Being Told Off When I am Blameless

13.05.2024

I got told off today by someone. Why don’t you sort your life out? Why don’t you just go and get married? Why are you not doing anything to change your life? So, even when you have other things to think about in your life, this is the topic that people are making you talk about.

In fact, it is not my fault that I am single. For the past two years, I have been trying to meet someone. The one I loved, Helen, I asked her out. Twice. It is not my fault she said no. I don’t even know why she said no. She didn’t give me a truthful answer. When I went out with someone else, Girl 2, she ended it over nothing. Over literally nothing. And then, the other women? Girl 3 wouldn’t go out with me. But there is a big age difference, so I don’t hold it against her. And the rest of them? They are racist. It’s no point pretending they’re not. I don’t lie about things.

So I don’t blame myself. It is not me. It is the women in this country. Although it is hurtful when you are being told off, as though you are not a man and not attractive in any way, I know that has got nothing to do with me or my personality. These women can’t decide to go out with me, they distrust me for no reason and they act like they are scared of me. When I haven’t done anything. That is the truth. That is racism.

When I was unemployed after my PhD, everyone told me off because they said that I wasn’t fit to be a worker. That I was lazy and I couldn’t do anything. But you know what? When I landed my jobs in museums and art galleries, I worked every single day and did every single overtime shift that I could. I have won five awards in the museum over the past two years – that’s more than everyone else. I have been promoted. Some people have told me that I am a model employee and some of the other workers have told me that they look up to me and they want to be like me.

So, in actual fact, as I have been saying throughout my whole life, I can do every job and I can do them all well. Like with the women in this country, it is just the bias and the prejudice against the way that I look and my ethnicity that people won’t give me a chance. They give the jobs to fucking losers that haven’t got my ability, talent or passion. That’s this country for you. That’s what you get for being born Indian. It is always supposed to be my fault for everything. When it is everyone else that acts like a fucking racist douche bag.

Every single job I have ever done, which wasn’t some shitty summer job, I have been praised for and even won awards for. Everyone that works with me knows that I am a good worker. Which shows you what these stupid criticisms and this blaming is. It is all fucking bullshit.

If I had a girlfriend, I would be the best boyfriend. Because I prioritise my relationships, I communicate honestly, I do my best to be considerate and listen and I am loyal. But still, the women in this country can’t trust an Indian man. That is what they are.

And I am never going to go out with someone just for convenience. These women might do that. I am not going to do it. To be with me, you have to be beautiful, intelligent, kind, I have to want to talk to you and I have to respect and love you. And you have to give me commitment, babies and a family. I am not going to let this society put me with a woman that doesn’t have any of those things.

Yesterday, it was sunny. So I undid the buttons on my shirt after work and I showed the whole world my toned chest and my six pack. Women stared at my stomach – they didn’t even try to hide it. One white woman with her white boyfriend stared the hardest. She didn’t even care that her boyfriend was looking at her. And I enjoyed it. Because I like women looking at me. It makes me feel good about myself. This is what these racist women are missing out on because they can’t trust you. A body like a Greek god. But then, when I got on the tube, I put the buttons back up. Because some gay guy came and stood in front of me and then stared at me. And then, when the seat opposite me got free, he came and sat in front of me from his previous seat and started staring at me again. Unfortunately, I have been targeted by gay men around London since the university days. I don’t know why they think that I would be gay. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking.

I gave some money to some poor people in India for education this week. I have done so much work for education for the under privileged in my life on a voluntary basis. I have done many things for society and to change it. But when it comes to my own life, I can’t do anything to improve my fate. Because no one that I love or liked has ever given me an opportunity. But I am not like them. I will give people an opportunity. Just because that’s how other people treat you, it doesn’t mean that you should treat them like that. The King is able to give when he is asked. His arms are full. He doesn’t have the emptiness in his heart.

Two hours studying art history in the morning and I’m going to make a start on it again after having to do some work administration for the payment deadline now.

The Happiness of Helen

12.05.2024

I saw Helen this week. After so long. I heard her voice. The music in it. And then, I thought that I would not be able to talk to her the whole day. And I felt crushed. I felt sad. All I could think about was how unfair life was that I couldn’t be with her.

She is like an ice cube. Slippery to hold and cold. Always, the ice cube slips away from your fingers. You want to hold on to it but you can’t.

But then, unexpectedly – she is always unexpected – she turned to me as I was finishing talking to some people and then she said ‘hello’.

