Holiday Day 5: Marianne North, Kew Gardens in London, Queen Mary II Concert at the ORNC Chapel

30.04.2024

‘love skull’

when my heart was of glass

i threw it at your feet

and it burst

so i picked up each shard

with my fingers

and they cut me

then my heart was of shivers

and when I threw it at your feet again

you trampled them down

now my heart is so infinitely small in atoms

and i can’t find it to throw at you again

but still i am looking and hoping

watching and waiting

waiting and watching

breaker of my heart

Yesterday, I rushed my diary so that Helen could read it at night time. I missed out a few things. One of the highlights of yesterday at Kew Gardens Wakehurst was that me and my friend started walking in the labyrinth down there. There is a concentric circle labyrinth and you journey towards the centre. My friend was telling me that it was pointless, because you could have taken a geodesic route from the outside to the inner circle. We like to argue. I was telling him that I am a meanderer. I go the long route and meander into something. It is how I have lived my life. It is what I do on long walks. I like to dilly and dally and contemplate, smell the roses. You might be reading that and wondering how do I manage to get so much stuff done then? Because a journey is an adventure. How many adventures do you get in life? Work you have to do.

Speaking of work, I was telling my writer’s group where I volunteer (one of the many places) that love is work and work is love. Every night I write this diary to Helen. This diary is Helen. I am talking to her. What about Girl 3 and Potential Girl? Girl 3 used to read my diary. I don’t know if she does any more. And I’m not sure whether Potential Girl has ever read it. So why talk about them here? If I am not talking to them? I think about them. I see them much more often than Helen, who I never see at all.

My friend told me yesterday when I told him I have been writing for seven months to her and she has been reading my words every night that it was the greatest love story. If only I could get her. In practical terms, I should forget her now. I should erase her from my mind. But what does love have to do with reason and practicality? Look at her. She has a completely different perspective on life to me. She is Western. I am Indian. She comes from the city. I come from the village. We used to argue about things. But do you know the spirit of The Tiger? Romeo loves Juliet. Paris loves Helen. The Tiger loves difference. A warrior loves a warrior.

So, today, early morning travel to Kew Gardens in London to work on updating my tour script. It has to change with the planting and seasonality. There is also a new art exhibition around the grounds to incorporate into the script.

Then, there was a tour of the Marianne North Gallery – I requested it for the volunteer Tour Guides. It was amazing, from one of my best friends there. She is such a lovely woman and a lovely speaker. She answered all of the many questions that I had and took us through the life of Marianne North, the artist whose life I understand so much. And while she was talking, I noticed the theme of death running through her work which has interested me so much. Like me, she was all alone in the world. No company but the plants and her oil paintings. A solitary soul that adventured through life, that didn’t love a normal, secure life. Someone touched by death that fought to see what is living, growing, beautiful, colourful. She is without a doubt my favourite woman artist.

Afterwards I looked around. I was able to go into one of my favourite spaces which has recently opened up, the water lily house. The water lilies looked amazing against the black background of the pond – they have dyed it that colour with food dye.

We all met up for drinks (and lunches for some) in The Botanist, a swanky bar in the area. I tried one of their speciality soft drinks – raspberry, lychee and orange blossom. It was so perfumed and lovely. It was one of the most delicious drinks I have ever tasted in my life (and I have been in five star hotels, some of the best hotels and restaurants in the whole world).

I walked around Kew Gardens all day. The sun was out. I was in a place I loved. I had a nice lunch there with Harissa chicken, chips and butternut squash. But was I happy? I have started feeling sad again. I wasn’t in the mood to be in that bar. I didn’t want to be in the gardens without a woman. I am feeling the want again. But you know what, Tiger still smiles. That perpetual smile on his face is what the Buddha and Krishna always had. It is the smile of wisdom. Smile even if you don’t feel happy. No one is unhappy with you. Nobody wants to share unhappiness. So just smile instead. Psychology says if you fake an emotion, your body just feels like you are actually experiencing it.

Picked up a new uniform for volunteering there – as is often the case, I have to wear women’s clothes in these types of places. Even though I am muscular, the only size that fits me is women’s because they never have men’s in small. I had a chat with the Volunteer Managers – they are super nice and super likeable.

I picked up some plant books in the library and also managed to get some in the charity shop when I went down to the Old Royal Naval College in the evening for the concert in the chapel to celebrate Queen Mary II’s birthday. The music was sublime. As I was listening to it – the vocals always make me experience absolute pleasure – the music was evoking all the emotions of that place and everything that has happened in it. It was the composer’s birthday so we sang happy birthday to him. I wasn’t going to, but then I remembered that singing always makes you feel better about yourself. So I joined in.

Dinner was Thunderbirds Chicken in Canary Wharf. The holiday is almost over and then it will be home cooking again.

