The Rise of the Anti-Mother and Anti-Son Film and Western Law

13.05.2026

SPOILER ALERTS

Coming from a society that worships The Mother, where the duty is to be the son and lover of The Mother, I have written before about how the traditional Indian film has protested against the sexual repression of the West and its law which is based on an Asian Mother phobia. This phobia of the Asian mother reveals that The Mother is the Other to Western law, which is misogynistic and fears maternal or feminine authority. https://cafedissensus.wordpress.com/2022/05/30/there-is-no-bad-mother-beta-and-the-indian-mother-law-against-the-wests-asian-mother-phobia/

More and more, as I watch current films and watch current movies, I am learning just how far this misogyny and phobia of the mother goes in Western culture, or its unconscious legal culture. I am currently reading the Skandar the Unicorn books. The author worked in the law. Guess who is the villain in the first two books (I have only just begun the second one)? It is The Mother.

I watched ‘Polite Society’ the other day. Aside from the usual racism in these films about British Asian people – i.e. the British Asian man can never get married in these films because ‘there is something wrong with him’, guess who was the villain? It was The Mother. And the film spent all of its time making the mother/son bond loathsome as well through the eyes of the spoilt and Westernised British Asian female in it that seemed to hate the culture of the older generation.

Today I watched ‘Mardaani 3’, a cop film. Guess who was the villain? You guessed it. The character that was named ‘Amma’, or The Mother. And guess what? The Asian man in the film was also a villain because of the maternal relationship between himself and The Mother.

Mardaani 3 is worth analysing. The Mother comes from a poor family and has a Haryanvi dialect accent which suggests the rural. While no one is saying that she is a good character, because she is a child trafficker, the point is how the law in the form of the film’s heroine finishes her. She is shot in the throat. And then, when she can’t answer back, and the law has silenced the voice of this poor woman, the heroine of the film gives a big monologue. Same with the son. He comes from the poor. And he is also silenced when he is finished. The whole point of these films is to silence the poor Mother and the son that loves her and protects her.

Why am I talking about Indian films alongside British Asian films and British Literature? Because India was colonised and Western law was forced on us. This misogyny comes from the West. However, there are still sons that come from poor mothers. I am one of them. We will not accept this misogyny because we have sworn to protect our mothers. I represent the Indian national movement. I was named after the son that married Mother India. Against the hatred of The Mother and this legal culture, we stand for dharma, the organic law of India. I have modelled myself on my mother, the poor, foreign woman. The poor Indian woman. I am her voice. Even when the whole of this Western culture and its law is against us, wants to silence us. Because as I have written before, the dharma is the Mother-Law. We will never stop worshipping The Mother. Just like The Dark Mother stood as a symbol of Revolution against the Imperialists, so we still stand. We are the rivals of the oppressions and injustices of the Western law, its marginalisations and suppressions. Jai Maa Kaali!

the conceit of the writer

11.05.2026

‘The reason,’ said Alfonso in his engagingly lazy and erudite drawl, ‘that you write so much is because you are supremely conceited. You really feel as though you are the cleverest and most important person in the room. In any room.’

‘And what is wrong with that?’ I growled at him. After all, it was true. I was more intelligent than everyone else. It was just an intelligence that they did not want. Because it went against their agenda of stupidity and racism.

‘In reality, who they want to hear talk are the mindless.’

Was it not true? What sold the most in this society? The endless drivel that the celebrities came out with, those were the top selling books. And the areas that they neglected were all of the interesting areas, science, literary studies, art historical scholarship. They would rather listen to the imbecilic Farage or Trump than someone that could actually talk some sense. Their sensibilities were for hate. For the puerile. For unjust wars.

‘The conceit of the writer is what allows him to write.’

‘You cannot worship the ego as a writer,’ said Alfonso. ‘Learn humility.’

