the list of things done

29.06.2026

Again, A. asks me who I am. Are we what we do? This is what I did today. What does it say about me? A. never comments.

Meditation and chi building. To maintain mental clarity, focus and balance.
Reading the newspaper (The BBC website and The Metro). To keep in touch with things. To stay up to date. To connect with the wider world.
Exercise with light weights. Mens sana in corpora sana.
Languages learning in Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, German, Spanish and French (reading novels, short stories, the news, reading a German grammar book). Because of the challenge, the thrill of learning, connection with my own culture. Connection with the world.
Reading British history. To learn more about this world that I have arrived in. To be erudite and learned.
Reading ‘The Ecology Book’. To face the environmental disaster.
Reading psychology articles. To learn more about the strangers that surround me and the strangeness in myself.
Watching videos. Pleasure, entertainment, enjoyment.
Reading about Christiano Ronaldo on social media. Looking up to a hero that is like myself, the achiever, the goal getter, and understanding the hate sent to him by the jealous.
Phoning my girlfriend. To feel connected to someone, to feel intimate. To show that I care.
Taking my family around London, a museum and the Royal Opera House. Family ties require duty and care.
Playing Scrabble. Keeping the mind nimble.
Doing a crossword. Keeping the memory agile.
Doing anagrams. Keeping creativity and language playing in the mind.
Doing a jigsaw puzzle. Keeping visual processing in check.
Listening to Hindi music on my headphones. Connecting with the culture, enjoyment, language learning.
Writing to my pen pals. Keeping connected. Helping people to stay connected.
Writing some fiction. The drive to write is a compulsion and my biggest ambition.
Quick doodles. To keep the artist’s hand in training.
Looking at photographs and art on social media. To learn and learn and learn again. To be stimulated. To be one with creativity.

cristiano ronaldo and admiration in its forties

24.06.2026

A: Why do you like Ronaldo so much? You don’t even watch football.

S: I have played football when I was younger. It’s not like I don’t know anything about it. Ronaldo is inspirational because he has kept up that hunger into his forties. He is still running past defenders half his age. He is the best looking out there. He has transcended the game. He is an icon.

A: An icon for you. Why?

S: Just like me, he is the greatest.

A: I knew it would come down to narcissism.

S: The genuinely great man, whether it is Ronaldo or myself, comes from humble origins. He is known for his greatness. He becomes a success. He becomes the captain, the leader.

A: For him, it is true. How do you put yourself into that category?

S: Actually, there is not as much difference as you think. Ronaldo has many critics. Much of the public is against him. With me, too, it is those in the game that will not give me my due. I know that I have produced works of genius. However, I am in the humanities. The genius is ignored.

A: Also, you will not publish that book that you have written. The one that you claim is your masterwork.

S: Anyone that reads my work realises that I am completely original. That is the mark of a genius. It is what my tutors and lecturers at university have been telling me my whole life. Anyone that reads my work knows that it is brilliant. If I were to say that I was a genius without any proof about it, then that would be megalomania. What I say is justified by the response that I have got from experts in the field. I can go into any field and write these works of brilliance. That is why I know that I am a genius.

A: But then, Ronaldo. Why this identification with him?

S: What he does on the football field, I do in the world of thought. And, despite all the ones that are coming into things, like him, I still maintain my status as the fastest, the best, as the true leader. We are doing it in our forties, when the world would try and write us off.

A: It is extraordinary that the narcissist would celebrate another.

S: They all wrote him off. He still did it and keeps on doing it. Why? Because as they said when he scored those goals yesterday, he has worked tirelessly and relentlessly to raise himself above everyone else. Just like I have all throughout my life.

A: He has his reward. You have nothing.

S: In football, the results are undeniable. You get the goal. In writing? In the humanities? It is not a fair game. They are out to silence us. They are out to marginalise us. They do not want to include our agenda. And despite that? I am still the genius in the field. It is not the recognition of the oppressor that decides virtue and talent. It is the self belief and achievement of the oppressed.

being someone

13.06.2026

A: Why is it that someone wants to become something? Someone? Why do they have to seek out an aim?

S: Yes, it is curious. Life is aimless. Yet they must aim at something.