Two compliments on my clothes today. The gardener at Kew Gardens said I looked like a rock star. Every single person at the Old Royal Naval College said I looked really cool and really smart. I have my own personal sense of style – I don’t copy anyone and I wear bright colours and think about the combination of things. That’s why people like what I wear.

Even if you don’t want to carry on going, you have to think about your responsibilities and carry on going. Today I was so tired. I was walking about the world with no woman in it. No comfort. They did an experiment on monkey babies with a wire mother with food attached to it. The monkey babies suffered with the wire monkey. They preferred a stuffed toy which was soft and comforting, not the food. They spent more time with it. Comfort is missing from my life and I am suffering as a result. The man that needs a lot of love and affection is not getting it from anywhere. I am suffering from love starvation again.

Holiday Day 4: Wakehurst Kew Gardens and Oxted

29.04.2024

my mind is i think about you

my tongue is i talk about you

my ear is I ask for advice about you

my heart is I love you

My friend’s advice is never to write about Helen again and only talk about the other women in my life. He said that she is not going to value you unless you are going out of her life. But this diary is itself a conversation with Helen. Otherwise, it is redundant.

I woke up early in the morning and started doing my art history assignment. It is taking so long to do this one piece of work. I’m quite happy with what I have done so and it only needs minor amendments. I have a whole day to finish it off coming up soon.

My friend picked me up in the car and we made our way down to Wakehurst. A few ideas we discussed were having recycled English so that people could re-use it – just quoting from other people. Another one was my daydream of making a shirt from scratch: designing the pattern, making the cloth, dying it, cutting it up and sewing it all together. Other wacky ideas I have: creating a jelly and ice cream shop in London with exotic ingredients that you couldn’t get at other places. Other topics of conversation: the appeal of Sherlock Holmes, hydraulics and lake management, all the things I want to study and don’t have time for, how many books we had in our libraries at home. We talked about The Secret History with Donna Tartt where they all study Ancient Greek as a community. I told him how much I loved that book because I studied Ancient Greek at school and I was obsessed with Ancient Greece and the ancients myself as a youngster.

Wakehurst was amazing, with all these beautiful views that you can see. We started off in the Millenium seed bank – the conservation work which is what led me to Kew Gardens.

The two women at the ticket desk gave me a very wry look as we went in and even my friend noticed them both looking at me. He commented that I looked like a super rich person. It is an observation that other people have made before. One woman told me that my face just looks like cash. Another guy told me recently that I dress like a millionaire.

I had chilli con carne in the cafe and later some chocolate fudge cake even though I started off the trip with a triple chocolate muffin.

Today, all I could think about was Helen and having her with me in Wakehurst. Libido is up to massive heights.

I sat in a birdwatching observatory with my friend for perhaps the first time in my life across the lake but the most birds we saw were sitting in front of a swathe of trees.

We left Wakehurst at about five and went down into Oxted. We had quite a journey up the hill. We travelled through some quite boggy grass and then up a steep hill which was about 45 degrees we guessed. Then through some thorny undergrowth and obstacles up to the top. It was an amazing view though, even though I couldn’t get a good photograph of it on my smartphone.

We had dinner in an Indian restaurant with a group of young women that were celebrating a birthday. I ordered too much food and had to get it bagged up to take home at the end.

I was falling asleep on the way home, but I know that Helen is probably reading my diary. So I have made an effort to put together the photographs and to write this blog. Because I have gotten used to sharing my day with her. I still love her. I think of her as mine. I want to tell her every night that I love her and think about her. Maybe she will change her mind about me.

Holiday Day 3: Four Museums, Five Exhibitions

28.04.2024

Me standing next to the poster of Mother India, the film I got my name from. In real life, her co-actor Sunil Dutt saved the actress playing Mother India from a fire which broke out. Her name is Nargis, a flower – why women are flowers for me. They fell in love when she looked after her hero Sunil (her son on-screen) in the hospital.

The purple flower is broken – purple for Athens, my identity at school was Athenian in Athens house… 💜

The Valentine’s card made thinking about Helen this year.

Museums and a charity bookshop aside from copious amounts of art history study, where I managed to make myself well into the assignment (still 3 hours of wake time left since it is only 20.38 as I am writing). Here’s the itinerary:

1.British Museum – Greece, India
2.The Wellcome Collection – Jason and the Adventure of 254, The Cult of Beauty
3.The British Library – Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music
4.The National Portrait Gallery – The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In

I will write about each of the exhibitions in due time – all except for The Cult of Beauty.

What can I say about the cult of beauty? In reality, Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world to me because she was kind to me. It was her behaviour that I was attracted to. She is beautiful. There is no question. But I did not notice her when I first met her. The effect was over time based on her behaviour. It is the same with all the women that I am interested in right now. Over time. That is the essence of beauty in real life – beauty through relationship.