‘By no means,’ I said. ‘Dickens was one of the greatest of writers. And he called himself ‘The Inimitable’. Is that not the writer’s conceit? I would rather think myself great and strive for greatness. I believe that I am supremely talented. That I am a genius. And that is why I produce. You cannot ask The Untouchable, the Dalit, the low caste for humility. Humility is how they have kept us down. I am a prodigy. I have had this talent of writing since I was six years old. I was acknowledged as the best in my school and later on during sixth form too. I am unrivalled.’

‘But in the real world, who is there that reads you?’

‘Whoever does is amazed and even overwhelmed by my work. As I have told you, I am a genius. It doesn’t matter if the cast of villains does not want to read.’

‘This conceit that you are a genius. Where does it come from?’

‘From my knowledge of what I have produced. The knowledge that I can go into any field and make the biggest contributions. Film, literature, art history, the law, history, sociology, anthropology. I am a polymath.’

‘I have been told that the most intelligent are modest. They know the limits of their knowledge.’

‘I have prepared this ego for the hostility of a world that would crush our thoughts, that would keep us as The Oppressed. This ego is an answer to the casteists and the racists. I believe that I am god. I do not just write it. I am the prayer of the people. Nothing is closed to me. I know the secrets of the world, the things that drive this society of oppression and injustice. A genius is forged by his context. The context is the Independence of India, the Revolution. It is a work that has not yet been completed and it has asked for another genius. The intellectual terrorist. The one that will destroy this world of contemptuous thought for it to be rebuilt again. I am the truth. I am the knowledge. This self belief is unshakeable.’

‘The few pennies that you rub together from your writing, do they not teach you humility?’ Alfonso smirked at me while he said so.

‘The genius never sells in their lifetime. They are never acknowledged. I am so far higher and beyond all that I float in the heaven all by myself.’

‘If you are the genius that you say that you are, why then do you not produce and produce and produce?’

‘I could. It could easily be done. But why should I waste my life upon the ignorant? They will never give up their ignorance. They cannot value rightly. They will never value the gift that I give them.’

‘The conceit and the contempt that you have are both abominable.’

‘It is what they deserve, they who imagine themselves to be better than me. In fact, I am the best. Because I am the truth. I am the voice of the righteous. I am the one to whom the things are given. The stories that are thousands of years old that no one knows except for myself.’

‘The academy did not accept you.’

‘I do not accept them. I am too intelligent for them. All they have is dirty politics and favouritism. As well as the falsity of their Eurocentric bias.’

‘You think that only you are talented?’

‘Not at all. I believe that I am the most talented and that they should throw everything my way, every single honour and award. All the marks of recognition. They should recognise my greatness.’

‘You talk for them. You think for them.’ Alfonso pointed his finger at me in an accusing way.

‘Why not? They cannot talk a good talk. They cannot think a good thing. They cannot see or support genius.’

‘What good is it to have nothing and to rail at the world for it not giving itself to you? You want consolation? You want consolation for being clever.’

‘One day,’ I said, ‘You will understand what it means to be Medea, the intelligent foreign woman that is surrounded by the hostile and inferior minds around you, that is jilted and has her love stolen away from her. One day, you will understand this Greek myth. And one day, you will know that all the genius can think of is the revenge of success when his status will be restored as the hero. It is something that Euripides was dimly aware of.’

fake friends and demob happiness

06.05.2026

S: You know, Alfonso, you are a real friend. You are always reliable. There are no wires crossed with you. It is always comfortable talking to you.

A: Is this a buttering up?

S: Not at all. I am comparing you to fake friends. A fake friend is not dependable. There are always wires crossed with a fake friend. And, eventually if not at first, it is uncomfortable talking to a fake friend.

A: Don’t let these fake friends bother you. They don’t care about you. Don’t care about them either.

S: Because I don’t lie, I don’t expect others to lie to me. To pretend that they are friends. I just can’t believe what users these fake friends are. You help them. You give them presents. You look after them and listen to their troubles. And in the end? They betray you.