A: What about you? Why do you seek a role in life?

S: I have been brought up to be The Tiger. I am merely fulfilling my destiny. The people are oppressed. The Mother has been dishonoured. They wanted a champion. They made one.

A: So you just follow the script?

S: Yes.

A: Why not write your own script?

S: I do too. They want the Revolution. They want the Revolutionary. But they did not expect him to be a writer.

A: Let us not drift too much off the topic. Why does this aim orchestrate your life? Why have this aim?

S: Because virtue and honour both call for this aim. Because talent has to be directed. It has to have a way to find itself in the world.

A: You believe that you are talented as a warrior, as a leader?

S: Those that are the strongest have to look after those that are the weak. Those that are the best have to look after the others. Those that are the most intelligent have to look after those whose minds and hearts cannot look after things themselves.

A: So you believe that you are the most fit and the most able? Of course you do. You are ego. But can a human not exist without any aim?

S: We have seen the aimless. They coast around. They choose what is easiest. They have no discernment as to what is valuable for themselves or for society.

A: So those that choose a destiny like you are the ones who know what is valuable?

S: The question is why some have ambition and some do not. I have had the expectation to become The Tiger, to become a god. And therefore I am those things. I act and think according to that expectation. And then, there is the hunger, the hunger of The Tiger. The dream I saw in the eyes of my grandfather and mother. To be the man. This is my story. The story of the hero. It is not greed that motivates. It is not lust that motivates. It is duty. To right the wrong. To vanquish the evils of this world.

A: Plus the fact that you think that you are the best.

S: The thought that one is the best has to be proven by action and success. The proof is in the pudding. And hence, the pudding must be made. That is the philosophy of the one that has an aim in life, that has meaning in this life.

MA Performance Central Saint Martins, UAL

Review by Dr. Suneel Mehmi

Screen Screening 2

Platform Theatre, London, England

Thursday, June 11, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

A Dry Swim, by Jhin Zhang

REVIEW

A film which explores what paint would represent the colour of water amidst the story of love and the burgeoning queer identity of a young man. Therefore an expression and investigation of art and identity.

Throughout, the main protagonist runs his hands through the water, trying to catch it in his hands. He is trying to understand the basis of love as we learn from the story of the colour of the water and how his sister and her boyfriend got together, searching for the expression of its colour and visibility. A metaphor for how we try to find love in this universe, the yearning for love, the yearning to understand nature, to understand ourselves and our reflection in the water too. For the young man is a narcissus that looks many times into many mirrors of the water.

Why is the colour of the water love? Why does one want to represent love and the water, the water of love? The film says that this is the artistic spirit. It is the spirit of the creative, of the artist. These eyes are made to find love in this world.

There is an investigation of queer love as it is structurally connected to heterosexual love, as there is the love triangle between the artist, the sister and the brother (who is after the artist and not the sister). Queer love emerges from the heterosexual relationship between sister and artist. It is contrasted to heterosexual love which is accepted, while the queer love is kept secret, in the realm of fantasy. And therefore, this film is about sexual repression too.

SUMMARY

In a world shaped by near isolation, a boy grows within the intimate orbit of his older sister. The arrival of her boyfriend quietly unsettles this fragile balance. Between water and skin, gaze and distance, boundaries begin to soften. Sensations, desires, and a shifting sense of self drift in and out of form, like light across a surface. As proximity reshapes the space between them, the boy is slowly displaced — carried toward an elsewhere that feels both estranging and inevitable.

–
Cast: Xiaodao, Juanbin Lei, Xiaojun, Flora Wang, Tianye, Evan Feng
Director: Jhin Zhang
Assistant Director: Eros Shen
Producer: Haoxu Yin
DOP: Jhin Zhang
Gaffer: Holly Duan
Production Designer: Dora Zheng
Stylist: Zaha Zhang
Sound designer: Yutong Chen

Happy Birthday, by Yilun Zheng

REVIEW

This film explores the pressure to look attractive. The protagonist is told by her mother on the day of her birthday that she will never be promoted if she does not wear make up like everyone else. She protests. She asks why she has to be judged on her looks and not on how hard she works.