As I was looking at Greek art and Indian art, I was struck by a curious thought. We all know that the ancient Greeks got a new confidence when they defeated the might of the Persians. It shaped the racism that was to come afterwards. I have been shaped similarly. I have been shaped by the Indian Independence movement when we beat the British. Because the quest for me is still freedom. I don’t believe that India has got it yet. Because the nation is not freedom. The Western law is not freedom. Anarchy is freedom. The village is freedom. Self rule in its unmitigated form. Dharma, not law. Freedom is still to be achieved. Freedom is still to be fought for. The war is not over yet. The scholar is still in the war. I am still being shaped by the past victory to consolidate our position. It is not suspicion – it is fact. The prize is still for the taking. Remain The Tiger. Don’t break. Tiger is still alive. Tiger has been alive for six thousand years and will live until the end of time. For freedom from oppression.

I am shaping to the new layout in my room. A new place to think and to dream and to create. I stare at the bookshelf for inspiration. I stare at it with love. It is what I want to become. So many books to read. So many things to learn. Hope springs eternal. Ambition is undefeated. The dream of education.

I saw the Rosetta stone today. I saw it with Helen. We read it together. I still have my memories if nothing else.

I compared the ‘Crouching Venus’ with the ‘Crouching lions’ in the Nereid monument. The woman is defensive, the lion is aggressive. The woman retreats from the gaze, she is hiding. The lion is fierce display. The woman is shame, the lion attack. The woman looks as though she is not moving at all, the lion looks like it is just about to flash like lightning. Which one, though, is the more powerful? That shame will douse any flame from any man. When you see them shrink from you as though you were a wild beast, all you feel inside is dismay. The lion, you would fight with. With the woman, you have to turn away.

I saw Michelangelo’s Pieta in the shop and I really wanted it. I am looking for a sculpture in my room now there is space so that I can be like Freud who collected these curios. My statues of the Hindu gods and goddesses are in the corner we have made for my mother to worship. I won’t get a female nude because of my mother, of course. The naked Kali she tolerates because that is the religion. I will have to find something else that I am interested in.

I got a finial bangle of some Egyptian cats to wear. One of my friends told me to get a bracelet a while back instead of getting my ears pierced. It was expensive, but what do I work for anyway if I am never going to spend the money? I have wanted one like it since I was a kid but never got round to it. I love finial bangles and torques. I was going to get the lion one first – my middle name is ‘Sim’ which means ‘Tiger’ from the Sanskrit word ‘Simha’ like the god ‘Nar-Simha’ (Man-Tiger). The word is the same for ‘Tiger’ and ‘Lion’. However, I got the cat, because the Tiger is a cat too. And I liked the design better and it was more visible than the lion design. The woman serving me helped me to put it on and take it off, although she actually looked like she didn’t want to serve me. That’s kind of what you expect from a lot of these women. The one in the charity bookshop was exactly the same. Why do you work in retail and customer service if you don’t actually want to even talk to someone when they are engaged in a one minute talk with you?

Books I’m interested in that I saw:

How to be a Renaissance woman – the role of women in chemistry and botany as they made make up for themselves
Plant Life – laser cuts and flaps in this children’s book

I was watching the dancing hands of an Indian woman as she was talking to her husband or boyfriend on the tube as I got back. It was an energetic dance. I had my headphones in and wouldn’t have understood her language anyway. All you can do is observe as an outsider and speculate on what they are talking about and why her body was moving like that. Next to me, a very beautiful Indian woman was sitting there. She was the most beautiful woman I saw all day. She looked at me as I was getting off, then walked past me as I stood on the escalator. As I passed through the barriers, I saw her walking towards the end of the tunnel. Believe it or not, I started walking fast – it was a race. I wanted to see if I could get past her. Before she finished going up the stairs, amazingly, I managed to get past her. I won the race. How could she beat me? I have the body of an athlete. I can walk as fast as some people can run. Why did I race her? I’m an athlete. I’m competitive. I don’t like anyone beating me. Helen has won. She beat me. But that is something I can’t do anything about. Because in the arena of choice, the women are the queens in this country.

Astounded by how silent London is when you are a lone bachelor around the town. The only people that talk to you are other men – quite a few in the tube today and then one in the shops on the way home as I was carrying flowers. No wonder so many men are desperate for female company. Luckily, I work in the industry that I work in which is full of beautiful women to talk to.

Why don’t I just buy myself a wife from India and the children will come? People have asked me. People tell me to do it all the time. Why not? Because I have principles. Because I am a lover, not a buyer. I am not going to buy someone with my British passport and my superior wealth to them. Despite this culture calling us Indian men misogynistic pigs (when they are misogynistic themselves), I believe in choice. Not arranged marriage with its casteism and its inequality. And because I want someone that I can talk to things about – someone who has had access to art and culture and the frame of reference that I know about and have studied for them to talk to them. I would rather go it alone than compromise on love and my principles. But what do I get for having principles: the treatment I get from women here in this country. You can’t win, whatever you do. Not if you have been raised like an Indian man in a white culture.