A: They are not worth your spit. I don’t know why you worry so much about their betrayals and the fact that they are users. You have seen what they are like. Why be upset about them after that? They are not worth it. You are too good for them.

S: A big heart hurts big time.

A: Harbour your emotions and your investment for those that are worthy of it. You have been told by people that love you that you love too freely. You accept friendship too freely. Learn that they have to prove themselves. You cannot trust others.

S: So you yourself are telling me that you cannot trust other people?

A: Trust is earned. Sadly you have seen what this society produces. There are not worthy and honourable people now.

S: Well let us forget these fake friends the same way that they have forgotten us.

A: Tell me about your day.

S: I went to visit the V and A East. I did the upper ground floor. I went to the gym and pushed some heavy weights and did running on the treadmill, so fast that I went dizzy at the end of it. I shopped at M & S and bought some beef udon noodles for lunch as well as some reduced price Cadbury’s Creme eggs at Tesco’s and reduced price chicken and sweetcorn sandwiches to take around with me tomorrow. I finished the first draft of my dissertation for my Art History degree. So I will take a day off tomorrow before I revise it. I went to the park and smelled the scent of the flowers, watched the work of the bees at the flowers, communicated with nature and admired the flight of the birds. Dinner was chicken biryani, one of my favourite dishes that my mother makes.

A: A good day, forget about the troubles. Live life. It is fuller than theirs.

living with profound despair

04.05.2026

S: I woke up again from another nightmare in the supermarket, the supermarketisation of art and culture, the meanness of the philistines in this world. And as I lay in bed thinking over things, this is what came into my head. There is this line in this movie ‘Gadar’ (Rebellion/Mutiny/Revolt) that I think about over and over again.

A: The film goer. Which is?

S: Let me tell you the story of this film. It is based on a true story. A Sikh man fell in love with a Muslim woman. He married her and had children with her. The partition separated them. Her parents broke up the marriage. He committed suicide.

A: He kills himself?

S: In real life. In the movie, he does not kill himself. He wins her back.

A: So, tell me this line that you obsessively return to.

S: The scene in the film is that the two lovers are going to be separated. They have only just fallen in love. They are talking. He is suffering from the pain of separation already. And he says to her, ‘No matter how merciless this life is, you still have to live it.’

A: This is the line that you think about? There is no elegance or poetry to it.

S: Is it not the whole message of the film? The whole point of the film? In the film, he is to live. Whereas in this brutal and merciless world, he is made to die through its hostility to love and diversity, to an interfaith marriage, to the embrace of difference, to harmony and unity across cultures. In the film he is given his happiness.

A: You love the fairy tale even knowing the reality.

S: You live for your ideals. The ideals of India are the embrace of difference. The actor in the film, Sunny Deol, he is me. I have modelled myself upon the hero of Punjab.

A: It is easier said than done to live through despair.

S: When you are the hero, your duty is to live. In this spiritual war, it is our duty to not only survive but to prosper. Even when you dream of death, you make plans to live. Because we are love. And we keep love alive in this mean and cheap world.

A: You that has nightmares every night, you that has separated yourself from every community, you preach love and life?

S: To stomach injustice is to become unjust. To live with those that cheapen life is not life. To live with those that devalue love, that is not life. It takes courage to separate yourself from communities for the ideals of love and life. I have that courage. I can stand all alone in this world. I have lived through profound despair. And despite everything, still I laugh. I make a life. I love. I was born to be a hero. It is what I am named after, this Sikh hero Sunil Dutt that married a Muslim woman and saved her life, just like in the film Gadar. She is Mother India and I was raised to protect her honour. The story of Gadar is the story of my life. Why? Because I am Punjab. I am India. And this film that we are talking about? It is the most watched film in modern Indian history. All of India loves me. Because I am India. I am Punjab. I am The Tiger. I am love.

the nightmare that woke me up

03.05.2026

S: A nightmare woke me up this morning.

A: Really? What happened?

