass of water. For dessert, I had an M & S trifle of peach, pears and pineapple.

A: To end the night?

S: Duty, my friend. There is always duty. I sat with my mother while she watched a video of an Indian wedding for a few minutes. Then, I wrote a newspaper article for the charity that I work on, a newspaper article about Punjab, the home of my people. While listening to world music instrumentals on Spotify.

A: You pack in a lot.

S: My energy and my curiosity, my greed for life, all of these are boundless. I want to live a full life and I do. It is the life I dreamed of. The life of an intellectual, the life of a lover, the life of an artist.

A: To finish the night?

S: The girlfriend again. A hot shower. Perhaps some reading. This mind needs fuel and love.

consequence is of no consequence

21.03.2026

‘There is a type of rage,’ I was telling Alfonso slowly and deliberately, ‘that keeps on growing and growing. You cannot vanquish it. It is the growth of rejection.’

‘You have it. I can see,’ answered Alfonso. He was dressed, as per usual, immaculately. He had a beautiful green blazer on that reminded me of the two colours that the Koreans called green. With a purple jumper and a yellow tie. My handsome, handsome friend. His face was alive with energy, with the radiance of the sun.

‘Indeed, I do,’ I answered. ‘Yes, I sit there thinking to myself that they denied me a place at Cambridge because of the colour of my skin when I actually passed the interview. Then, they denied me top jobs and put me on the reserve list when I had passed the interviews because of the colour of my skin. They denied me what I deserved, what I was owed. They have tried to keep me down. It is because of them that I do not have children and a family right now.’

‘All you can think of,’ said Alfonso sharply, ‘is your revenge. That is all there is with you.’

‘Why deny anger?’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘As I said, the anger is getting worse and not better. And this anger is not merely for myself. Because that would be selfish. This anger is for the community. For the past, the present and the future. Besides which,’ I continued, ‘this anger has been forged over thousands of years for the oppressed. It is the anger of the whole people. No one can match this anger.’

‘This society that you accuse of racism and oppression,’ asked Alfonso, ‘how comes you have prospered in it?’

‘Because of my family that looked after me,’ I said. ‘Because I worked every hour under the sun doing work that is not on my level. With this work ethic and this energy, no one can keep me down. I am richer than all of them.’

‘How can you accuse them of being racist when all of your nearest outside of the family are from the dominant culture?’

‘Not everyone is a racist. There are those that give acceptance and even love. If a culture is racist, it does not mean that everyone follows the culture. Look at me. I don’t follow it.’

‘How do you know you are not a racist?’

‘Because, as you have just said, all of the nearest and dearest outside my family are from the dominant culture. Unlike the racists in this society, I don’t say one thing and then do another. I do as I say. I practise what I preach. Harmony. Integration across cultures. Inclusivity and diversity. While I respect and value my own background, I am more than willing to accept and befriend others, to be their lover.’

‘You criticise this culture.’

‘So what? I am British. I can criticise as I please. Who is going to stop me? The ones that can’t take my criticism are the racists, because they know that I have brown skin and they would silence me. You can’t silence the truth. This is a culture of cowardice, hate and lies, of mindless conformity and oppression and greed.’

‘Still you say it. Despite being hated for it.’

‘No one can stop me. Because it is the truth.’

‘There are consequences to speech.’

‘Consequence is of no consequence. I am not a yes man or a sycophant or a coward like many in this society. We do not have to live like this and it is not the right way to live. The real value of life is connection, diversity and inclusion. The real value of life is love. Not hate and lies and cowardice. The real value of life is to make friends with difference. To embrace difference with open arms. To learn from everyone. Openness, equality and respect.’

‘You have a narrow view of this society.’

‘As I have said before, look at the leaders of this culture. Are you satisfied with this? Are you satisfied with the garbage that they spout? Are you satisfied with how they burn the world with their greed, how they kill the innocent with impunity, how they coerce their people to follow them with corrupt taxes and corrupt lies? And then, you look at their bias and prejudice in work and even in love.’

‘What bias in work?’

‘You want statistics? One in four young people have reported that their ethnicity is a barrier to progression in their career. There are more ethnic minority workers in insecure jobs. About 12% of ethnic minority workers have been denied promotions based on their ethnicity. We are unfairly disciplined and seen with suspicion at work. Because of our foreign names, we are less likely to be invited to the interview in the first place. About 88% of employees believe racism exists in their workplaces, and three-quarters believe racism is a problem, suggesting little progress over the past few years.This list goes on and on.’

‘You agree.’

‘Yes.’

I passed over a small coconut chocolate sweet to Alfonso and we chewed these little treats together in silent companionship. There was always much to say. And very little time to say it. But we would say it.

the flattery of the echo

17.03.2026

S: Recently, someone used the exact phrase that I used to describe something in a private communication when they were making a more public announcement.

A: Out of all the private messages that she got, she used your words?

S: Yes, my praise must have pleased her.

A: So she echoed you?

S: It was the flattery of the echo.

A: Analysis?

S: It could be a number of things. First of all, I am a writer. She might have thought it was the phrase that was the most apt. Perhaps when she was going ahead to write something that was semi-public to the small group, she wanted to model herself on a writer.