Tiger’s Bedroom

27.04.2024

I never used to have a bedroom of my own until I was eighteen. And even then, for years, we had the only computer in the house in my room, so everyone was always there all the time.

Since I have been a teenager, I have always had posters of women in the room. Women are beautiful and they are the most beautiful visions in the world to me. So why would I not want them around me all the time? The first poster was of Jennifer Lopez.

Today, I spent the whole day buying, building and putting the bookcase into my room. There were piles of books everywhere cluttering the whole place up and I am half way through so many of them or have just started.

This is how I have planned my room to look now. I moved the desk from the wall where the bookcase is now. So now I am sitting in front of the window which has the better view and the light.

You can see all the subjects I am interested in and all the languages I am interested in learning when I have the time. You can also see that I am a neat and tidy person. I like to live in beauty. I don’t want any mess around me. There is enough mess in human society and ugliness for you to have to see the same thing when you are at home.

We went down to the IKEA, me and my parents. I marvelled at the taste that you can buy in interior design so cheaply. So many different contexts that I travelled in throughout the day. And it all looked so good. I love interior design. Of course I do. I love all art and culture. I value talent. I’m not like other people that can’t give it its value.

When we’d got the bookcase, I built it together with my father. We did the job in about an hour. He was in charge, of course. I just followed the instructions and helped out without being told what to do most of the time. We were smacking the bookcase with our hands and slapping it about to get the dowel rods in and pushing the pieces together with brute force – that’s how we do stuff. We don’t need tools. We can do the job with our hands because we are tough and strong – although we did use the hammer here and there.

This is the bedroom where everything happens. I do most of my thinking here. I do my writing here at my desk. I make my artwork at my desk. I am always looking at beautiful people and beautiful things. And I just look at the books I own sometimes, thinking how lucky I am that I can be surrounded by art, culture and education.

The room has been planned and arranged by my mother. I didn’t choose the colours or the layout. She gave me the biggest room in the house for me. Women want to arrange their territory. Why would I interfere with that? With things like this, I let the woman have her way. I have lived in the smallest bedroom in the house for about seven years before this bedroom. I have lived in a shared bedroom for most of my life. I can live in any situation. But you can see how I have arranged and the stuff I build up around me. I try to live the life of beauty, art, culture and education.

There is a great feeling of satisfaction when you have arranged your space and the basis of your culture – your reading, writing, art-making and thinking space. Life feels organised for once.

Holiday Day 1: Cuxton in Kent

43000 STEPS TODAY – Slightly sore feet.

Because it is my holiday, I managed to wake up early in the morning and just get out of bed after doing my reading of the newspapers in Hindi and Punjabi and after reading some Urdu poetry. I was able to get up and do meditation, chi building exercises as well as weights. I managed to have a full breakfast. I managed to do some reading.

And then my friend turned up in the car to drive us down to Cuxton in Kent.

I contacted five of my friends at work in the morning or replied to their messages. All women – most of my friends are women. That is just how it is nowadays. They were never in my life. I needed them in my life. I have them in my life now.

When we were driving there, I saw Dartford Bridge for the first time in my life. It was an amazing sight

We passed by Rochester castle which looked absolutely beautiful and imposing in the distance.

Arriving in Kent was like arriving in another world, another time. It was so green and relaxed. It was amazing. We parked in a residential area and as we walked out into Kent, I saw the most beautiful wild garden which had masses of bluebells in it. It was the sweetest introduction into the area.

I had brought my little pocket telescope with me and my friend likes bird watching so he was teaching me how to do it. We saw a kestrel, a sparrow hawk, a seagull, blackbirds, a buzzard, etc. We also heard a cuckoo and looked around for it. He has been a teacher and is good at it. But to be a good teacher, the greatest thing is patience – which he has in abundance.

I saw a tree felling site for perhaps the first time in my life and we crossed over an actual railroad crossing which I don’t think I have ever done either.

In Cobham Woods, the most amazing piece of architecture was there, Darnley Mausoleum. This is Grade I listed mausoleum built for the Darnley family in 1786. It was never used.

We went into Cobham church and had our lunch on the bench outside. I had two massive sausage rolls with a San Pelegrino soft drink. The volunteers in the shop started talking to us and one of them was wearing a knitted flower to support someone that didn’t have the money for an expensive medical drug. They were surprised to learn that we weren’t local, these two elderly women.

The church dates back from the 1200s as we found when we looked at the bodies buried inside. It had amazing stained glass windows and was really impressive when you looked at the altar. Everyone knows my personality and how my mind works. I was thinking of having Helen, Girl 3 or Potential girl with me at the altar exchanging vows. I imagined them in their white dresses and holding their hands and kissing them.