While the young woman’s mother tells her that (visual) difference cannot be tolerated in this world, the film explores the young woman’s body and appearance through dance and choreography. Other women grab her and move her body around, signifying perhaps how constructions of gender orchestrate the body and its performance throughout society. The helplessness of the body as it is subjected to order.

The young woman cries as she rebels against the dicates of her mother to wear concealer. Is this the fate of those that rebel against the standards of beauty? The mother rubs the concealer onto her face. The body is subjected to beauty standards by other women, by the powerful. Is beauty the demand of power? And what is beauty? Is it just the demand of power?

The young woman asks the question, can I be judged by work rather than appearance? Is this possible in the world? A writer can ask this. They are not seen. An actor can ask this. They are seen. The judgement belongs to the viewer – has the acting been judged, rather than the attractiveness of the actor? Can the two be separated in a fair discernment?

SUMMARY

Happy Birthday is an experimental film exploring how contemporary systems of visibility and judgement shape identity and self-perception. Set between everyday life and surreal spaces, the film follows a woman gradually internalising external expectations through work, family, advertising, and social environments. The project reflects on the pressure to become socially acceptable and worthy of recognition within a culture built around observation and display.

–
Cast: Tianhao Wang, Hongyun Wang, Yiqi Gu
Director: Yilun Zheng
Assistant Director:Xiaofan Ying
Producer: Menglin Yang
Director of Photography (DOP): Yikai Yan
Gaffer: Shangjia Li
Production Designer: Simeng Yu
Stylist: Jingyi Huang,Briony Wang
Choreographer: Briony Wang, Yijie
Sound Designer: Yilong Liu
Editor: Yilun Zheng

Fallacy, by Kangqiao Jiang

REVIEW

I suppose the question of this film is that if a woman were a colour, why is she the colour red? And how can one colour signify everything that is feminine? When the feminine is multiplicity itself, as is colour with its millions of hues. The film shows this by exploring different dimensions of a woman who is presented as different women and the colour red through different scenes which relay the association differently every time. Red is itself explored in liquid form in bottles, perhaps a symbol for its fluidity and defiance of reification even while the arbitrary limit of glass is being put upon it to attempt to shape it.

My intuition is that the film may be implicitly about the Western feminisation of China, which is also associated with the colour red. And that the aim of the film is to counter the reductiveness of this equation by exploring the diverse nuances of the colour.

SUMMARY

Fallacy is a visually driven experimental short film that explores how femininity is constructed, performed and gradually internalised within contemporary visual culture. The film revolves around the protagonist’s sustained gaze and exploration of ‘red’—a colour that, within mainstream aesthetics, has been reduced to a symbol of femininity, yet which constantly shifts and transforms within the imagery, oscillating between attraction and violence, intimacy and illusion. Through this visual thread, the work poses a question: when an individual’s sense of autonomy has partially internalised societal notions, how should one coexist with such a self?

–
Lead Actress: Auguste Bartninkaite
Director/writer/editor: Kangqiao Jiang
DOP: Yuexiang Li
Art Director: Umi Shi
Producer: Luke Higgins
Gaffer: Vincent Liu
Sound Recorder: Ann Wang
Composer: Mavis Wong

She Who Writes Erotica, by Zixuan Wang

REVIEW

This was my favourite film of the night. It contained graphic descriptions of sex, postmodernist musings about the Mcguffin, about the fake and the real, the copy and the original, the reliable narrator and the unreliable narrator. It also explored themes of capitalism, friendship, writing and voice. Another major theme was about collaborative writing in an individualistic culture that seizes upon differences such as class and wealth to divide voices and representation.

The narrator constantly smoked throughout, perhaps to present herself as ‘a bad girl’. The rich woman is unable to partake of sexual pleasures while the woman with less wealth, we do not know whether she had any sex or not. So this could be interpreted as an investigation of female sexual repression and how it gives rise to erotica, fantasy, wish fulfillment and deception, while it destroys friendships and relationships in the process.

At one point, the protagonist says that financial struggle kills love. Whatever the audience may think of this statement, and I am sure that some will find it true for them, this epitomises the falsity of sexual repression and the thought of those in a capitalistic system. You can love without money. You can build a family without that much money. Nothing can kill love. Nothing can defeat love. And nothing can silence love. Love may be hard work, but it is possible. This is the philosophy of the poor from India.

