monsters of the jurassic deep or heroism does not take a holiday

26.07.2026

The day was ending. Quickly, quickly, I was writing a list of things I had done today for A. It had been a day of art, nature, relationships, politics, literature, scholarship and social duty.

Reading news.
Shaving.
Phoning friends and family.
Contacting professional acquaintances.
Crossword, Scrabble and Jigsaw puzzle online.
Breakfast with parents.
Languages learning. Short stories and news in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Spanish, French and German.
Reading psychology articles.
Messaging friends and sharing writing with them.
Reading history.
Listening to Hindi music.
Natural History Museum exhibition, ‘Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep’.
Window shopping in the Natural History Museum shop.
Natural History Museum garden visit. Took a photo of a family there for them.
Chinese lunch at Chopstix.
Buying books at the bookshop in South Kensington: – Art Deco – 100 years of Fashion – Rare Plants by Kew Gardens – The Language of Trees – History of Illustration – The Great Tree Story
Ice cream in Macdonald’s.
Sitting in St Martin in the Fields.
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller ‘Landscapes’ exhibition at the National Gallery.
Watching the Palestinian protest in Trafalgar Square.
Shopping: buying sunglasses on a 70% sale.
Embankment Gardens visit.
Meet up.
Reading Skandar and the Phantom Rider.
Breaking up a fight where two young men were beating up a lone youngster.
Dinner at home – Chicken Biryani.
Writing.
Sketching.

would ask me about breaking up the fight. I had just got off the bus for home. Two lads were beating up a third lad. They started just as I had crossed the road from them. I was carrying a heavy bag of books on top of another bag I was carrying. I was rushing for home because I was very hungry. It was dark. I couldn’t see much, especially as I was not wearing my glasses. I was tempted not to get involved. It was dangerous. But I would not think of myself as a man or a Punjabi if I did not get involved. I shouted at the top of my voice, an order. ‘Stop what you’re doing or I will call the police! Stop right now!’ They looked at me and they stopped what they were doing straight away and walked off. I looked over to make sure that the kid that was bullied was okay. He was. He was grabbing his stuff that had fallen to the floor. Someone else would not have helped. A woman was there on the other side of the road where they were a few metres in front, just watching and not doing anything. But I was not a woman. I was a man. And I was not any man. I was The Tiger. I am the bravest. I am the warrior. Sometimes, people tell me that god sent me to help them. Just in time. It is not true. I myself am god on this earth. My name is the name of god. It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak. It is the duty of god to protect the People, the Oppressed. Thanks or no thanks.

Golden Girl Bridgette K Schnider (Degree Show 2026, The King’s Foundation of Traditional Arts)

25.07.2026

When listening, it is much more pleasant to have someone that talks with some bounce in their voice, some energy. Fortunately, when Bridgette introduced herself, her voice was abundant in this dynamic quality of bounce. We had both come in together at the very beginning of the exhibition in the morning on the opening and she shot a hello at us all on the front desk as I was filling up on the water on the table in this inclemently hot weather.

I met her very shortly afterwards at her corner in the exhibition and asked her to give me some direction to her work. There were two rows of exquisite open boxes along the wall which had been chased in gold. The boxes were full of sumptuous designs and objects such as sea shells and butterflies. ‘Gilding,’ she declared, or something of the sort. She was a gilder. She was the first one that I had ever met in my entire life.

‘What attracts you to gold?’ I asked her. She told me that gold was full of light. And that the light would last into the darkness of night. The artworks would glimmer with gold, catching whatever light was left. I did not investigate further and forgot to mention that one of my nicknames at home was actually ‘gold’ as well (‘sona’). For her, it transpired, gold was the day and the sunlight. Gold was the guardian of light.

Gilding, it emerged, was something like a magical alchemy. It involved an array of esoteric qualities like squirrel’s hair for the tip and rabbit skin glue. The whole practice of Bridgette’s degree course seemed to revolve around such rare materials – the Mughal inspired paintings that she had in one corner involved the use of a single hair to get at the details of the miniatures. In this gilder, I was confronting something of the spell caster. And perhaps it was magic to catch the sun in gold and the morning in the night with these works.