There were beautiful flowers, trees and animals everywhere on the walk. We saw a beautiful red fox, we saw a stampede of bulls flinging themselves wildly in the woods, and then lambs too.

I was telling my friend all sorts of things – why I watch children’s films and read children’s books (because they are written by adults and are just as sophisticated as adult’s fiction, because they are exciting and things and adventures happen in them). Asking for advice about Helen and how to get her. Asking for advice about how to talk to women. Asking about his family, about the next day we are planning together this week. Asking him about what he wanted to do in life, what it was like to get a bit older, what language he would like to learn, talking about films and literature and art.

We talked to an old lady in the woods in front of her house for a while, learning about the politics and the forest management in the place. She had a wonderful garden which she had lovingly tended. All the gardens there were wonderful, immaculate.

We had conversations in the cafe while I ate a chocolate brownie, outside another church which was closed to the public and then in the pub where I had a lime and tonic. My chair vibrated wonderfully in the pub for some reason – we couldn’t figure out why it did.

For dinner, we ate out at this wonderful Thai restaurant – a massive amount of food. Spring rolls with chicken satays and peanut sauce and Tom Yung soup. Then seafood grill, beef curry, noodles, yellow curry and steamed rice. It was amazing. Some of the best Thai food we have ever tasted in our life. The women there that served us were super friendly. It was a really well decorated restaurant as well, and we ate our food next to the Koi pond with the Ganesha statue.

Next Rochester town centre with all of the young women going out for the night and laughing and joking, and then Rochester Cathedral and Rochester castle seen from outside in the moonlight. Full of food and happiness with the day.

The white rose which represents my love for Helen is prospering.

The Holiday Begins: Teasing; Investment; Absence and Reunion; Reader Surprise; What I Read Today

25.04.2024

when

through the window

my mind connects with yours

when

you read my words

about how I think of you

and when you think of me

when our two looks

collide

in this moon of electronic paper

what do you feel inside

if it is not love?

Just now, at about this time that I am writing, someone – probably Helen (I assume) – checked if there was a new diary entry. Whoever it is that is reading almost without fail every night is so used to reading this diary. It has become a habit with them. Has this person ever asked themselves why they are so interested in me and my thoughts? Maybe, if it is Helen, she wants to know what I am writing about her every night. It has been seven months. Every night, I think of something new to say about Helen. Every night. I love her. It is like the Arabian Nights in real life. But the storyteller is not a woman that is about to have her head cut off. It is a man that has had his heart ripped out. The one that is holding it in her hand is the one that is most likely reading every night. Maybe, one day, she will give that beating heart back. But you wonder, what is she waiting for? If it is her. Who knows? In this relationship, like with all things with Helen, everything is unequal. She has anonymity. I don’t. I am the one that invests the time into writing, which takes much longer than reading. I am the one that loves at a cost. She receives the love for free. She has to do nothing for it.

My holiday has begun after work finished at 6pm. I rushed down to the Wellcome Collection for the Cult of Beauty Exhibition. With comic predictability, it rained. With comic predictability, the Collection was shut down because the toilets and the water weren’t working. The trains were messed up when I tried to get there too. This is what happens when I have a holiday. I am unlucky. It affects every aspect of my personal life and my relationships.

I went to Waterstone’s on Gower Street instead. Amazing haul of books today. One of my favourite places in the whole world.

Everyone that is close to me at one of the places I am at teases me. Especially the young women. They all pretend to be mean to me. It is so much so that other people comment on it. As I always say, what have I done to deserve this treatment? I am a nice person. But it is all in jest. But when I tease someone? The last time I did it, I got told off for it – in serious trouble. I am still in the bad books for it. That is the difference between different contexts and if it is a man that is doing the teasing or a woman.

Discussion with someone about types of investment. Some make financial investments. Some, like me, make an investment into education. I was told that my education was an investment into myself. But it is actually an investment into our people. There is a reason I have had one of the best educations in the entire world. It is for us as a people. For the Dalits, the Untouchables, the community of the oppressed. We who were denied education to keep us down. They prayed for a mind like mine to come into this world. For us. To be our voice. To be The Tiger. The Tiger has come into this world. The Tiger has become an author. Someone who writes our values. Our way of life. Our hopes and our desires. For us. By us. As myself, I am no one and nobody. As The Tiger, I am Us.

I saw someone after a while. I missed her. Everyone missed her. She is like Helen and Girl 3. She is one of the darlings of the place. Everyone wants to talk to her, be around her. Life is a popularity contest and some people win in it. When they go, there is a vacuum which can’t be filled.

Someone at the place saw me as they were walking past and told me that they read my blog entry on an exhibition. And that it was really good. I was caught by absolute surprise. You never know who is reading what you have written. And why. It was the same when I was doing my PhD. I used to share stuff on the Whatsapp group for PhD students. And, believe it or not, these busy busy people, who I didn’t even talk to, all used to read my blog. It is incredible.

