the ache of not learning

14.10.2026

I can speak seven languages. Not fluently in all languages, not by any means. But I can read well in each language. Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Spanish, French, German and English. My weakest are Spanish and German (I can read Ancient Greek script as well because I did Ancient History at GCSE which I got an A for as well, but have forgotten most of the vocabulary).

However, on my bookshelves at home, I have textbooks and dictionaries in all of the languages that I want to learn: Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, Greek, Italian, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, Russian, Portuguese, Modern Greek… But where is the time to do the study? I don’t even understand how I could have got to seven languages already with no time to do anything (I am being modest. It is because of my ability to remember and to retain stuff).

Alongside these language books, there are primers on photography, graphic design, art, architecture, economics, history, botany and plant science. Dictionaries of quotations. There are over 600 books on my bookshelves.

Despite all of the things that I do, all of the many jobs (Curator, Tour Guide, Writer, Publisher, Historian, Scholar, Artist, Writer, Photographer, Manager, Visitor Experience, Administrator, etc.), I still have so many things that I want to learn and to do. There is a never ending list.

And the obstacles? Time and energy. Time and energy. The books I have managed to buy from charity shops at little expense. You work all day. You come home. Do you have enough energy to read those books, to study those books? Do you have enough time to go over things again and again until they are settled in your memory? Especially when you are doing degrees and graduate degrees while working?

In the old days, to be a scholar meant to be a monk. That would free you up for studying all day long. You didn’t have to earn a crust. You didn’t have romantic entanglements. You could just study and study and study with no distractions.

Undoubtedly, the best time for study was when I was a full time student. There were bags and bags of time to study. Being an adult student is hard work.

I know that I can do it. I completed an Art History degree with First Class honours alongside a professional floristy qualification while I was working. With my personality, it is never enough. I want to be a genius. And genius requires work. And work requires time and energy.

The question is, when will this energy run out? I work, I volunteer, I love, I keep up with my friends and family. I write and write and write. I cram in as much reading as I can. It gets harder and harder as more and more things become crammed into life. But always there is this ache for learning. For more learning. I ache and ache and ache. It is the hunger. The one thing that they cannot teach you. You have to be born with it. And no one is more hungry than The Oppressed, the Low Castes, The Dalits who were starved of learning. I have to live with this hunger and ache with this hunger. It will never be over.

youth career love

13.10.2026

I made a mistake. When I was young, family, society, peers, everyone was telling me to concentrate on my career. Get a top job. So all of the focus went on studying and working. It’s one of the reasons that I did a PhD. To get that top job in academia. And because I was a perpetual student, this meant no money. Which meant no love.

To get the career to get love, I was putting myself out of the possibility of loving and being loved.

This is what is happening to these young people today. Wretched job prospects, a wretched economy, intense competition for roles, all of these result in the fact that the young folk are prioritising getting a career over love.

In fact, it is love that gives you meaning and satisfaction in life. A good career also helps you to be happy, but not so much as love. We are built to be around people. We are built to be social animals.

In this society, the focus on careers at an early age is taking away the best years of youth and love from people. And the young folk seem to think that this is natural. That they should be obsessed with a career instead of finding connections and love at a young age. The level of stress that it creates to find a career would kill any inclination of love.

What the young folk don’t know is that as you get older and older, the harder it gets to find connections and relationships. But they are in a trap.

I look back at when I was in this trap. Studying, working, trying to get a foothold in a career with intense competition for every role. Telling myself that when I get there, I can start up my family. It was all for this family that I would set up one day. The most important thing was the family but I kept on thinking just a few more years, just a few more years. I can’t get one right now, I don’t have money coming in. I’m studying. And then you wake up one day and the best years of your youth are already past you.

what not to write on linkedin

12.10.2026

Someone was telling me that I shouldn’t post anything critical of any institutions on LinkedIn because it gives the wrong impression. For instance, criticising the NHS for its malpractice after my operation. They said that LinkedIn should just be about work stuff.

What did I say? I said that my work is that I’m a writer. Yes, I am a paid author. I’ve published continuously throughout my whole adult life: student newspapers, journalism websites, book reviews, poetry magazines, websites, academic publishing, curatorial work, social media, etc. It is my job to write. I am posting my work. Any time that I write, it is work related.

But then, the objection. What if someone saw it and used it against you? If someone doesn’t like my writing and doesn’t like me as a result of it, so what? I don’t care. And how can they use it against me? I haven’t committed any crimes. Free expression means exactly that. Free expression. Just because someone doesn’t agree or doesn’t like it, it doesn’t mean that anything that I am saying is actually wrong.