Aside from the Indian miniatures, which included a lovely falcon that had been presented amongst the rich and unique hues of (malachite?), Bridgette’s work was influenced heavily by Japanese gilding and by the Baháʼí Faith, which was evident on a closer examination because the boxes were accompanied by quotations from the religion.

The pieces were composed as boxes. Bridgette told me that this was because there was both an exterior and an interior which could be admired, the hidden and the visible, more to see and explore. And, as I thought, as the boxes could be closed, we had the closed and the open, the entrance into and the shut door of art which was still art itself. Was this an exploration of the visibilities and invisibilities of art? Was it a comment upon the content of art?

One piece particularly aroused my admiration and attention, which was the butterfly box. The butterflies echoed the box because they had two ‘wings’ and shared a mirror symmetry. The butterflies invoked the idea of the soul since the Greek word ‘psyche’ for the soul also meant butterfly. I wondered what Bridgette made of the soul although I did not ask her. Were these souls flying or landing on the branch in these butterflies? The barrenness and bareness of the branch contrasted strongly with the opulence and the elegance of the butterlies, nature versus the man made. The butterflies themselves lacked senses, eyes and antennae. They were abstract and disembodied forms with the blues of heaven and the spiritual set amongst the gold. They were a symbol of metamorphosis and change, perhaps again referencing alchemy from this gilder, the transformation of base metals and nature into gold. Gold as the ultimate apotheosis, the ultimate aim of the alchemist. Gold as telos, as perfection and completion.

The butterflies re-emerged in ‘Going Home’, which aroused more questions about whether the previous butterflies as souls had been landing or flying, whether they were coming home or flying away from home, whether they were orientated or disorientated. In this, the butterflies seemed to symbolise Bridgette’s own situation. She was an American artist that had been studying in London. Was she going to go back home or was she going to keep on flying through this world here?

‘Crown of Rememberance’ seems to share the same maze like insinuations in design like ‘Going Home’. If the structure is a maze, it appears that there is no escape. It is a self-contained world, the world of gold and art.

In ceramics, Bridgette dazzled with her colour schemes and her designs. There was many a beautiful piece which I could see in shops such as ‘Liberty’s’ in London.

I had another word with Bridgette just before I left. She works extremely hard at her craft and is evidently multi-talented as an artist. She is full of ambition and drive. I was impressed by her and her work and wished that I could do something to open some doors for her. In her outfit full of stars, she was clearly living in the same celestial sphere as the golden butterflies, but also here with us on this grey earth. Such is the reality of the artist that flies in the skies, the reality of the alchemist that deals with the base metals hoping for the magic and the transformation of gold.

Bridgette’s Contacts:

Instagram: colorandgold
Website: colorandgold.com

chosen to be a hero

25.07.2026

A: How was your day last night?

S: It was a busy day at work. And then, in the evening, I went to a park, saw a music performance, photographed the artist and finally, met my girlfriend for a date in the park. Followed by a meal of two Whoppers, fries, onion rings, Dr Pepper and a Chocolate milkshake. There was a curious happening on the tube back home.

A: What happened?

S: A young Afro-Caribbean woman suddenly came and sat down next to me between stations. She was putting me between her and a ranting and raving football fan that was off his head down the carriage. He was shouting out football slogans at the top of his head and moving around in a bizarre manner.

A: She chose you as her hero, out of all of the people on the carriage?

S: Yes. Women have always chosen me as the hero. I am named after Sunil Dutt who saved the life of Nargis on the set of Mother India. I come from the Sikh community where it is our duty to protect others. When my grandfather died, the women chosen me as the man that would protect my grandmother in the nights by staying with her in her house, because she could not sleep otherwise. When there is anything that happens out there in this London, they choose me as the hero. It is destiny.

A: Why did she choose you?

S: Because I am evidently the man. I am evidently the hero. It is not a coincidence. It happens again and again. The weak come to the strongest for help. Because only we can deliver it.

A: You are proud to be the hero?

S: I am proud to live the destiny that was chosen for me. I was chosen to be the hero.

A: You looked after her?

S: I spoke to her. I consoled her and reassured her. I asked if she was okay. I took away her fear. It is my duty to protect.

A: What makes you the hero?

S: I have told you. My name. My background. My strength. My manhood.

A: So this is what it means to be a toxic male.

S: However toxic anyone thinks that I am, still they come to me when they need a hero. That is this society.

dialogues and stories

24.07.2026

A: You are the writer. Which is easier to write, the dialogue or the story?