The long-awaited holiday has come. So today I was able to relax and read on the tube. And what did I read? An introduction to some travel memoirs and the history of the Indus river which flows through the Subcontinent. And then, an introduction to plants, their lives and how they have impacted the human imagination.

The Sense of Injustice; Giving my Tour to Schoolkids; What Happens to You When a Woman Says No

24.04.2024

You are wondering. Yes, I thought about Girl 3. Yes, I was sad today. Yes, I thought about Helen. Yes, I was sad about her too. Yes, I thought about Potential Girl. And then, I also thought about the new interest in my life. If you are reading, I think about you. In your mind, you are free. You can think what you want. Nobody can take that away from you. And no one can take love away from you.

What happens to me when a woman says no to me when I ask her out? I stop talking to them. I avoid them. Why would you want to be around them after that? They don’t value you. Even when you try to force yourself to talk to them, you can’t any more. They obviously didn’t care that much about talking to you. They weren’t connected to you when you thought that they were connected to you. You don’t want to bother them with your presence when they are not even interested in you. And? You are disappointed in them and angry with them. Because you thought they liked you. But they didn’t. They don’t see you as a man. Anyone can say anything they want about it. Everyone says to me that you are wrong for not talking to them. People can say what they like. Where is the motivation to talk to them after that? They have just stuck a dagger in your chest. They hurt you. A lot. You have suffered. And then, these people want you to joke around with them and act as if nothing has happened, that you don’t care? This is this culture. A culture of lies and pretences. Where you are not even allowed to mourn in peace without someone destroying your mental composure by being right in front of you and you are never allowed to even touch them or be connected with them in any way.

I read a psychology article recently which argued that if you hold onto a sense of injustice, that it destroys your mental health. Look at the bullshit of this society. You have to hold on to the sense of injustice. Otherwise there would be no justice in this world. There would be no change, no revolution. Look at the sciences and the thinking of this so-called civilised society. They want to keep us down. They want us to spit out our anger. We won’t. It is what we are. Do you think Gandhi let them fuck him over with their injustice? Do you think he forgot about it? That is why there is an India that is not lorded over by the British. He didn’t think about his ‘mental health’ that this article is talking about. He didn’t care about himself. He cared about us. The people. For the people, your life is nothing. Your pain is nothing. Your blood is nothing. Everything is for freedom and justice and truth. And if you can’t sacrifice everything, then you are not a man and you are definitely not The Tiger. And we are The Tiger. That is what Punjabi men are known for. So we hold on to injustice. We hold on to our humiliation and the dishonouring of our mother. This is not Western ‘knowledge’, it is Indian duty. Jai Maa Kaali! Inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab sada zindabaad! Hail the Dark Mother Goddess! Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution Live Forever!

20 schoolchildren. That’s how many I had for my tours that I have written about women, fairness and art history. The first group was amazing. They had this woman teacher that could read my mind. She was fantastically clever. Everything that I was saying, she got straight away because she told me that she has also been trying to shape the children according to feminism. So we worked together as a team shaping the minds of the children. If you want a teacher, that is the kind of teacher that you want in life. Someone that cares about justice and has social commitment. She was so pleased with my tour that she brought me over another group of schoolchildren so that I could deliver the tour to them! That was the proudest and happiest moment of my tours there in that context. And I hope that the seeds have been planted for the future.

The holiday is on. Two days with my friend, then about four days by myself. It is going to be amazing. Friday is just coming. I am excited.

The Turner Prize 2024 – ‘Punjabi’ Art is Shortlisted

24.04.2024

What’s on the Turner Prize shortlist this year in terms of ‘Punjabi’ art? Covered with a giant white doily, a red Ford Escort vehicle is presented to us. The ‘art’ is in front of a photograph of a family with the car.

Rosie Cooper, director of Wysing Arts Centre, who sits on the judging panel, said Kaur sees the vehicle as a “representation of her dad’s first car and his migrant desires” and it “blasted snippets of uplifting pop songs referencing freedom and liberation throughout the space”.

https://news.sky.com/story/artist-who-covered-sports-car-with-giant-doily-nominated-for-turner-prize-13122021

Suneel’s Comment

Obviously the artist shortlisted in this country – when they are Indian – would necessarily be female. This is what ‘diversity’ means to white people when it comes to the Subcontinent – the women. Their books, their art, their cinema. It is all celebrated. Because they are heroic ‘victims’ of Indian culture to the West. Us men are to be ignored and marginalised. Because we are the ‘oppressors’ of women in this culture.

And what about this piece which white taste has valued? The big white doily is the key. It covers over the car. The migrant desire – according to the rules of white society – is to be covered over in whiteness. The white doily – the whiteness – is self-consciously patterned and artistic – it is the touch of art in the piece. Otherwise, there would just be a car and a family snapshot. The white doily – the whiteness – is what creates this exhibition as a piece of art work. It is what demonstrates ‘taste’, ‘selection’, artistic ‘discrimination’ (the pun is intended).