Loss of job opportunities? Seriously, what has LinkedIn ever done for me? To say that it would is a joke. I got on LinkedIn because a colleague told me that they got job offers off it. I have never been approached for any job the whole time that I have been on it even though I am in the same industry as the other person.

And the other scenario, that maybe someone would check up on me and think twice about offering me a job depending on what they thought about what I wrote? I literally do not care. I don’t work for money like everyone else. I’m sorted out with my family. I don’t need to work. My writing is more important to me than a little bit of extra money.

Other than that, I’ve never been scared of anyone my whole entire life as far back as I can remember. Yes, that’s right. I don’t feel fear. To be a writer means to be brave. It means that you challenge the boundaries and the conventions. If I didn’t want to stick out, if I was a shrinking wallflower, if I didn’t tell the truth, critical or not, I would have to look down at myself. And I don’t look down at myself. I am my own hero.

The world can disapprove of your writing and your thoughts. They can defend the wrongdoers instead of the ones that call out wrongdoing. Because the wrongdoers have more power. But the real man tells the truth. Just because other people can’t stomach it, doesn’t mean that you should stop. I will decide what’s appropriate to write, not other people. I will decide what I can say or cannot, not other people. I am an independent thinker and I am the one that speaks the truth. The truth is always appropriate.

The people that follow me on LinkedIn, they do perhaps one job out of all of the jobs that I do. I write about all of my different jobs: activist, reformer, writer, poet, artist, photographer, scholar, academic, researcher, curator, and thinker. To mention just a few. No one and nothing can contain me because I have so much in me and I will not attempt to contain myself for whatever anyone else thinks.

when the nhs tried to kill me

11.10.2026

At the end of August 2025, I had a big leg operation since my right leg was twice the size of my left leg. Six keyhole surgery cuts in my leg and they burnt off the superficial veins inside with radio waves. It took me about three months to get back into work.

The operation was for varicose veins which I developed by putting on weight and being inactive over a long illness I had had years ago, an illness that had lasted years. Extra pressure was put on the legs since then because over the course of the last 1,777 days (4 years and 10 months), I walked 27,972,819 steps over 21,357.5 km, with a daily average of 16, 105 steps (stats from my Garmin watch). To put 21,357.5 kilometers into perspective, this massive distance is equivalent to 13,270.9 miles, which is over halfway around the entire Earth or nearly identical to the total surveyed length of the Great Wall of China. Not to mention all the standing that I was doing in the museums and art galleries, as well as the heavy weight training I have been doing regularly.

Before the operation, the doctor told me that there was less than 1% chance of getting a blood clot. And also that there was less than 1% chance of getting nerve damage.

After the operation, there was no aftercare from the NHS. This was my first ever operation so it is not like I knew what things were like. The leg they’d operated on was inflamed and sore as hell. After about three days of this, I called up to ask my nurse friend, who is an elderly and retired lady to have a regular chat that we have. She started asking me about the operation and then she realised that I had a blood clot. She saved my life. She told me to go to A & E. Without her, I wouldn’t have known that anything was wrong because I hadn’t been given any warning or any instructions about what to look out for. That was the first time that the NHS could have killed me.

The next time was after the blood clot injection had been given. They put me on anticoagulants. But then, again, they did not tell me that I should not wear the stockings they had given me after the first operation with the keyhole cuts. Stockings increase the risk of blood clots. So this was strike two.

Strike three was again caused by miscommunication. While I was on the anticoagulants, I was taking the painkiller that they had prescribed me after the first operation, which was Ibuprofen. The combination of the two drugs could have torn apart my stomach.

The reason I am writing this short article is that research using ONS Census data shows that people from several minority ethnic backgrounds (including Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian men and women) are significantly more likely to die in a hospital rather than at home or in hospice care, even after adjusting for age, location, and deprivation. Because this is the kind of treatment that we get from the NHS. It is us that have to bear the cost of the inefficiency, miscommunication and disconnections fostered in the National Health Service. And the other reason I am writing about my experience is that they get away with it. Nothing ever happens to them. They kill with impunity. The whole system is corrupt. We are talking about highly educated nurses and doctors that work in these institutions that are funded by the taxes that you and me pay. And instead of giving us our service that we have paid for, they try to kill us instead.

an impossible want

11.10.2026

S: This world makes what you want impossible. It could be the simplest of wishes and it will not be granted. This world is the reverse of a genie in a bottle. If you rub its bottle, then you have the denial of a wish.