S: When I say woke me up, the nightmare squeezed me into the few seconds before the alarm went off.

A: Come, tell the tale.

S: I was working as the manager of a party. The setting was a big supermarket. Before the party people had arrived, I had to get rid of a big white machine. I was taking it to the charging point, carrying it by myself. I suddenly got called and had to drop it off in one of the shopping aisles before I could take it to the charging point. The first party person had arrived, the organiser. She wanted something in addition to what she had been promised when I tried to give her a warm reception and seemed sulky. She wanted the seating area upstairs which was empty, part of the cafe. It was not part of the contract and had not been arranged. I walked inside past the empty chairs and found myself locked outside. I tried to get back in through the door but the whole of the inside was moving upwards. The door would have jammed the movement as it opened inside and would have been stuck on the frame. I closed it just in time. I waited and then opened it again. Inside, they were shooting an astronaut film and the room was full of astronauts. I rushed past them. I would get into trouble, they would find out that I had disturbed the film. The alarm went off. I woke up from the nightmare.

A: A curious sequence of happenings.

S: Very understandable though. The nightmare is about money. It is based on several of my jobs where I manage events at various venues. But tellingly, this is in a supermarket, where the cultural industries I work in have been transformed into exploitative business and not charity. Some spaces have filming for money. Money is taking over my career when it should be about arts and culture.

A: You are having a nightmare about the commercialisation of arts and culture?

S: Precisely. And not just about the charities I work for. Also about writing. Because the astronauts are there because one of my friends is reading a book about astronauts and I read about the author’s prior book which was self-published and made lots of money too, literature as business. When I, of course, self-publish. The dream is about how my self-publishing is an interruption of work and the whole money making ethos. I am the outsider trying to get in, disrupting everything, the unwanted.

A: What about the demanding customer?

S: The philistine public that will never be pleased. The origin of the nightmare.

the money monsters

02.05.2026

S: I read with disgust that London’s Whitechapel Gallery hired an Economist in Residence.

A: What’s so bad about that?

S: She thinks that she can tell us what the value of art and culture is, that is the most disgusting thing. All of us that get into arts and culture are trying to escape from these money monsters with their bullshit ideas of value. And this London institution is hiring precisely that kind of individual to talk about what’s important and significant about art and culture. For us to be represented by these jokers. What the fuck does she know about it? Does she have any training in art and culture? This society is a joke. The people that are least able to do anything are the ones that they employ and listen to.

A: Come come now. I’m sure she’s interested in art and culture.

S: Then she wouldn’t demean it by being there to appraise its value as an economist. And pander to this bullshit fascist and idiotic government and this audience of philistines.

A: I’m sure there’s more here.

S: This society can only listen to a fake. When it comes to people that care for art and culture, live for art and culture, produce art and culture, then they cannot listen. They force us into marginalisation. They do not value our interpretations or our ideas. Because they want to keep on doing the same stupid thing over and over again. And what is the most stupid thing? Money. That’s all that comes into their rotten heads. Everything is about money. Make everything about money. They have a monomania. Their language is about money. Their ideas are about money. And these are the people that you want in the museum representing what the museum is about? These are the people that you want in art, representing what art is about? Do you wonder why I am angry?

A: Relax. There’s nothing you can do about it.

S: There is something that you can do about it. There’s always something. Do you know, when Michael Jackson wanted to shoot the video ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, which is about protesting racism and how the government mistreats people, about showing reality, the Brazilian government banned him from shooting it. So he went to the Mafia. The Mafia looked after him. They took him to the favela. They made the video happen. The disenfranchised supported the disenfranchised. I know that there are more of us.

A: You are not Michael Jackson.

S: I believe anyone with conviction, strength and discipline can change this world. Just like Jesus stood for something against Mammon, so can I. I can stand for a world of art and culture that does not rely on money. I am living proof of it. I have my own publishers. I have my own books. I have my own blog. I have my own photography and art accounts. All done without requiring money.

A: You do not have fame.