And then, right then, I had the happiness of Helen. She had noticed me. She had made an effort to say ‘hello’ to me. She was looking at me with those black eyes of hers. It was just one word. But with it came all of the happiness of Helen. I haven’t forgotten how she makes me feel. Why do I love her? Because she makes me happy.

That one word will have to nourish me for weeks. Because I might not see her for that amount of time now. I have booked time off for my final university assessment this year.

I got a distinction on the last art history assignment which I found out today – the very first exhibition that I have designed. I was very proud of that mark because it is, I think, a very important subject. I worked hard for that mark. It is not my best mark, but it is enough. And my tutor was very complimentary about how I write, which is my biggest vanity.

The white rose that I have chosen to represent my love for Helen has flowered again. Each time the old flower dies, a new one is born. There is something poetic and intensely beautiful about this rose in my bathroom. But that is because Helen is my love. Whatever else she may be, she is the love of the Tiger. So she is special.

the happiness of the rose

12.05.2024

the new white rose

clambers upon

the head

of the dying white rose

clamouring

its scent

the happiness of the rose

once upon a time

the rose wondered

if she could come again

into this world

where her sisters

were dying

where no one looked

at the roses

where none could understand

their joy

once upon a time

the rose was scared to grow

and to be a part of beauty

but now she sings

a silent song of snow

now she floats dreams

through the petals

now she dances

a waltz of spring

now she loves once again

now she is ready to die

once again

I ate some Greek sweets today: Almond sweet with rose, kouquat, mint flavours. Eating roses is like eating love – they are the symbols of love. The delicacy was brittle and sweet, unexpected because it didn’t taste at all like almonds. Indians use the word almond-like to talk about brown skin. For one more time, I was tasting an entirely different culture that I know nothing about. My tongue was transporting me to another world.

I got home and it was so hot I couldn’t bring myself to start the reading for the essay I need to write. I need to relax in this time. So I phoned my friend who is not well and read her a poem, ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ by Edward Lear. It is a poem about marriage and love between two different animals – the marriage of difference. Love that thrives despite difference. She wrote it down as I was writing it to her.

My foot is swollen up today from the issue I have in my leg. When I went to the doctor, she said that she would send me a letter. It has been about a month now and nothing. And she was trying to tell me off for not going to the doctor’s with my problem before. That’s this country and its doctors and its health system for you. Nice to know how they treat you with your money that you give them to pay their wages and for everything. That’s the modern day state for you: exploitation and nastiness. It is so fucking obvious and yet no one does anything about it. Everything is late, stupid, unsatisfactory, given with extreme reluctance and as though you are hated for it. That is what the people of the state are like.

There is a young lady that I was talking to about why her generation are obsessed with mountains and mountain climbing. She said that she did not get the craze. Then I asked her what crazes affect her from her generation. She said the smart phone craze. But I guess that has affected most people from most generations now, except for the very elderly.

The sun is out. The happiness of Helen came into my life again. If only I could have grabbed her hand and pulled her close to me.

The Two Years Experiment; Compliments for the Body; Girls Half My Age; Being Busy all the Time

11.05.2024

So, for two years, I have been back into white society with my ‘peers’ (although the ones I hung around the most were all younger than me). And what have I got out of it? How many of them are really my friends? Where is the woman? This is why I have mostly kept to myself as an adult. You can’t live in the superficial relationships you have to have with these people. It is unbearable after a while. You need intimacy and deep friendships and relationships in life. And they won’t give you that. Because you are an outsider and you are different. But I can’t give up being different. Because I am different. You can’t just give up your identity like that.

This war between Israel and Palestine has affected England quite badly. Because it has become about religion and racism here in this country. They are spending tens of millions of pounds policing the protests and a pro-Palestine MP, Leanne Mohamad, is standing in my area on the fact that she wants a ceasefire in Gaza as one of her main points. The very fact that she is standing on that issue shows what the climate is right now in the electorate.

People are fed up with the racism and the Islamophobia that brown people get and they want to make a stand about it. I’m not the only one that is saying it – we are all saying it. We know how we are treated, however much this society denies it and tries to pretend that it is ‘diverse’ and ‘inclusive’.

I’m not for Israel or Palestine – I don’t get involved in things that don’t concern me and which I haven’t researched in great detail. I am just telling you what the situation is for brown people and why we are angry. We know what the real deal is. That’s why we are all angry – especially the sons and daughters of immigrants who were taught by this education system that we were ‘equal’ and entitled to the same opportunities, respect and love.

