the lonely (microfiction)

22.11.2025

S: What a horrible thing loneliness is.

A: The occasion for thinking so? You are not that lonely nowadays are you?

S: I have been lonely. Perhaps few have been as lonely as I have been.

A: It is not a competition.

S: But today, it is not me that is lonely, thankfully. I am looking at lonely people destroying their lives around me through loneliness.

A: And what do you feel?

S: I understand them. I feel pity for them. It is a disease. What is bad about loneliness is that even if you try to escape loneliness, the feeling of loneliness will destroy even the attempt to escape it. Because the lonely do things that only the lonely can do. And that others don’t understand. Bizarre and insane things.

A: How did you escape loneliness?

S: I tried everything. I was also bizarre. Then, one day, the loneliness was over. But let me tell you, in our nightmares we are lonely. It is a terrible thing because the nightmare becomes life. And it is made worse by this Western society. Because in the past, you would have the whole family to support you. They have made their people live by themselves. And then, only one person, one special person is allowed to take away their loneliness. The lonely are risking all their redemption on one person. Who may not even be trustworthy. That is why so many are so lonely. They have created this colossal disease, this atomisation in society. This terrible burden of loneliness which you relieve onto the shoulders of just one person. And then, everyone around you, they keep so busy from you and so separate that they can never relieve your loneliness.

A: You would have them live like you, in the Indian family?

S: What is called Western Independence costs you heavily. Read the ‘Divergent’ series. The heroine never recovers from the separation with her parents, her independence and choice. The Indian way is how we have been living for thousands of years. It is the natural way. It is how we have escaped loneliness through the ages.

A: Keep your good wishes to the lonely.

S: They are not bad people. They do not deserve the judgement. They are just lonely and as I have said, it is a disease. I understand and I will not judge them. Instead, I will hope that their loneliness is over. That they can escape this loneliness.

the impermeability and resilience of hate (microfiction)

21.11.2025

S: A lot of people think that racism is natural.

A: Why?

S: Because they have cultivated it to be so strong here. One of the most xenophobic and racist countries in the entire world.

A: Why remark upon it? They are racist but you are not allowed to say that they are. They don’t want to admit it to themselves. They are under the delusion that they are good people. They have made the country into an embarrassment.

S: The reason I bring it up is to ask you the question. Have you ever pondered upon the impermeability and resilience of hate?

A: What do you mean?

S: These haters can be around people of difference the whole day at work and so on. In different social settings, wherever. They have been around us for hundreds of years. And yet, they still hate us. We are not included in their social networks. Their deepest relationships are like for like.

A: So from that you draw the conclusion that hate is impermeable and resilient?

S: It is not, of course, everyone. There are exceptions. My closest friends are across cultures. But, speaking in general terms, all it takes is a human dung heap like Farage or Trump for them to flare up with their hate crimes. And recruit their little chickenshit scumbags to stoke the flames and rouse up these imbeciles in this society against us.

A: What is the point of pointing it out? It is not going to change anything.

S: To say the truth is an act of resistance in itself. I don’t accept the bullshit lip service narrative that they are trying to project, that racism has been cured, that there is no work to be done, that everyone is living in a rosy tinted reality holding hands. They are wrong. They are atrocious. Their society is atrocious. It is worse now with racism than when I was a kid, when the skinheads were around.

A: You want to say the truth and they want to cancel you. What is this game? Why is it worth playing?

S: One day, they will look back at this period in history and they will say that it was The Tiger that was right. It is right to be militant against their racism. It is right to criticise them. It is right to fight them. It is right to keep on saying that it does not matter what colour someone is, what culture they are from, that everyone is worthy of love and that we are all human beings.

A: But you don’t see these racists as human beings. All you do is swear at them.

S: When you become a monster, then in the story, there will be someone to kill the monster. The hero. In this story, it is The Tiger.

medicine in the body (microfiction)

20.11.2025

‘You are looking considerably better’, remarked Alfonso, surveying me up and down. He was looking particularly dashing today too.

‘Was there any issue before?’ I asked him, raising my eyebrow archly.

‘You would not like the answer’, he grinned at me. ‘What is it do you think that is doing it for you?’

‘Having someone to hold.’

Alfonso smiled. ‘So, at last! But how is the holding doing so much?’

‘Before, I was wandering about this world, as lonely as a cloud on high. There was no love that was being offered to me. In fact, I was given refusal, disdain and rejection. Over and over again. Now, love is being offered to me and being taken from me in this hold.’