S: I have something better than the value that these cretins accord to those that apologise for the injustice and racism of this culture. I have my own self-respect and I have love for my community, the community of Tigers. That love is evident in everything that I produce. I don’t have to show why I value the community in terms of money. My love is a love that does not cost money. My love that I express? It does not cost money. And that is why I am the genuine article. That is why I am the poet, the artist, the photographer, the writer, the scholar. The genius. I am above money.

the bravery of the writer, the polymath and the anarchist

30.04.2026

A: Do you not think it is foolish to write in this day and age, to be a thinker, to be a speaker? They would gnash at you and claw your throat for expressing an opinion.

S: The mark of the writer is that he is brave. Braver than most. He expresses what he thinks with no apology. He does express an opinion. And not only the opinion, but also himself.

A: And you count yourself as brave?

S: As the bravest. Because I say exactly what I think. I am published and I am damned by them.

A: You are always boasting about how brave you are.

S: The only thing that stays the steel is compassion.

A: How brave are you?

S: It is brave to be a writer. To have a voice. To stand up against everyone. To be different. It is brave to be a polymath. To go into whatever field seems tempting and to become an expert in it. To have the bravery of the self to be able to bend this mind to anything and everything. To do degree after degree, starting from scratch every time for the long haul and to plan to do degrees after that in the future. To be a generalist in a world that insists on blind tunnel vision and specialisation. It is brave to be an anarchist. To believe in the self when no one would have you believe in the self. To go up against the biggest bully, threat and terrorist in the world which is the state. To go up against the slaves to the state and their bullshit. To go up against this world in every way. This mind is brave. This body is brave too. Everything about me is brave. Because I am the hero. I am the god. I am The Tiger.

A: Is not bravery foolish?

S: It is only foolish to be a coward. Because a coward lacks the wisdom of bravery. The truly brave, they have thought about what it is to be a coward. They have fully gauged the contempt of cowardice, its limitations. The brave are free. The coward is a slave. The coward cannot become a writer. Because he is scared to express himself and cares too much what others think, others that can do fuck all except for judge, and that incorrectly too. The coward cannot become a polymath. The coward lacks wits. The coward cannot dare different fields. The coward cannot be an anarchist. Because a slave cannot become the most powerful. The slave cannot go against the bully that is the state. They fear and therefore they obey and lick boots.

A: Boast after boast.

S: All justified my good boy. Everyone in this world searches for freedom. And I? I am free. The free are brave.

convenience in love

29.04.2026

S: The one time that I went on a speed date, all the women could think of to keep on asking about was where I lived.

A: So?

S: It was a question that did not even occur to me. Because all they cared about was convenience in love. Whereas genuine love is decidedly inconvenient.

A: What do you mean?

S: They are born into this country and this culture. And here, for love, for the most part, they want you to be a clone of them. They want you to have the same background and culture. They want you to be in no way inconveniently different. They want you to be local. They fall in love with those that just happen to be around them, whether or not they are suitable. And as to the proposition that love is decidedly inconvenient? The ones that I have loved, I would have to fight for them. I would have to give up things for them. In short, love for me is not easy. For them it is easy. There is no cost to their love.

A: They also give their hearts.

S: But with many, many conditions. I give my heart unconditionally. I am actually a hero in love.

A: What do you mean by that?

S: The story of Hero and Leander. He swims every night across the dangerous Hellespont to see her. The story of Romeo and Juliet. He fights with everyone to love her. The hero of the love story loves one that is inconvenient. His love is inconvenient. His love is not lazy. His love is hard, hard work. That is why I am the hero. Nothing comes to me easily. I fight for everything tooth and nail.

A: They do not see you as the hero. They see you as the villain.