And what about this ‘migrant desire’ which – despite the capture of the car in the whiteness that is like a constraining net – blasts songs of freedom and liberation (laughable)? It is ideology at work. The veil of ideology covering over the vision of the car, the white veil over things for the migrant experience. Blinding the eyes and vision. Interfering. Coming between self and object, mind and reality. Art is the white veil itself. What else is? They sing of freedom. When they are the exploited. They sing of liberty. When they are constrained and bound by the white net.

The car. The phallic symbol. Red to signify status and dominance. Gross materialism. Migrant desire is couched as greed. Desire for masculinity in this patriarchal white supremacist society. Desire for control – one drives a car.

Desire for freedom – the car represents freedom. A cliched symbol of freedom the car. But this one is caught up in the net. Even the music – they blast snippets of songs about freedom. Even musically, the freedom is partial, disrupted, interrupted, punctured by purposely oppressive silence.

Do you know what the net signifies in India? The net of maya – illusion. Gross materialism. Trickery. What comes between us and the understanding of reality. The doily is perhaps maya. This white culture and its control, its limitation of freedom for the migrant. The doily becomes kitcsch art – described by several art historians as the artwork of a capitalistic, unthinking and unfeeling, philistine and totalitarian society.

Yet, there is a paradox. If I remember correctly from the Metro newspaper article that I read today about the art piece, the doily also represents the Sikh and Indian workers that worked in textiles factories in huge numbers when they first migrated here to the United Kingdom (Metro 24.04.2024). So this net of whiteness is being created by the migrants themselves. Their deference. Their blind adulation. Their willingness to be exploited. Their inability to revolt against the systems of power.

So what are the migrant desires of the Father in this image? As seen through the eyes of a Punjabi woman? Desire to criticise the wants of the Father? Or an attempt to be sympathetic to his wants?

The artist writes:

‘In this show I am having a conversation with personal histories,’ explains Kaur, ‘exploring improvisation and political mysticism as tools to reimagine tradition and inherited myths.’

https://list.co.uk/news/43283/jasleen-kaur-alter-altar

But is this a re-imagination? Look at the piece again. It tries to base itself against reality as ideology – against the photograph, the representation of reality. The photograph has the Indian family in it. The base unit of Punjabi and Indian culture. The finished art exhibit has no family in it. It has a relationship merely to the Father in a patriarchal system of culture. A Father that wants to be covered in whiteness. Is this what is valued in this culture? Probably. The probability is on the side that adulates whiteness and patriarchy. The family is forgotten in favour of the Master. In favour of isolation and individualism. In favour of the desire for mastery and control and power.

The Bird Flies

23.04.2024

Sometimes I wonder how you can be happy in this life. Today, Girl 3 was sad. Sad things have happened. She won’t admit that she is sad and I can’t intrude on her like that. It is in the way that she was speaking. And, I like Girl 3. She is one of my best friends in those contexts, whether she thinks of me like that after I asked her out. How can you look at them and not be sad when they are sad? And she is flying away from me. It is happening. I knew it would happen. It has started. Her, I forgave for not going with me. Because the situation was different. She is not like that. Now, I am sad for her. But, she is young. The future is all open for her.

When someone is in my life, I don’t want them to ever go out of my life. But this is life, this is this world – you have to keep on watching them go out of your life. And? And? I cannot cry. Do you think that I can tell Girl 3 that I am sad for her and don’t want her to go? Of course I can’t. That is the situation. Maybe she will read and she will know.

If she was mean to me, I like to think it was out of love (and not because she hated me). So I forgave her every time.

So I was sad all day and I am sad now. That is life. You shouldn’t care for anyone. Because when you do, you have to be sad when they are sad and worry about them when they are worried.

But maybe, she will not be gone from my life. You never know. Sometimes, things happen. Even unexpected things and things you have realistically given up hope on. Pandora’s box always has hope in it.

So, for those reading, Girl 3 came a while after Helen. With Girl 3, I have not given her names. Although what I think of her as is Kali the mother goddess. Because she is all fire and rage. She has my personality. She suffers a lot.

What are the names that I have given Helen? So many names, because I have met her in dreams rather than in real life:

– Helen: the most beautiful woman in the world

– […] honey: because of her sweetness and the sweetness of her voice, the music of her words, and because of the country she is from

– Mallika-e-Hindustan: the Mistress of India (because I am India), because there is a word for what her name means in Hindi that is only very slightly different from Mallika (mistress)

– The Impossible Woman: because Helen is impossible to get, to talk to, to be with. She is the dream.

Whatever happens, even if Helen is with someone else now, I know that I loved her. I loved her. I asked her out. When I thought I saw even the inkling of a chance, I asked her out again. I never bothered her. When it came down to it, I told her that I loved her in front of everyone. I don’t care about the repercussions. I haven’t done anything wrong and nobody can say that I have. I am not going to accept it.