A: Perhaps.

S: But you also have to remember the relationship. She knew that I would know that she had echoed my phrase. After all, I wrote it. She was communicating to me that she was echoing my phrase.

A: For what reason?

S: Mirroring is a form of sociability, so is echoing. She was establishing a community between me and herself in the semi-public realm of this small group as she wrote to everyone. A community based on a written message.

A: Any other speculations?

S: There is a suggestion of emotion. I talked about my emotions in this phrase, about how I enjoyed something and how I would remember it. And she herself must have mirrored my emotions, enjoying my praise and remembering it.

A: You are a striking man. Some people are impressed by you.

S: That is exactly the right word, ‘impress’. Because I stamped myself onto her. Change in the world is driven by our influence on others and I can shape those around me.

A: Enough of this ego. Let’s get on with life.

S: Yes. I have a big assignment due in for university. There is never any time for anything but study and work. And yet, life happens and I live life too. Genius demands.

being boundlessly busy

16.03.2026

A: What is it like being busy all of the time?

S: It’s been going on all of my life. It’s what I’m used to.

A: But how is it going?

S: There is never any time for anything. Yet everything somehow gets done.

A: It is all a massive investment of time, labour and love. Isn’t it all really draining?

S: Isn’t everything?

A: What makes it work work? What is the nitty and gritty of it?

S: My mother handles everything at home. I organise everything ruthlessly. I don’t dilly and dally, I just do things. I rush everything. I am super quick as a person. I do everything straight away when I get time, on my breaks and lunch breaks, walking to and fro from places, on the commute. Besides that, I have a remarkable memory, touch type really fast and, as I often say many times, I am a genius.

A: Why do you boast so much?

S: In a honour culture, boasting is tolerated. Because it is an honour culture.

A: These that read, none of them are not Punjabi. They hold it against you.

S: False modesty is hypocritical. I am objectively a genius based on my work. The magnus opus is still unpublished but it is in first draft form. In any case, this culture would dishonour me and treat me as nothing. This is not true. I am special. I am the kind of thinker that comes every few hundred years. It is just an objective fact. Even people around me recognise that I can just go into any field and know it all. I am the last generalist in a culture of specialists. My mind is more plastic than everyone else’s. That is another reason why I can cope with being busy at this level. So, to answer your question, the more they try to put me down, the more I congratulate myself for being myself. The more that they attack my identity and devalue it, the more value that I put into it.

A: Narcissistic defence.

S: The appreciation of real value. They can’t appreciate or reward real value. They are exploitative, prejudiced and, compared to me, they are all lazy and incapable. I am the best. Objective fact. And the other thing? They have never let me do anything. They have refused me all of the jobs that I wanted to do. So despite that, I am still doing all of these jobs on a voluntary basis or for free. It is spite that keeps me going, anger that keeps all of these plates spinning, the famous stubbornness of the Punjabi. It is the community that gives me strength and courage, skill and energy. The Mother Goddess Saraswati, Goddess of Learning, she has blessed her son in a world of ignorance, selfishness and hate. This genius that comes from the lower castes, who the whole world is against, despite them he has still achieved. That is why I am god. God accepts no limitation. I am the dream of India. The dream of The Mother. The Tiger.

tiredness

15.03.2026

S: I am tired.

A: You surprise me. You are always full of energy.

S: It is 23.41. I have been up since 6 am like I am most days, most good days when I can get up. In this day, I have been at work for eight hours. In the lunch times and breaks, I shopped at a charity bookshop and I went to have a chocolate cake at a cafe. After work, I hosted a charity event, a fundraising event. I encouraged, enthused and gave out prizes. Then I went to a pub with five of my friends. I’ve fitted in two phone calls with my girlfriend too. In the morning, I did light weights, push ups and stomach crunches and meditated. I also wrote and I arranged an interview with a gurdwara (Sikh Temple) for my journalism project to help the Dalits, the lower castes in Punjab.

A: If you keep on packing in stuff like that, you are going to get tired.

S: This life is too short. There is too much to do. There is the whole world to change for the better. They have asked me to be a hero. They expect. I have asked myself to be a hero. I expect. The work of a hero. For no reward.

A: Why work yourself to the limit for them? They would not do the same for you.

S: A hero works for others, not for himself. The king works for the kingdom. Not for himself.

A: You that see yourself as a hero and a king, they do not. They see you as a villain.

S: Whatever they see me as, when I look into the mirror I see someone that cares. That wants to change the world around him. That has not accepted defeat. Someone that will do his level best to perform for the people and The Mother that see him as their prayer. Someone that can build communities around himself.

A: And this feeling, this feeling of tiredness. Is it not saying to rest, to relax? To recharge?

S: What this feeling is saying is satisfaction. The satisfaction of tiredness. To make the world a better place. Having taken on a big challenge in fundraising and having achieved it with good results, much better than estimated or expected. The satisfaction of knowing that I can do whatever I set my sights on. I enjoy this tiredness. Honest work creates honest sleep. I have deserved this rest tonight.