S: In this world, if you are a real man, if you are Indian, if you are Punjabi, if you are The Tiger, this world sees you as the enemy. Because you expose their corruption through your desires and your very being. They would destroy the desire and love of The Tiger. That is what they ask him to do, to kill his love. That is their biggest demand. Yet, still, The Tiger is love. He is named after the god of love. He is love. And that is why, in reality, they are the villains and he is the hero. In this love story, The Tiger is the hero. Because The Tiger accepts inconvenience, difference, the war that is love. If in love’s war, each lover is devastated, devastated, The Tiger accepts devastation. Even if he can never win in love, The Tiger loves. Because the love of the god is endless.

the poetics of marginalisation and the counter culture

28.04.2026

A: When one reads what you write, the substance is made up of a response to rejection, exclusion, hostility, heartbreak. Can you not write anything positive?

S: Those that have been included and valued can write something that conveys the satisfaction and the security that they feel. Those that have been rewarded, accepted and loved. I can only convey my experience of life.

A: Have you ever wondered whether it is something in you which is why you are treated as you are?

S: No. Because everything that is in me is in Punjabi culture. I am not me, I am Punjab. And they have tried to marginalise and exclude and restrict Punjab.

A: You have no personality?

S: I have a Punjabi personality. As I say, I am Punjab. We are loud. We are audacious. We are brave. We are hard working.

A: How do you know that what you suffer is not just what a genius has to suffer in this world? There are many articles about this. That because you are clever you will never get on with others that are not on your same level. You cannot stoop to the levels of their superficiality, you are too intense and full of deep thought. Then, remember, you have that condition which is also not conducive to society.

S: Those articles are untrue. They are based on generalisations. I say the same thing to you as I say to everyone. You have not met these people. You do not know what they are like. You cannot judge relationships from the outside, only from the inside. Don’t try to gaslight someone’s experience of things.

A: You would make the standard completely subjective?

S: What is so objective about you, the outside observer? Are you not subjective? I trust myself more than anyone else. I know that I am the reliable narrator. It is this world that is unreliable with their tired assumptions that can never take into account racism. It is just a fact that whenever you talk about racism here, people pretend that there is something else. Always something else, never racism. Funny that. When I have found that racism is their whole society. They have nothing else. The whole point of how they live and act and treat people is racism. They are racists. That is the truth.

A: And what is the key to the poetics of the marginalised and the counter culture?

S: The key is love. We are full of love in a world that has no love. We have right judgement in a world that has no justice or judgement. We have respect and honour, enough to give to others. They don’t.

the usurper of happiness

27.04.2026

S: You know, others are enjoying the happiness that is supposed to be ours.

A: In what sense?

S: I will only speak of my own case. If anything was actually fair, I would be a household name. After all, I am a genius. I would be feted everywhere. I would have whatever I wanted. Instead, there is this. The ones that are enjoying the rewards that I should have had, they do not deserve them. They should be mine.

A: You say this with complete assurance and humility of course.

S: We have spoken of this before. I have complete confidence in myself. You know, no one can match me in a fair contest. It is just a fact. They cannot outperform me. Therefore, if anyone is chosen above me for anything it is because of the wrong reasons. Who can write, think or create better than me?

A: But because you have a chip on your shoulder, you are not chosen.

S: Who has put this chip upon my shoulder? It is them. I know that they are unfair. Because of how they have treated me and my talent and brilliance. They have never been just. They cannot be just. They give lip service to the ideals of meritocracy but they have no meritocracy. Only mediocrity and this popularity contest that they have.

A: How can you get back the happiness that is supposed to be yours?

S: There is no way. Relationships, opportunities, friendships, whatever it is. You can never get them back. Because you have been passed over out of caprice and injustice and there is no way of getting any of those things back. Because they will not come out of their inquity. They are monsters.

A: Hanging on to the things that should have been yours, hanging onto your humilation, these are not good traits.

S: They can forget because there is not this accumulation of ills. I cannot forget the mountain of injustice. I cannot forget how they have stood in the way of all my ambitions and dreams, the disappointment that I have had to live with, how they have cheated our dreams and destinies. I cannot forget or forgive what they have taken away from me and us.