S: When you have as much experience and knowledge about writing as I do, then you will be equally adept in all fields. What is the difference? I have been a poet, a journalist, a writer of fiction, a scholar and researcher. There is no difference.

A: Why then do people say that there is a difference?

S: This Western culture believes in the discrete, in disciplines and categories. I am Indian. I do not.

A: It comes down to a question of being Indian?

S: Indian thought conspires in the individual Indian to produce everything.

A: You truly believe that you are a Renaissance man?

S: Greater than the Renaissance man. An Indian man.

A: Give me then a story.

S: A scientist found that the best way to get into space was to create a giant bee. After all, the bees defy gravity, so we are told. He invested in quite a few hives and moved to Cornwall whose weather was the most appropriate and conducive. He bred bees. Years passed. However, the biggest bee he was able to develop only got to the size of a tennis ball. Nature had put her foot down. There was to be no bee line into space.

A: Amazing. You made that up just on the spot?

S: It does not take time. I have a million stories on my mind. I can do it whenever.

A: Where did you find this ability?

S: One that has a fervent imagination does not need to work on an imagination. In any case, I told a bed time story every night to my nephews. The most demanding audience. That is from where I have honed my craft.

A: And a dialogue?

S: We have been having a dialogue just now. That is the Indian way. We do everything at once. And it all gets done to a superlative and supreme degree.

achilles without a heel

23.07.20206

S: Achilles was the greatest because his mother’s love protected him. She gives him invulnerability.

A: You have spoken of this before.

S: Harry Potter has it too. The protection of The Mother. I, too. I have the protection of The Mother.

A: You believe that you are invulnerable?

S: You forget the basic truth. I believe that I can do everything and therefore I can do everything. And that belief comes from my mother’s belief in me. That I am not just a man.

A: And what else does this mother’s protection give you?

S: Not just confidence. Not just a can do attitude. Love itself is strength. The love that you get from someone, that is strength.

A: You are channeling her energy?

S: What else? I am her and she is me. All of her desires, I have achieved. The ambition that she has had for me, I have achieved it. Anything I have wanted, I have taken.

A: What else has she given you?

S: Language. Culture. Style. The destiny to be her voice. Her love has been an armour against this cold and hard, hostile world. It has sheltered. This love has been home. The refuge, the sanctuary.

A: When The Mother gives Achilles his invulnerability and strength, it is lacking.

S: This is the misogyny and the anti-Mother attitude of the Greeks and the West. In fact, there is no lack. Achilles has no heel.

A: You mean this Achilles?

S: In Indian culture, it is The Mother that is all-powerful and triumphant. It is The Mother that is all conquering. She is the one that protects. That is why no one and nothing can stand against me. They all fall. It is me that remains standing. It is me that achieves. It is me that becomes The Man.

a momentary feeling of achievement

22.07.2026

S: I have had quite a few big achievements this year, the culmination of four years of work.

A: You must be feeling pretty pleased with yourself. As you have such a big head.

S: Not at all. Do you know something about expectation?

A: What?

S: If you have high expectations for life and for yourself, then you are never really satisfied.

A: Whatever do you mean? Everyone would love to have what you have.

S: I am demanding for myself. I have about sixty years of life left in me. I want to achieve everything that I have set my heart upon.

A: What you want, what you have told me, that is impossible to get. Be happy that you have achieved and accomplished so much. You cannot be the greatest genius the world has ever seen. You will never get the acceptance and the recognition that you crave. Look at the competition.

S: The genius is for the People. It is for the Oppressed. The recognition is for the People. It is for the Oppressed. It is for The Mother. And The Mother demands.

A: What she is asking of you is impossible.

S: Great men say that the concept of the impossible does not exist.

A: You believe? You believe that you are the greatest? You believe that you of all people can achieve the impossible?

S: The things that I know, the secrets of society, the secrets of the self. If there is one that has the prize of intellect, it is me.

A: You are unliked. It cannot happen.

S: Others are more liked. But when it comes to the objective truth of things, I hold it in my hands. It is the truth alone that is supreme. In the end, it is the truth alone that triumphs. Satyameva Jayate.

A: So even though you have achieved, it is not enough.

S: I crave absolute knowledge. Like Goethe. I am the Goethe of the modern age.