‘You think that love cures?’ asked Alfonso. ‘I heard that it is a sickness of itself.’

‘Holding someone is connection. What else do we search for in this life? We have it before we are born. We are in our mothers. After we are born, we stay close to our mother, skin upon skin. Looking into her eyes the whole time. Connection is our beginning and it is what forms our minds. That is why holding someone is medicine. Their body is medicine. The medicine of connection.’

‘Says the one that is healed.’

‘Jesus healed by laying his hands on others. Not by magic. But by touch.’

‘How does it feel, this healing?’

‘The ego is boosted. There is someone for me, someone that cares for me, someone that loves me, someone that holds me in this moment. There is someone against my skin that protects me from this cold and hard world. I feel secure, supported, greater than myself. I feel that now I am a true part of the human race.’

‘Someone to hold. A simple cure.’

‘The cure is simple. But to get someone to hold? It is not simple. It is fiendishly complicated. But we will not go into that. There are those that object to the truth because it is not in their interest and does not serve their agenda. And we live in the cancel culture. Instead, I will enjoy the cure.’

the drunken gait of love (microfiction)

19.11.2025

S: One in love moves as though drunk.

A: A cliche. They are always saying that love is like being drunk or being high.

S: Sometimes a cliche has some truth to it.

A: Do you believe?

S: That love is like drunkenness? Would you have me elaborate on the drunken gait of love?

A: Go on then.

S: Reason flies out of the window. They might have a thousand faults. Yet you love them. So they say that love is blind. Reason could be seen as sobriety. So sobriety goes out of the window.

A: And then?

S: You need more? Happiness, the happiness that comes when you are drunk. When you forget this miserable world. You drown your sorrows. That is the drunken gait of love too.

A: You are saying that you cannot have happiness without intoxication, either that of drink or love?

S: How else can you be happy?

A: Why else do you say there is this drunken gait of love?

S: If love is a journey, it is conducted as though one were a drunk. You meander here and there. It is impossible to move in a straight line. You go somewhere, you cannot leave that place. You are stuck. What else is it if not a drunken gait?

A: You told me that you disapprove of drink. Do you then disapprove of love?

S: I disapprove of what masquerades as love when it is not love. A love that comes from fascism, control, convention and conformity. Not to mention its other undesirable attributes, which I won’t, so as not to get myself into any trouble.

A: People must learn to love from somewhere.

S: Do you know why they despise love marriages in India? Because they are not based on reason. They are based on temporary emotion. Reason is more enduring than a moment of passion. Reason is more enduring than drunkenness. And it is better for society to work on reason.

A: Who has ever followed reason? Whose reason? What reason?

S: You speak to one that does not follow reason in love. That has the drunken gait of love. That chose what his heart said. Instead of thinking they are different, I thought that I loved them. Instead of thinking that it would not work, I thought that I loved them. Instead of thinking that society was against me, I thought that I loved them. And that love would do and be everything. If there is one drunk in love, it is me. Them, with their practicalities, they are what kill the lover. Them, with their reason, they are what kill the lover. Them, with their sobriety, they are what kill the lover. I would rather be drunk. It is better to leave this life than to leave the drink of love.

holding hands (microfiction)

16.11.2025

S: When I got into the station, a young hooligan pushed the gates to get free entry. Then, when I came home from London, again at the same station, I watched someone push through those same gates to get out. The workers there did nothing to stop it both times.

A: I feel like this is not over yet.

S: When the bus was pulling out of the station, it had to stop. Some idiot had parked his car in the bus lane so that we couldn’t squeeze past.

A: Why focus on these things?

S: I’m trying to tell you about the people that I live with in my area. What I have to live with.

A: Forget about that. Talk about something different.

S: Why do people hold hands?

A: To connect?

S: But how did it originate? Why grab someone’s hands?

A: It is the primary way that we touch, through our fingers and hands.

S: That might be one explanation. How about this for a theory? If you hold hands, you can never lose anyone. You are attached to them.

A: What makes you think that?

S: Over the past three years, with the brutal treatment that I received from those that I loved, when you suddenly snap apart and there is nothing any more, when before you thought you would have them forever… You need to hold hands to stop that happening. You need to be attached to someone.

A: Isn’t attachment just connection?

S: Attachment conveys more of an idea of sticking together.

A: How about this for an objection? When you hold hands, you don’t just hold hands. You also caress the hand and the fingers.