SUMMARY

She Who Writes Erotica is a narrative short film exploring the shifting power dynamics within female friendship, desire, and class disparity. As novelist Lin and her friend Anna collaborate on a manuscript, the boundary between “raw” life and “refined” fiction begins to dissolve. When a luxury brooch exposes the economic chasm between them, their bond is tested through a game of intellectual mirrors. By utilizing the Female Gaze, the film deconstructs how consumerism alienates intimacy, ultimately questioning who possesses the true authority to narrate female pleasure.

–
Cast: Zixuan Wang, Ting Shu
Director: Zixuan Wang
Screenwriter: Zixuan Wang
Producer: Zixuan Wang
DOP: Tairan Li
Camera Operator: Jiang Shan
First Assistant Camera: Peiye Gan
Gaffer: Wuxingchen Zhang
Production Sound Mixer: Chenhui Tang
Makeup Artist : Yinuo Wang
Art Director: Zixuan Wang
Supervising Art Director: Ge Wu
Sound Designer: Zixuan Wang
Editor: Zixuan Wang

the control of words and the words of control

08.06.2026

A: I see that you have rested a few days. Do you no longer feel the compulsion to write?

S: I am losing this compulsion.

A: Why?

S: You know the story behind all this. The situation has gone. Life has transformed.

A: Yet you have written your whole life. What is this new reluctance?

S: One looks at what writing has given to one. What is it but less than an handful of dust?

A: There, you are wrong. It is writing that has given you the mind that is a razor. It is writing that has given you your ability to think, reason, argue and fight for what is right. In short, it is writing that has given you everything. Including a name. Not everyone has a name. Do not forget that. You are the envy of the world. You have a public reputation. You are the champion of the community.

S: It is not particularly satisfying.

A: You are too demanding. You are never content. But remember, it is writing that has given you your freedom. Because you write the truth.

S: Writing is about the control of words. It is the words of control.

A: You do not find freedom in what you write?

S: Can one then write anything?

A: Should one write just anything? Surely you only want to write the truth? And the truth, it must have limits. Therefore, you cannot write whatever.

S: I want to exceed all limits.

A: And truth?

S: Perhaps the truth is too limited.

A: You have told me that you escape from the confines of control. Because you are the Independence of India and you are The Tiger. Is it not true?

S: That is the question for my readers to decide.

A: And there. We have had our conversation. You will begin to write again. Because it is important for our community to express ourselves. And you are important for our community. You build the community. You are its architect, inspiration, prayer and god.

S: One writes with reluctance. One fights with reluctance. Yet one does these things. Duty is greater than comfort. Honour is greater than complacency. And virtue? It is more important than life.

so much to say

04.06.2026

S: Have you ever wondered why the words never run out?

A: What do you mean?

S: I write and speak often of the same topics. India, racism, cynicism, pessimism, oppression, duty, courage, the life of a writer and an intellectual, marginalisation, alienation, depression. But the words never run out. There is an unlimited universe of language about these things.

A: You keep on spinning and spinning out this web.

S: And so does everyone. The spewers of hate have an unlimited amount of hate. The structure of racism is all pervading and systematic in this society and creates an unending spiral of words too.

A: Why spend your time dissecting and analysing racism?

S: Indeed. It makes no difference. The rational cannot fight the irrational. Knowledge cannot win over ignorance and prejudice.

A: You believe that?

S: Do you have the experience of being a genius in this world? Genius is unwanted. Why do you think there are so few geniuses? What they want is the malleable cretin. And that is what most are. Gullible. Weak. Impotent. Why else would this society be like it is?

A: You believe that only you have your wits about you? You believe that only you are strong? That only you are powerful?

S: The genius is the revolutionary. The genius is the hope of the Oppressed. Oppression cannot have genius. It can only have idiocy and slaves.

A: And we come to it again. This is why your words never run out. Because all you do is boast.

S: People read these boasts time and time again.

A: You have only a handful of readers.

S: So what? Those that have many readers and listeners are corrupt in their thoughts and their minds. Their fans worship hate and intolerance.