A: That is not true. You have achieved many of your wishes. You hold a doctorate, five degrees in total with First Class honours and so on. You’ve been a teacher, worked in museums and art galleries, been a curator, got promotions at work, been published everywhere…

S: But the greatest wishes? Denied every time. Despite having all the qualifications, skills and characteristics required each time.

A: The competition…

S: I was the best. In a meritocracy, it should have been me. And, what about a family and children?

A: Let’s not broach that topic. You hate this world. This world is your enemy. I get it.

S: You see this world as a friend? To us? To the working class men? To the ethnic minority men? To the Untouchables, the low castes, to the men of The Oppressed? You delude yourself.

A: You always bring it down to what you are.

S: Because this is what they have done. They have made it about who you are. Not what you do. Not what you can add. Not your qualifications or your experience. But whether or not they think that you ‘fit in’. In other words, the only thing that matters is your identity and your background.

A: Why do you not try to fit in?

S: Why? I am good as I am. Better than them. I am not going to disrespect myself and my people for anyone. Everything I have done, I have done as myself. I have never played a part.

A: This dissatisfaction, this anger…

S: It is the just recognition of what this world is. The killing of a wish. Our wish.

A: But is it healthy to be so angry and dissatisfied? What would you have, a crown? A throne? You see the world as denial?

S: Look how they will keep things from you. Look at how they will keep love from you.

A: You want this world to love you?

S: But it cannot love a Punjabi man. Its love is organised to be against us. And can you argue someone into love? Can you reason someone into love? No. Because hate is constructed on the irrational. Hate is constructed on the illicit, on lies. On what should have been excluded from thought. And love is the same. It is constructed also on the irrational, on the illicit, on lies.

A: And because you believe in a love constructed on the rational, on the legal and on the truth, then you will never get love in this world?

S: That is why the genie in the bottle denies the wish.

the failure of the university and the motivation for a masterpiece

10.10.2026

There is this book sitting on my computer. It is a masterpiece. It will change the world. It is something that none can see but me and it has affected human thought for thousands of years. It is so big that no one can see it but me. But it has lain there for five years untouched.

Four people have read it. Senior academics. They have agreed on the book’s importance. Because I have shown how madness is created in culture. I have exposed the game.

Why then, if this work is so brilliant, if it is so world changing, it lies hidden? Why, when this book could prevent the cultural construction of madness and the mad, why do I not finish it and publish it? Why do I not just submit a book proposal to an academic publisher, work on the first draft and get it out there?

All of the motivations I had for publishing academic work seem to have dissipated now that I know exactly what it is that you get when you do publish. My first book was also important. It showed how we were constructed as readers and viewers by the law. How our minds were usurped by the misogynistic constructs of legal reading. And what did I get? No job offer at a university. One book review after about four years. No citations. No letters from readers of the book. A few hundred pound’s worth of royalties.

Where was my reward and my recognition for almost a decade of thought and scholarship?

How many of these academics in these universities do you think published a book from their doctoral thesis? How many academics could make such an original and important argument? Yet I got literally nothing from it. Why? Because academia does not want someone like me in it.

So even though I can create the most important thoughts, the most important books, the most important scholarship, what is the point?

This ignorant world does not get any wiser. It ignores and marginalises any thought that can challenge it. It will starve the thinker. And the people that are getting all of the resources in the universities? It is because they fit in, not because of any meritocracy. They follow the agenda. If things were based on merit, I would be sitting at the head of the top universities in the country. Because I am producing masterpieces.

I look back at my life in university and I genuinely feel that it was a waste of time and effort. All that work. All that thinking. For what? What effect has it had? When I had to sacrifice everything for that study, including any chance at a personal relationship and a family? And then, why keep on sinking time, money and investment into this for nothing?

People wonder why the genius is so dissatisfied. Why they won’t share their genius with the world. Look at the conditions for genius. They will not give a career to the genius. They will not give any understanding to the genius. They will not give any recognition for the genius. They give it to his intellectual inferiors in this system of unfairness. They want his work for nothing. They want him for nothing. But he will not give his work for nothing. And he will not give himself for nothing.

But there is this thought at the back of the head. Those that have been made mad by this culture. The genius is their voice. He knows how to help them, give them the tools to fight back. He has written a masterpiece for them, for all of us. Will there come a time again when he becomes once more their champion, become the one that protects them, become their warrior? He is a genius. What does genius expect? Work. But can the genius work with the conditions that he has been given? In the failure of the university, in the failure of a research institution which does not value the best research?

the glamour

08.10.2026

S: Do you know where the word ‘glamour’ comes from?

A: I can just look it up on the internet. But go on, tell me.