S: And how about this for a reply? When you caress, you are looking at more places to attach yourself to, to connect to, to love.

A: Well, I hope for you, you find many places to love.

S: What is this journey in life but finding those many places to love? And then loving in those places?

fear (microfiction)

16.11.2025

S: You are asking me if I feel fear?

A: Yes.

S: Never in a fight.

A: Which means that you do feel fear. When you are not in a fight.

S: The conscious mind you can control. Not the unconscious.

A: What do you mean?

S: The nightmares. The fears that your conscious mind cannot acknowledge.

A: And? Anything else?

S: There is one fear that everyone has. You cannot escape it.

A: And what is that?

S: That the ones you love will die. That they will leave you all alone in this world. You will have to look upon the ugliness of their corpses. Naked death dancing through the world in all of her obscenity.

A: Why obscenity? Death is natural. Some think death is peace. Liberation from this unliveable world that the living have made within it. Accept death.

S: In the film ‘Sholay’, Thakkur comes back to his home. There is silence outside the station. Along the floor, there are bodies strewn about, covered in white sheets. Nobody says anything. He walks and lifts the covered sheets from the bodies. He looks death in the face. It is the entirety of his family. The last one, it is the body of his beloved grandson. The death of the innocent. The children…

A: Why are you talking about this scene?

S: Because the face of Thakkur when he sees the body of his grandson haunts me. It is full of grief. But more so than grief, with rage.

A: Why are you haunted?

S: Because this is what we look at as Indians. This is what we look at in this generation. They are killing our Indian children. The villain that kills Thakkur’s family is Gabbar, who stands for arrogance, (which is what his name means), selfishness and greed. They are killing us and ours with Gabbar’s qualities. I am watching six thousand years of Indian civilisation being ended in just one generation with greed, selfishness and arrogance. I am staring at death with rage, like Thakkur. The family is what makes us us. I am looking at the death of the family.

A: They live.

S: They are corpses that have motion. And to look upon them is to grieve India. Thakkur’s grief is the story of ‘Sholay’ and us all. Because Thakkur has seen what we all fear.

the machine (microfiction)

14.11.2025

S: How do you build the perfect warrior?

A: Haven’t you seen those action films? You inject them with a serum. Or you give them a bionic body.

S: It is not the body. It is the mind.

A: How so?

S: The perfect warrior is one that has anger. He is a berserker on the battlefield. Anger gives you strength and valor.

A: Surely anger makes you make mistakes?

S: You can get away with many mistakes in a fight. The other thing you need is loyalty. Loyalty to the cause.

A: Undying and unthinking loyalty?

S: Not unthinking. And undying except in special cases. There are many such qualities. The most important one is love.

A: I knew you would say that.

S: It is a complete misunderstanding of war and love to say that ‘I am a lover and not a fighter.’ In fact, the lover can only be a fighter.

A: We have heard this before.

S: The perfect warrior can only fight for love. The perfect warrior can die for love.

A: What if there is no love in this warrior’s life?

S: You need motivation in life. You rush home to talk to someone. You rush to where you are going to see someone. It is love that gives energy. Freud said love and work. That is what makes a life.

A: And the body?

S: India made a machine. The machine came from the farmers and the serfs. Full of natural muscle. With an insane stamina. A body that can do a hundred hours of work a week for over twenty years. A natural athlete. Strength personified. But the body? It is nothing without that iron will, the indomitable spirit and the audacious, powerful brain…

A: Who do you talk of?

S: The one that scares the cowards. The one that bows his head to The Mother. The one that is the boast of Punjab…

A: The Tiger…

the kardashian factor (microfiction)

13.11.2025

S: Writing really is a loser’s game.

A: Why do you say so?

S: What do you actually get from it?

A: Satisfaction. That you have completed the craft. Expression of the self.

S: You cannot eat those. They do not assuage your hunger.

A: You are touching other people and their minds and hearts.

S: Some hate. With absolute viciousness. They choose not to understand. How many do you think read what I write? How many do you think understand The Tiger?

A: What brings on this negativity? You are complete negativity. How do you do anything with this negativity?

S: I read an headline about Kim Kardashian. That she has a five billion pound business.

A: So what?

S: Here I am, having slogged away at writing for about twenty years or so. And I am still writing for free or for peanuts.

A: You are the one that chose to be socially responsible and to talk about serious issues. You could have written fluff to make money. They would have rewarded you for that.