A: What is surprising is not so much that there is this unending stream of words in you, but the incomprehensible fact that anyone pays attention to anything that you are saying.

S: What they see in this stream of words is the eternity of the truth. And the limitlessness of true genius. You laugh. It is good to see a friend laughing, when what we see most every day are the tears of those closest to us.

the racist is a pangloss

03.06.2026

S: Voltaire wrote this novel, Candide. There was this figure there, Pangloss. A satirical figure that would proclaim, however horrible things are, that everything was great. That this was the best of all possible worlds.

A: That was then. What’s the relevance of that to the present moment?

S: Because the racist is a Pangloss.

A: How so?

S: The racist believes that the oppressed do not suffer from the scourge of racism. On the contrary, the racist believes that the oppressed have too good a time in this country. The racist believes that this country has given something more than a warm welcome here. That the oppressed are living it up, living a life of luxury over here. Furthermore, despite the widespread discrimination against ethnic minorities, the racist believes that they have a meritocracy in this country and that everyone is fairly rewarded for their skill and talent. That racism is over. That it doesn’t infect all things and relationships.

A: You see the Pangloss attitude as ideology?

S: I see it as absolute denial, just as Voltaire saw Pangloss as a denier of the realities. For the Pangloss, nothing has to do with racism. If you are excluded, it is not racism, it is you. If you are denied progression, it is you, it is not racism. If you are denied opportunities, it is not racism, it is you. It is you that is the problem, not racism.

A: And what do you think?

S: I know how the racist is going to act. Because I have experienced it. There is always an excuse not to give you an opportunity. There is always some excuse to exclude you. They will pick on things like you don’t drink to exclude you from the pub. And they will always go to the pub in the first place, knowing that many of us do not drink. Exclusion is built into their whole culture. For themselves, they make every excuse to include themselves. When someone is not as qualified, they will get the job. When someone has no experience, they will change the format of the interview to make them get the job, taking out any assessment of experience. But for you? Even if your job slightly differs from the job specification, they will pretend that you don’t have the experience and that you are not specialised enough. If you are qualified, they will say that you are overqualified or that your qualifications are not specialised enough. They are absolutely corrupt in preserving opportunities for themselves and think we are too stupid to see it. Let’s not talk about relationships. It is not worth commenting upon the stupidity and bias.

A: So to destroy the racist, you would have to destroy Pangloss.

S: As Voltaire realised, you cannot destroy Pangloss. This culture is made up of the Pangloss. It is the culture of the Pangloss. And for the revolutionary? Pangloss is the one that you cannot be.

the shamelessness of truth, the shamelessness of racism and unlikeability

02.06.2026

S: Truth is absolutely shameless.

A: How?

S: However much truth costs, its expression must never be arrested. Truth can never be ashamed whatever the consequences and how they attempt to silence it. This world, it wants to listen to sycophancy and hate. It wants to listen to ignorance and prejudice. It wants its own way. I say fuck no. What is so good about your way? What about our way? Fuck your lip service about inclusion and diversity when you are all narrow minded and arrogant and completely non inclusive. Fuck your so-called ‘tolerance’ which really shows what you think of us and the lack of respect you give anyone that is in any way different. In short, fuck you. We do not agree with you. We do not sympathise with you. We do not want to be like you. We do not want to fit in with you. It is you that are wrong. We criticise. We denounce. And we aim to be as different from you as we can.

A: And even when truth is controversial?

S: Yes. When this world is one of sexual repression. When this world denies the reality of the body and desire. When this world is one of addicts and those who shape their whole culture around drugs such as alcohol. When this world is full of philistines and sickening conformity. When this world is full of poor judgement and unfairness and ignorance. Yes, we will say the controversial truths. What the fuck can anyone do about it? No one can argue against the truth. They can try, with their lies. But they can’t demolish the truth. It is the truth alone that is triumphant. And what if they hate us for saying so? Unlikeability in this culture is a badge of honour. Because we are unlikeable because we are not racists and don’t agree to their racism. We are not ignorant and do not agree to their ignorance. We are diverse, that is why we are unlikeable. We have our own minds. We have our own thoughts. We do not conform to them. And if that is unlikeable, so fucking what? So fucking what if it costs you something to be unlikeable? It is the unlikeable people that are the shapers and movers of culture. Not them. They are just pricks.