You are probably wondering why I am talking about Islamophobia when I am not a Muslim – that’s because people assume I am Muslim and treat me like that as well. I’m well aware of Islamophobia.

Pop culture is getting aggressive too. Rap battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar that everyone is talking about.

These people are a fucking joke. Get a real war to fight in. Instead of a petty squabble between two rich people. Celebrity is distraction. The real spiritual war is between the world of diversity (represented in my life by Punjab and the village) and the modern day nation state modelled on Western principles. To be a real warrior, you have to be in a real fight. To be the Tiger and the King of the Fucking Jungle, you have to have lived for twenty five years as an adult fighting and arguing everyone for equality, justice, real inclusion, a real voice and for the dignity of your people. Learning everything you can because that has been your talent – for the people. Someone with real responsibility. Someone that is the hope for their community and the future. Not someone with an ego problem that can’t handle a competitor fighting over trivial bullshit.

Throughout my whole life, since I have been sixteen, people have been complimenting my body. I have always just been naturally muscular. I have high testosterone levels. Today I got two. One woman grabbed my arm and said that I had a good arm. Another one looked at me and laughingly said, ‘what’s up with the muscles’ when I was wearing a T-shirt. People just assume because I am short and thin that I wouldn’t be muscular. So it is always a surprise to them. In fact, I was an athlete at school and known for being stronger than everyone and able to lift all the weights on the rack in the school gym.

I would like to say that my muscles are the result of discipline and dedication, an intensive exercise regime. But it literally makes no difference if I train or not – I have just always had muscles whatever I do. Not bad for what these young women are calling an old man.

Like most people, I used to think it was creepy that older men were going out with young women about half their age. And now that I am around women half my age all the time and I am single, I can see it from the other side. They are the ones that are single and looking. They are the ones that you can start a family with. In this society, it is thought of as an imbalance of power to go after a woman that is that much younger than you. Because in this society, people keep on thinking of you as a child until you hit later life. But let me ask you. Are you a child in your early twenties? No, you are not. You are an adult. Either you are an adult, or you are a child. And, if these are the women that are fertile and won’t have birth complications, if these are the women that are actually available, then what is the problem? Where is the power imbalance? What power do I have being a man that is older than them? If I have it, why does this society treat me like shit based on the fact that I am an Indian man? It’s funny how I’m supposed to have some sort of power of being a man when I get no benefits and rewards from it, only demanding responsibilities for other people. What about a fucking perk for a change? Like my own family and children? And a relationship with a beautiful woman?

I am so fucking busy all the time. I never get a real break from working. Do you know why? Because I have no woman to make time for and relax. I can’t relax until I get that woman. I am stuck.

So, the summer has come. And I think of Helen in her low-cut dress that I saw her wearing once. But the memory is a sad one. Because all she did that day was talk to one of those white men that always hang around her and follow her around so that no one else can talk to her. And that’s who she likes. And what can anyone do about it?

I am suffering from sadness at the moment. And while I was being sad, I was thinking about a quirk in my personality. When someone has really hurt me and disappointed me, I can’t talk to them properly after that. Because the whole time, I am thinking about how much they hurt me. Even thinking of anything to say becomes very difficult. So this is the problem. How can you go back to having the old friendships and the old feelings for someone that you know doesn’t love you back? Now that you know it?

Giving a Gift

10.05.2024

fly where you are flying
no one asked you
parade the feathers
and despise the look
break my head
with your beak
still every night
i throw the seeds
into the air
hoping that you
that you
the birds
can feel my love

You can read more of my poetry and my other books including fiction and prose on my personal blog which features the Open Access MEHMI PRESS:

https://lnkd.in/eP2auKX3

Someone looked now at the posts on this blog. Perhaps to see what I had written in my diary today. It is a Friday night. While I am at home, studying and working, it is the time for the western world to party. Could it be Helen? Is she missing me? Why is she not partying?

I wonder if I stopped writing this blog, whether Helen would be happy and relieved or sad. To me, her behaviour is ambiguous. But I see her with the eyes of the lover. I want her to love me. So I imagine that she does. It is wish fulfilment. But if she loved me, would she not be with me?