S: Christ knew. The choice is between Mammon and god.

A: You are not religious. Even now, you could sell your pen. You would do well in whatever you wrote. You have the styles.

S: Sell myself? To the highest bidder? Impossible.

A: Well then, do not compare yourself to Kardashian. You do not have to have any message to be successful financially. In fact, they prefer you not to have any message to be successful.

S: Be content with nothing. That is this society all over. Be content with nothing. When the ones that have and get, you look at their contribution and what is even there? Out of nothing, they have made billions.

A: People want to be her. They do not want to be you. That is the secret of success. In fact, you are actually better looking than her and your life is actually full of more interest. But the problem is that Indian culture does not sell. It is not big in the public imagination. And you? You have dared to be different. You have done this to yourself. You should have tried to fit in.

S: I can’t fit into this. What this is, nobody should try to fit into it.

A: Yet they do. And therefore, you lose.

S: That, we will see. It depends on what you think winning means.

fighting fate (microfiction)

12.11.2025

S: Today I was in haste to get somewhere with someone. But when I arrived at the line, everything was down. There were people swearing down their phones, people with anger and annoyance on their faces, people rushing off in a huff…

A: Sounds hellish.

S: It was. All because one or two trespassers had come on the line. So they shut down all the services. One train was cancelled. One train had a failure to launch… I had to leave it. I had to cancel my plans. All there was was frustration.

A: And what were you thinking about that?

S: In life, there is always some kind of obstruction. It might not happen to you. It probably doesn’t happen to other people. But it does happen to me. Over and over again. I can never win.

A: Reason?

S: You could call it bad luck. You could call it fate.

A: And what happens when the lightning of bad luck strikes at your head?

S: It shows you that you can never plan anything in life. Because something will come in the way to disrupt all your plans. It shows you that every time you try to arrange happiness in life, all that comes is sadness and frustration. Desires are never met. Wishes remain unfulfilled. The bad luck…

A: Give me an example.

S: Just before Covid, I got this wonderful opportunity. I got trained up for it. Then? Covid and it got shut down.

A: Another one? Maybe that was just an exception.

S: At my Cambridge interview, I passed it and I got pooled. They didn’t contact me again. I passed a prestigious job interview after graduation where over one thousand people had applied for that post. They pooled me, they reserved me in first place. They didn’t contact me again. They pooled me for the PGCE when I passed the interview for a funded place. They didn’t contact me again. Even during my PhD, they pooled me for working in a prestigious art gallery. I passed all these interviews.

A: Bad luck or racism?

S: Both. It is the same with everything. I won’t go into my personal life. This is what I am up against. The curse. How they keep us down. Just one other person will destroy your life. You wonder why I am negative. What they did to me was absolutely appalling.

if death came (microfiction)

11.11.2025

A: You do not want to die.

S: There is a Hindi song. You have the desire to live. You have the wish for death. Everyone wants to die. No one wants to die. While I live, I eat healthy food, exercise and look after myself. I haven’t lost my discipline. And discipline is oriented towards long life. Yet in the moment of sadness and separation, we stare longingly at death. Our mouths water…

A: That’s enough of that. But if you did die, what then?

S: Who would care?

A: Irrespective of that, what about your ideas?

S: I notice the things that no one notices. They have lain there for over a hundred years. Maybe somebody would notice. Maybe there would be one that comes that could be as wise as me.

A: And what if it is just you? Only you that can see these things? Why have they lain dormant a hundred years or more until you have come?

S: You do not believe me when I say I am a genius. Someone like me only comes once every hundred or two hundred years. Do you know how much I have studied? I haven’t just studied the three undergraduate degrees. I have done university courses in every subject in the humanities. On top of that, I have the natural cunning of a Punjabi villager. I see. Probably, if I die, what I have discovered will remain undiscovered forever.

A: If you really are that important, if you really are a genius, why then do you not work and work and work? And write and write and write?

S: For these people? For these fucking people? You cannot be serious. They would starve me. They would put me in the corner and turn their backs to me. They have made life hard, a life of suffering. Work for them? Them? With their pettiness and frivolity? Their lack of any kind of understanding? The lack of any kind of meritocracy or value?

A: Do not become Achilles. He was the greatest. Yet he would not fight if he was not awarded the spoils.

S: I am ego. Ego must be fed. The Tiger is hungry, ravenous. For what is his. But I will give what I give when the time is ripe. I will not kill myself for it. For these people? No. For my people. For the Revolution.