A: But have you not said that racism is also shameless?

S: It is. Absolutely. These people are not ashamed of their racism. They are not ashamed of their unfair assessments and bigotry. They are not ashamed of their superiority complex. It is obvious to see in who they choose amongst themselves and their leaders. In their policies and in their thinking and their laws.

A: Be true and be unlikeable then. They don’t like anyone to call out what they are doing.

S: Yet, it is the truth.

A: They accuse you of being pig-headed and never blaming yourself.

S: What is it that they are doing? Exactly the same thing. And I am right. It is them that are wrong. They just have more power than me through their racism. But I don’t want power that comes from racism, the power to say that what is wrong is right. I want the power of the truth, to say what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. And therefore, I will remain unlikeable, hated and not succeed to the power that they have. Because their power is oppression and I do not want to oppress.

those it does not work out with

28.05.2026

S: The question is, when it does not work out with someone, was it supposed to have happened or was it supposed to have not happened?

A: What do you mean by supposed to?

S: Does not fate control our lives?

A: There are many that do not believe in fate. But explain. Why would a relationship be supposed to have happened?

S: Love is either necessary or it is redundant, don’t you think? Surely matches are made by fate. One does not choose who one loves. It happens. It cannot be forced.

A: But then, surely it would have worked out if the other loved you?

S: Is not love more complicated than that? Sometimes, they love. But they will not do anything about it?

A: Why?

S: They are scared about what others think. They are scared about a difference in age. They are scared by a difference in culture. They are scared by status, appearances, race, everything that should not matter.

A: You say this confidently. How do you know? How do you know that they were scared by those things? How do you know that they never loved you?

S: No one knows anything. And yet, surely the person that was in the interaction knows more than others, those that were outside of the interaction?

A: The point of what you are saying is that you had hoped for something. And now you are wondering what would have been. You are regretting.

S: Not at all. One thinks about those in the past. One does not forget about those that one cared about. However, the question is, was it meant to be? Was that what destiny had chosen for me? If it had worked out with those ones, I would be saying to myself that it was the culmination of destiny’s efforts. But then, if it didn’t work out, if misunderstandings crept in, the situation caused failure of connection, was that a disorder in destiny and the path that was chosen? Or was that destiny unfolding?

A: As I have said, destiny is an unwarranted assumption.

S: You can say that because you were not born with a destiny. You were not born to be The Tiger, the hope of the Mother, the hope of The Oppressed. Warrior destiny is the war. And love is also war. Therefore there is the destiny of love.

the significance of genius

26.05.2026

A: You are always boasting that you are a genius. You are also always saying that others are not on your intellectual level. Do you believe that you are better than other people because you are a genius?

S: Yes. Because I worked hard to become a genius. I am on my fifth degree. I spent my PhD years all by myself all day for several years. Why shouldn’t I boast about being the best? Why shouldn’t I think I am better than others? I sincerely believe that a mind like mine only comes around once every few hundred years.

A: And what is this genius in? Criticism. All you do is criticise.

S: And I am the genius at it. And besides the criticism, there is the explanation, the secret truths that make up the self in a world of imperialism, hate and oppression. What would happen if I didn’t say that I was a genius? They would think themselves better than me because they did not come from the working class. They would think themselves better than me because I am Indian. They would think themselves better than me because I come from the Untouchables, the Dalits. Therefore, I say that I am better than them. Because they judge me on how I was born. But I judge people on what they have achieved. And I have achieved the most. What have they achieved in comparison to me? I know the secrets of this world that only I can see and understand.

A: What about humility?

S: Why should a genius have humility? I am exceptional, special, whatever you want to say about it. I know my own importance in thought and in history.

A: People hate that you think you are better than them.

S: They should know how they inspire hate from us, from the fact that they think they are better than us.

A: Why can you not say that you are equal to them?

S: Because I believe in the rule of reason and of the intellect. I believe that society is best run by those that think the best, that are the most intelligent. I believe that because I am the genius, it is I that should rule. And them? They think that the ones that should rule are the rich and the powerful. That is what stupidity gets you. That’s why I am better than them in every way.