Everyone knows I like giving gifts. Perhaps no one really cares that I give them a gift. Still, we have our feelings and their expression. It is the one time that you can really show someone you care about them. The things that you cannot say in words. So I gave someone a gift today. I don’t approve of drink, but I gave them some books about drinks and a bottle of the stuff. They are going to drink anyway. If it makes them happy, just play along.

That is the difference between me and other people. Even if I don’t like it, disapprove of it, I will let other people do their own thing. I don’t try to control anyone. I will say what I have to say – that it is bad for you. That there are reasons why it is wrong. But they are not my children that I can boss around and expect obedience from. They are grown adults. If they don’t want to listen, you can’t force them. If they don’t love you, you can’t force them. If you see them choose someone over you, there is nothing that you can do about it to stop it happening. Even if it is Helen. What you can do is keep your distance away from them so they can’t hurt you. Even if they were your friends.

I don’t have any beef with anyone that stands between me and the woman I love. After all, it is her that chose them over me. But I don’t want to talk to them or be around them. That is my choice. Why should I be forced to be around them and talk to them?

Everyone says you should talk to someone that broke your heart. Why? In everything else I can be nice. Not when it comes to that. And if you do talk to them? All I would think is that there is still some chance.

When you love someone and they don’t love you back, you feel like you are not good enough for anything. Because they have not valued you. But what have you done wrong? All you have done is be yourself. And if that is not enough for someone, what can you do about it?

People are probably thinking that I write ‘what can you do about it?’ a lot. That is reality. You are powerless. You are powerless in love. You can’t force love. You are powerless in racism. Because, again, you can’t force the racists to love you. You are powerless in the popularity contest that is life unless you sell your soul to become a sheep like everyone else. You can’t force people to like or love you.

There is one place that I am powerful. In my thoughts. In my thoughts, I know what no one else does. In my thoughts, I can see what no one else does. In my thoughts, I am The Tiger. In my body, I am powerful. I am strong. I have stamina. I have total energy. In my body, I am The Tiger. In education, I am powerful. It is my jungle. In my territories that I know, I am powerful. But in love and like, in popularity, I am not powerful. There, I am not The Tiger. Because there, there are no Tigers. There are the idiots and the white man. Not us. That is reality.

Today’s activities. Jury service. University study. Getting the presents and then commuting to give the presents to her. Then, at home: work emails, remote overtime for work (one and a half hours) [you are asking what? Graphic design, workshop planning and writing, a PowerPoint to go with it – I was making suggested amendments]. Volunteering work – sending my artwork to the writing place I volunteer at for world peace. Leisure activities were browsing in a bookshop, reading about how to improve my writing style (this is just more work, but I’m not doing it for pay or volunteering). And this diary? This diary is work. Love is work. Work is love. And here, work is hope. Love is hope. What is the hope? Every night, I say ‘Helen, I love you’. Every night, I hope that Helen is saying ‘I love you’ back.

The Birds; The movie ‘Indian’; Longing and Desire

09.05.2024

Ships. Homes. Cats, flowers. Doors. Birds. So many symbols there are for women. With the birds, I think of Leonardo Da Vinci and the dream of freedom.

Every symbol of woman, every assignation of identity questioned in an age that wants to tell us that there is only gender and its constructions, no essence that is being discovered. Writers like J. K. Rowling say that the idea of woman is being erased and cancelled.

What can one think in this age about women? What is permitted? And what is true? How can anyone ever know? Is it still possible to even speak about women without becoming a tyrant to be felled?

Across each of the camps they fight. And where are we, that look upon each camp with suspicion? That are never included because of the colour of our skins?

This is a piece of artwork which I was never able to post. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I don’t want to share what is my heart and my mind with others. So many secrets. So many knowledges. So many pictures, words, stories.

In the recent Hindi drama, they say that there is not much difference between love and revolution. Love is my revolution. The one that I can achieve by myself. The revolution that I dream about, the other one, that cannot be achieved by one man alone. But where are the men for that revolution? The world has stopped giving birth to men.

When I was young, I watched a movie ‘Indian’. A retired freedom fighter from India in his seventies punishes the corrupt world of the modern day nation state that took away his beloved daughter from him. He finds his strength again. The strength of freedom. It is one of the best Indian movies ever made. It is Tamil, not Hindi. I watched it in the Hindi dub. The music is a classic. Over and over again, I think of that movie and the freedom that India has still not attained because of the corruptions of the modern day Indian state and the roles that it calls for, the nature of its belonging. The marring and damning history of the modern day Western state that casts its nefarious shadow upon the world.