S: It came from the word ‘grammar’, which then went on to be associated with spell books and magic. From there, it took on the idea of magical allure.

A: Why talk about glamour?

S: Whatever I talk about, you always have an issue with. If love, why love? If glamour, why glamour?

A: You love to argue. You love an enemy.

S: It’s true enough. And I have many sparring partners. But to answer your question, the reason I speak about glamour is that I saw glamour last night. I went to ‘Roxie Rocks Chicago’ at a swanky cabaret with a lady. And the lead actress, she saw me and came to sit with me at our table.

A: Now it becomes more interesting. So you saw glamour?

S: This glamour that I saw, this world apart. It was full of music, dances, the most beautiful women. Singing of the most exceptional quality. It was full of splendid and expensive costumes. It was full of light, glittering and countless sequins on clothes. Which created a light and aura around the performers.

A: So you aim to form an idea of glamour from this?

S: Primarily, glamour seems to be about light.

A: In what respect?

S: These people are on a lighted stage first of all. They are called ‘stars’, as though they are full of light. Did you know that a lighted face makes a woman more beautiful? They teach you so in photography.

A: We are creatures of darkness. And we are drawn towards the light.

S: But there is one that is the reverse of light and she is the most beautiful. She does not have glamour. She is the Dark Mother, the Mother Goddess, Kali. She is the shadow self. She thirsts for blood. She is the berserker.

A: Did you forget Kali for the glamour?

S: Kali one never forgets. And remember, dolt, the cabaret that I was at. Chicago is about a woman’s revenge. It is just the Western version of the Dark Mother. Kali follows me around. She has her hand upon my head.

A: You do not believe in the supernatural.

S: She is my destiny, whether she is imagined or real. I made no difference between the conceptual and the actual. She is my guide through life. I have been raised for one thing. For Kali.

A: You will not follow the light? You that is the sun?

S: Krishna is all and nothing. I am Krishna. I am also all and nothing. East and West. Light and Dark. It fuses together into one entity. Glamour cannot seduce the lover of the dark. He cannot succumb to glamour.

A: But can he not succumb to the darkness? He has, hasn’t he?

S: You have not yet seen me become Kali who forgets all for the lust of blood and to wipe sin from the face of the earth. Still I am one that watches the glamour.

western law and the love of the lie

Dr. Suneel Mehmi (LLB, LLM, PhD & Published Academic Author in Law and Literature)

05.10.2026

In my analysis of King Solomon’s legal judgement, which you can download as a short booklet on my ‘About’ page, I wrote about how this legal icon was a liar. How the law is supported by lies. Fiction. Untruth. Sleight of hand and deception. The legal hero of the West is a liar. The lie, it will be noted, was to go against a woman. And for exposing this truth? They had no place for me in Western academia. Funnily enough, in a world of stench and corruption, the truth teller and the one who cares for justice is not supported.

The judgement of Solomon is not just the root of Western law. The figure of the King Solomon legal hero permeates the whole jurisprudential structure. This is the inheritance of Western law. We can see it in the fictional legal heroes of the West, from Victorian times to more modern literature. The legal heroes of the West are all liars. And the lies oppose women. The law is a misogynistic lie.

Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Impersonates Charles Darney to deceive the French legal system and to have himself executed by guillotine. Here we have this lie which actually subverts the legal process and justice. Note that the lie thwarts a woman, Madame Defarge who thirsts for justice and revenge against the class that Charles Darnay represents. The lie is an evasion of the justice of a woman. And the result? Sydney Carton is celebrated in Western culture as is his final speech in the novel. He even figures as a hero in philosophy, as a ‘secular Christ figure’.

Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This supposed legal inspiration lies at the end of the novel so that Boo Radley is not imprisoned for killing Bob Ewell. Rather unconvincingly, he agrees that Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Note that Bob Ewell represents his daughter who lied to make up a rape case to prosecute an innocent, Tom Robinson. Bob Ewell represents a woman’s voice and place in the law (where she can only be seen as a liar). Therefore, one can surmise that the lie of Atticus Finch (The Father in the novel, and The Father as The Law) is attempting to oppose a ‘lying’ women’s justice with its own lies. There is a competition for the law, for untruth and deception. The concept is of woman as deception and the law wants to be deception. And the result? Atticus is an inspiration for men to go to law school in this legal culture of injustice and lies.