A: How can you compare yourself to him? He shaped the literature of his nation. What have you shaped?

S: The curse of true originality is that one is not accepted or even understood. The curse of the Revolutionary is that the conventional world will not recognise him. The curse of the one with the mind, that is ahead of his time, that fights against oppression, the curse is that the whole world is against him.

A: You have told me that you are powerful enough to fight the whole world.

S: The fight has not finished in me. I am eternal. I am fearless and therefore powerful. I am The Tiger.

small accomplishments

18.07.2026

At about the stroke of midnight, I suddenly had this irresistible urge to write to A. Whatever A. was doing, perhaps sleeping, I always thought A. was free for me. Accessible and open, welcoming even. I wanted to tell A. about my idea of small accomplishments.

In my life, every day, I tried to achieve something. Small things that built up to a general sense of achievement. They did not have to be earth shattering. They were ways of self improvement. Ways of challenging and stretching myself. Ways of stimulation.

So, I wrote to A. I told of my day. It was one of the humble practices of writing. The list. And in order.

Meditation and chi building.
Light weights, stomach crunches and push ups.
Language learning in Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu through reading short stories, newspapers and novels.
Reading The New Scientist and great stories from British history.
Messaging friends and writing to my pen pal.
Juggling.
Playing at Scrabble, a jigsaw puzzle and a quick crossword.
Researching volunteering places in science for my nephew and sending him over a list so he can choose what he applies to over the summer holidays.
Listening to Hindi film songs on my headphones on my train.
Shopping for lunch and eating while I was exploring the area in London.
Going to various art exhibitions with my girlfriend. I also read poetry today while at the art exhibitions.
Photographing my girlfriend.
Shopping with my girlfriend.
Looking at a cultural destination with my girlfriend.
Editing photographs of my girlfriend with me on my phone.
Eating a dinner of fish and chips with my parents.
Watching ‘The Seven Year Itch’ to watch Marilyn Monroe after going with friends to see her exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery yesterday.
Looking at artwork and photographs on Instagram.
Doing a quick digital art doodle and posting it on Instagram.
Phoning my girlfriend good night.
Writing.

what it feels to miss love

15.07.2026

S: Do we miss other people?

A: Yes.

S: You answer immediately. But is it them that we miss? Or do we miss how they make us feel? Do we miss their love?

A: Those are aspects of them.

S: Is an aspect them?

A: One is one’s attributes. Do you miss someone?

S: There are those that I think of that are gone.

A: The dead?

S: There are those that are living too. The quick and the dead.

A: The biblical reference. Always with the books with you.

S: The living, I can feel their eyes on me. I know who it is that looks upon my words.

A: Friend, lover, enemy? Who do you talk of?

S: The secret rests within this breast.

A: Why not bring them near to you?

S: It has been a long time. There are distances.

A: You miss them. You will not make it up with them. That is perverse.

S: Humans are perverse. They themselves are perverse. They that hate, they know that I understand them. They hate because I understood, not because I did not.

A: Perhaps that is conceit. Perhaps you misunderstood.

S: Whether or not I understood them, which it is impossible to tell, they did not understand me.

A: The poor misunderstood man.

S: No one understands genius.

A: Why then do they fear it?

S: Precisely because it is an unknown.

A: What say you to the lost?

S: I say that I see your eyes before me. I say that I see your face. I see you saying the words of friendship to me. I remember how I would rush towards you. I remember how I would look forward to seeing you.

A: And yet you cannot bend and they cannot bend.

S: Some things are destined not to be. Everywhere, men build walls around themselves, around others. Such walls become the stuff of life. Such walls determine one’s destiny. Find me one that does not build this wall.

A: Some walls, you have broken through.

S: There is always a wall. To open one’s heart, one has to become a god. One has to become fearless. One has to shed all doubts. One has to become The Tiger.

Arran Gregory: Omved Artist of the Month of July 2026

12.07.2026

Instagram: @arrangregory

In a spontaneous excursion to Omved Gardens, we came across an art gallery that was dedicated this month of July to Arran Gregory, a British-Sri Lankan land artist. He calls the environment ‘a collaborator’ of his work and ‘sees clay as a living organism’. Barefoot and with a crisp linen shirt, Arran was a friendly and charming presence in the art gallery. He radiated an air of tranquillity.