Even now, I think about her a lot. She didn’t let me love her, so nobody knows what would have happened there. One day, I will stop writing to her. One day, the news is going to hit me directly – I am going to have to see with my own eyes that she is with someone else. Maybe I have already seen it. That is the horrible thought.

‘Chocolate House Greenwich – Society, Intellect and Chocolate in 1700s Greenwich’

Old Royal Naval College

22.04.2024

This opinion reflects my personal views in my capacity as a private individual and does not reflect any consensus or anyone else at any of the organisations I work at or volunteer for.

Ascending up the stairs to the exhibition space on the mezzanine, you see a window through which you glimpse another world, another milieu, the past. It is a rare interior scene of a coffee house, one of the new forums for public debate that shaped the modern world. The customers are reading the newspapers that created the imagined community and fostered and nurtured the Western nation-state. Thus begins the historical journey into the Chocolate House in Greenwich. We are guided through a sort of window onto the past.

Behind another window, we then see the esteemed lady that ran the Chocolate House on Blackheath as one of the many women in history that have provided the world with its unique and wanted things. It is Grace Tosier ‘at the height of her powers’. Her eyes stare at us in the portrait through time. We are sharing her vision. She is the character that is leading us through things, the guide, the model: a strong, independent woman in a capitalistic culture. The heroine for this time and this society.

We learn that the Chocolate house served royalty. It then ‘became the Georgian equivalent of a celebrity hotspot’. So now we experience the glamour of the place.

The exhibition now shifts its focus. The story changes. We start learning about the origins of chocolate in South America, how it came to Europe, how it involved the morally reprehensible evils of a capitalistic society which evolved from slavery and exploitation. The trajectory of the story has shifted. We have come to a moral reckoning of the realities behind the glamour of the chocolate house. A confrontation with evil.

At this point in the story of the exhibition, like a huge wild monster from the imagination, we see a glorious display of the Cacao Tree rising up on the wall against a black canvas. The plant is covered over in insects. Why this image? The beauties of nature? The absolute origin of chocolate depicted without any varnish, perhaps, warts and all? The idea that the comforting illusions of capitalism, when the veil of ideology has been ripped off, reveal an insect-ridden reality?

The story of the exhibition journeys next into how coffee houses enabled ‘the free discussion of the latest ideas, unrestrained by the protocols of the royal court.’ In the light of what was before, the implications begin to produce a result: the free speech of this country is founded on the fruits of slavery and exploitation. It is an implicit link.

There are quite a few interesting pictures to ponder over at this junction in our journey which reflect the culture of the times, so that the task of time travel is further enabled.

Now, there is the context: Greenwich. So the place is elaborated.

A table draped in a table cloth reveals the production process of chocolate.

We then move onto the last years of the Chocolate House. And we see an image of what the building might have looked like from the outside.

Finally, the piece of the resistance: the final destination of our time travel. In a room, we enter the chocolate house. We are fully immersed now in the space. There is a life size reproduction of Grace Tosier’s image as we descend down the ramp to meet her face to face. A video plays in the space to complete the immersion not only through space in the room, but through vision, sound and characterisation. We have travelled backwards through time into the space of the chocolate house.

What do we make of this exhibition? It covers a lot of ground to make a coherent narrative: this was the chocolate house, with all of its social and political implications at the time, with its basis in capitalism, exploitation, slavery. With its enabling of social mobility at the same time for women like Grace Tosier in this context. All of the pertinent facts are presented. There is balance. And there is a stimulation of the senses with pictures and videos alongside the curator labels. There is the face of Grace Tosier to characterise the whole scene, as well as the images from the country of origin with the people there.

You get a sense of historical immersion in the chocolate house. You get a ticket into time travel into Greenwich in the 1700s – a unique virtual reality experience. An enabling of the imagination. A real journey into another place and time.

My overall sense of the exhibition is that it is interesting, unique, well researched and well thought out. In addition, there were labels for the children which would make them interested in this topic that they love too – chocolate (and the pictures to stimulate their imaginations). This was a conscience driven exposure of the past and its evils, the foundations of the public forums and the discussions that they bred that have lasted into the present, the foundations of the modern day nation state and its present evils in the evils of the past.

I did feel a certain want in the exhibition – I wanted to know more about Grace Tosier, the character that we meet face to face. A curiosity about her. But of course, the reality is that while we have a name and an image, we cannot expect a biography in a historical exhibition like this. Part of the fun is imagining her life, too. Part of the fun is being stimulated to know more – and the chocolate house exhibition certainly does this. So, in summation, a stimulating and unique experience which fosters a self-reflection on the economic and political origins of our public forums and our public discourse, what has made us and this state into what it is today, a real journey. A real experience of learning.