Here I go again with one of my confessions.

I wonder how many who are reading this have watched that old Eddie Murphy film Coming to America? Recall the princess Eddie’s character was betrothed to early in the movie? She was extremely pretty but utterly without personality, so submissive that she had a favourite food which was “whichever was (Eddie’s) favourite food.” So what did Eddie do? Asked her to hop and bark like a dog, and she did; and hopped away, still barking. That was…sadism, really. Not the sort of sadism they have in much of the world where women are beaten as a matter of course, but still sadism.

And I might as well admit that I’m a sadist.

Mostly, submissive people get me going. When I have someone down, I have this irresistible urge to kick them in the belly.

Oh, I don’t mean literally. Physical violence is something I very rarely experiment with. It’s crude and gets one nowhere. Besides, suppose you do inflict physical pain on someone. What then? The pain fades and is gone, right? That’s crude and amateurish.

No, when I have someone submissive, I get this overwhelming urge to be sadistic with my tongue. I can, and do, strip skin off with it more effectively than a bullwhip would do.

Yes, I get a kick out of inflicting mental pain. I get a kick out of making women cry.

No, I do not do this every time. When I do it, I’m usually desperately unhappy myself, and mental sadism is a way of erasing my own unhappiness. Also, I do not do this in my normal state of mind, the one I’m using when I write this, for instance. Right at this moment I’m aware of my hands and my face and I’m in control of what I’m doing; but when one of my killer moods takes over, I step aside. I know it sounds like a cop-out, but I can no longer really feel my body except as a mask or puppet. My mind, ice-cool and calm and aloof and a little amused and shocked, stands aside and watches my body talk and gesture and put in the metaphorical boot. And here’s what – the more submissiveness my victim shows, the more I’m driven to it, exulting in my power. And I’m never sorry afterwards.     

I don’t like it. I’m aware that I’m in many ways an extremely unpleasant individual. But so far there’s nothing I have found that I can do about it. I know that it’s inadequate to say “I’m trying to stop,” but I am.

Some help and advice?

There is something that has been preying on my mind for going on thirteen years now, and I'd like to talk about it publicly and let it rest.

Back when I was in medical college (in picture), as a raw intern, I had to do a stint in the emergency department. One day in spring (and Lucknow in spring gets pretty hot) when the temperature was already touching 40 degrees, we had this young man come in with severe pain in his leg. he was a migrant worker and unaccompanied. Remember I was a raw intern, totally inexperienced. I had a kind of suspicion that he just might be suffering from deep vein thrombosis of the leg, which is a potentially fatal condition. I was also alone. There was supposed to be a medical officer supervisor (it was against regulations to leave all admissions in the hands of a solitary intern) but he had failed to show up. So it was my call. Now deep vein thrombosis is somewhat in the nature of a rara avis and I did not, obviously, want to make a fool of myself. So, I played safe and referred him to the Medicine department. There was supposed to be a wheelchair available to take him there but  as usual under the administration we had in the college at the time (so incompetent it might've given Bush a lesson in incompetence) the wheelchair was inoperative and there was no one to bear a stretcher. Ultimately the guy walked off by himself to the Medicine department (1.5km in 40 degrees), reached there, collapsed (it was deep vein thrombosis) and died soon after. I've tried telling myself it was not fair to expect a junior intern to be able to handle this sort of thing unsupervised and alone, but still I remain morally convinced that I killed the man.

And that is not the worst of it, oh no.

You see, when the medical officer in the Medicine department came to ask just who had sent the man to walk all the way there and die on arrival, I kept my mouth shut. There was no signature on the referral form (it was the emergency medical officer's job), so "nobody" was to blame. Case closeed.

I am not just a killler. I am a coward as well.