We first looked at a line drawing of a horse that Arran had drawn with what looked like an ink brush that disappeared into mist, much in the Japanese or the Chinese style. This was placed by the door of the exhibition and then the space proceeded to deconstruct it. The horse was drawn again and then it was disassembled and put together again by rotating the sections so that you got the impression of a type of cubism which explored, rotated and decomposed how the lines were put together. On top of this, you had patterns of sewing which stitched the rotated sections together, sometimes circles, sometimes other shapes like a staple. Something of a meditation on looking, how a whole is put together, perhaps an investigation of the gestalt theory of art which explores how art creates a whole. Certainly an exploration of how creating, destroying and mending are all put together and perhaps a reflection on human intervention into the natural world, how the destruction of the climate crisis can resolve itself into a conscious effort to put the world back together again in a different format which challenges anthropocentric human intention and perceptions.

In the midst of these reassembled pieces, Arran had constructed a circle of earth which he had raked in concentric circles. It immediately reminded me of Buddhist art and the raked gardens that they have in Japanese art, so I was getting that Japanese vibe with the work again. Arran told us that he had spontaneously had the idea of creating the circle. I thought it was very interesting. It was on the ground and in earth, so it connected our human gaze with the earth. Again, it was done in the form of a circle so it had the idea of completion within it, the completion that comes with adjoining the human with the elemental, the man-made with the natural.

Two other pieces caught my attention. One was a depiction of the phallic man of Cerne Abbes, a line drawing etched into the earth with an erection. A symbol of fertility. This was a striking image and full of meaning. The equation of the human with the earth and with art. The desire for a new fecundity in our union with nature. Arran told us that he was influenced by the land artist Richard Long, who also puts together nature, art and human vision into new configurations and meanings, an artist who is also feeling out the way to re-orientate us in nature.

The other piece I found very interesting was also line art. It was the outlines of two women that merged together. Again, this was about the reimagination of the human body. It was a sleek and elegant piece with the lines, the sinuous shapes of the beautiful human body. This was for me a template of many of the line drawings, since Arran had drawn animals in geometrical shapes through line art as well, an investigation of how the body could be mapped onto the earth and line art like Cerne Abbes (the pieces were called ‘geo’-(animal) – ‘geo’, of course, means earth).

Arran elaborated on the photographs of his earth sculptures that were integrated into the land much like Henry Moore’s art and showed us a video of nature reclaiming the artwork afterwards and creating new arrangements with the work too. Just like we found Arran earnest, charming and reflective, so we found his work. There was much to intrigue and delight in the exhibition and much to inspire further thought about the urgent need for our new immersion and continuity with nature.

REFERENCES

https://omvedgardens.com/journal/introducing-arran-gregory-our-artist-of-the-month-of-july

https://arrangregory.com

the delicous ravishment of expression

09.07.2026

S: But it is delicious, no? The ravishment of expression.

A: Whatever do you mean?

S: Why do you think that the artist writes? Why do you think that the writer is an artist?

A: Because they think that language and expression is a way to counter the entropy of the world.

S: It is because it is addictive. It is a dopamine hit. You are letting it all out. Someone, somewhere, they will be reading. You are connecting with society, with another. That is why, for all that I write, the motivation has always been for love. That is why the love letter is the paradigm of my writing and my thought.

A: Love for yourself.

S: For the ideal reader. But you are on to something when you say that it is love for the self as well. Because, after all, I am writing for the community of the Tigers. I am The Tiger. I am expressing us. Us that are not represented. The Oppressed. Those from whom they would snatch the pen, snatch the voice and snatch our lives. I am writing for us. I am us. I am following the philosophy of India.

A: If then, you love to write so much, why are you falling off from this pleasure? From this ravishment of the senses.

S: Life my friend, it is full. So full that it is difficult to write.

A: It takes you no time at all. Get back into the habit of things.

S: These books, these scribblings. Are they life?

A: What is life if it is not the expression of the self?

S: Most of my life, I have sat behind a desk, thinking and writing. And now that I live a little, you would have me imprison myself once again. The unmoving mind.

A: Your mind moves most of all behind the desk. Your mind is like lightning. You begin to write. You look. It has been less than five minutes. And yet, the story has been written. The story of The Tiger and the Tigers.