Elle in ‘Legally Blonde’ by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith

Elle impersonates a lawyer to get her friend Paulette’s dog back from Rufus. She makes made up legal threats to Rufus to intimidate him and presents a fiction about common-law marriage and property rights. Obviously, Elle is a woman law student that becomes a lawyer in the movie and she is representing a woman, Paulette. The misogyny of the law is embodied in Elle: she is a lying woman. She is deception. Obviously, Elle takes on misogyny and prosecutes Chutney Windham in the murder trial, who she exposes as a liar (since, according to legal logic, women are liars and woman herself is deception). And the result? Elle is an inspiration for women to go to law school in this legal culture of injustice and lies.

How can you expect any justice in a legal culture which celebrates the lie and liars? How can you expect any justice in a culture of legal misogyny? These are the legal heroes of this culture. These are the fictional characters that are driving students to go to law school in the first place, as anyone that knows anything about Elle and Atticus would know. This is what this culture worships. The lack of reality in law. The lack of reality in personhood. The covering up of the truth to achieve an end.

for every work a story

04.10.2026

It is our stories that get us through our lives. Whatever disappointments and prejudices that I have faced, whatever variety of jobs I have done, I have always told myself a story to perform. As a result, I have garnered praise in every single job that I have done. It is that voice inside that tells you to believe and to do.

Here are the stories that I have told myself in each of my roles:

Leader (Gandhi) – that I am a natural leader. That I was born to be a leader and a role model for my community, for the community of The Oppressed, the Dalits and the low castes. That they unfairly took the positions of leadership from us when we were the most worthy. That I am fitted by intellect and capability to be a leader and this is what my community expects from me. RESULT: Manager in my current and last position.

The Pioneer (The Great Explorers like Shackleton) – The story is that I am gifted. That I can see things that no one else can see and get the ideas that no one else can get. That I have the courage to get things out there in the world. RESULTS: Setting up of so many projects: newsletters, tours, initiative after initiative in cultural institutions and education.

The Creative Genius (Van Gogh) – I am special. I am an unrecognised genius that can turn his hand to anything, poetry, creative writing, photography, art. RESULT: Published poetry, Published writing, Published photography, Commissioned artist.

The Saint (Guru Ravidas) – Helping others because I am stronger and privileged. From a poor background, I am comfortable. So it is my duty to help those who do not have as much, whether it is education or resources. RESULT: Volunteering in several charities such as teaching English to Refugees and Migrants, Helping underprivileged school children, tackling isolation, helping witnesses in court.

The Teacher and the Scholar (Krishna in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita) – I know more and therefore it becomes my duty to share what I know with those who do not and cannot know. RESULT: Published book and articles, teaching of all ages in charities and paid work as a teacher and as a Tour Guide.

The Truth Teller (Cassandra) – I will say the truths that others are afraid or not willing to talk about. I was gifted with the truth and the brain to understand it. RESULTS: Lead Editor of a newsletter for Ethnic minority colleagues, Public Diarist and thinker, Scholar with publications. Published journalist.

The Fighter and Activist (Guru Ravidas) – Writer and thinker on racism and ethnicity.

reading versus life

03.10.2026

In a novel that I was once reading, there was this episode. A man who was a bookworm aimed to relinquish books and reading because he wanted life. But then he saw what life was and was disappointed. And then he turned back to books.

There is this opposition. Reading versus life.

A voracious bookworm myself, there has always been this tension between reading and life. When you are living, it is difficult even to find time for reading. It is difficult immersing yourself in a book. It is difficult to be able to take on board what the book is saying.

And when you are reading? Then it is difficult to live. There is the time factor. There is the fact that you are studying, thinking and writing about books and concentrated on that.

In books, you have the best of thought. In life, you have the best of company. In books, you have a direct correspondence with one author, an intimate conversation. In life, you have many people.

Life is like a whirlwind. Reading is like a monk’s cell.

Still, over and over again, this choice comes up in my life. Reading or life?

I did an English literature degree in the past because I wanted to read more. I want to read more. It has been a constant in my life. But how do you balance life with the desire to read? There is no money in reading. They would not let me become an English Literature Professor at the Universities. Reading does not give you any material reward.

Life can give you material rewards. Life can give you relationships. Life can give you experiences.

Perhaps, however, reading gives you experiences and experience too. Are these any less real than experiences in the real world?

There are perhaps over six hundred books on my bookshelves at home that constantly admonish me that I have not the time for them. Because over the past four or five years I have chosen life over books. Every day, I think to myself that I will make more time for reading. But how much time can you put in? An English Literature degree with first class honours. A PhD in English Literature, Law and Art History. Journal articles about major authors such as Charles Dickens. Having read most of the greats. Reading is never ending. Life is never ending. How to reconcile the two?