But there are those that come still from the age of freedom when we fought against colonialism, racism and oppression. My grandfather has not died in me yet. The spirit of Punjab has not died in me yet. And still, in Westernised India, there is hope. Because they are releasing ‘Indian 2’. The nostalgia craze has swept India. Let us hope that they do not destroy the meaning of this movie. Let us hope that the Indian is still the Indian. Inquilaab zindabaad! Long Live the Revolution! Inquilaab sada zindabaad! May the Revolution Live Forever! Jai Maa Kaali! Long live the Dark Mother!

My friend told me today that I have had the journey of the hero in this journey of love. I have transformed myself. But the transformation is not complete, I have told her. Because there is still the heroine missing from my life. Maybe it is never going to be Helen. Maybe there will never be a heroine. Do you know what my friend said? As long as you long, you have the heroine. As long as you have the desire, you have the heroine. The longing is there.

And Helen? How can Helen not know that I love her?

The Language of Whales; The Exam Essay; Helen’s Writing

08.05.2024

It is always the same problem. You love them. They don’t love you back.

Calligraphy from four years ago. Looking back in time.

I’m sitting here looking at how Helen wrote her name on the piece of paper I saved for myself. It is a precious object. Is it not apparent that I love writing? So how could I not love the writing of someone that I love? I look at it from time to time and think about her. The first letters of her name have a simple flourish on them. The style is not simply plain and unadorned. The letters of the most interest are the ones with a loop in them. I imagine Helen rushing the letters carelessly. One letter is completely malformed, curiously oversized. Is this a habit with her, a constant in her writing of this letter? The significance, if so? One letter is almost illegible. All the letters are uneven and have different heights. I think of her golden hands as she writes and those black eyes looking at the paper. And then, below, she has drawn a smiling face. The eyes are two vertical lines. Why vertical and not horizontal? Is that how she imagines eyes? But Helen is clever – the two vertical lines look like the letter ‘i’ in the alphabet – so even in this simple three line drawing, there is a little game of language – eye/’i’. And this piece of paper was given as a gift on a certain occasion, so one thinks about it more and more, a gift of chocolate. Which is love.

I have a final course assignment which is the most important assignment. So I don’t have as much time as I have had before when I want to relax just before bedtime. It is a lot of work studying part-time on a university course and working seven days a week and doing all the overtime. But, I am The Tiger. I have been raised by the poor where we work all the time for little reward. In the ancient Greek tale, one is the lazy grasshopper that gets away with doing nothing and can’t build a future and the others are the ants that do everything, make everything, build the future and security for all. We are the ants. We are the Untouchables, the lowest caste, the workers. Today I wore my black leather jacket – I come from the Untouchable caste of leather workers. If I cannot perform, who can? Education is a privilege – the poor don’t get it in countries like India. I have every privilege. Why would I forsake it? The true Indian doesn’t live for wealth, power or sex. He lives for knowledge and Enlightenment.

Today was an amazing day for science. They have found out what we have suspected – that whales have a language. It did not make the front page of the newspapers. It got very little media attention. But now we know that we are not unique in having a language. Now we know that there is a different type of being that we can communicate with, with their own culture on this planet. It is an exciting thought. I will follow this story, just like I follow the story of the Herculaneum scrolls.

In this diary, I complain about Helen. I tease Helen. I bully Helen. I accuse Helen. I share my life with Helen. I love Helen. And her? She called me a stranger. She treats me like a stranger. Even like a dangerous enemy. She was the woman that I have been the closest to in recent times. You have to laugh at your fate. At the joke that you are in. At the joke that your life has become. Someone somewhere is laughing. But, you know what? Everyone can laugh but I always laugh the hardest at this life and how sour it is. My friends can’t believe I am single when I look the way I do and when everyone likes me and my personality. Women on the Tube stare at me every single day. But every night I go home to my desk in my bedroom and sit there by myself and then I lie in bed by myself. So if you don’t laugh, what else can you do? Laugh and laugh hard. Why not? It is a joke.

Newness

07.05.2024

I am on jury service. You are not allowed to write anything about it or tell people any details.

But there is something happening right now. I won’t go into it. So all of the energy has come flooding back. It took one moment. If you have been reading my diary, you will know me. You will understand. There is a guaranteed way of forgetting about all of your problems.

So I got myself a haircut, got myself a shave and took a shower finally. And then I took a photograph of myself to remember myself in this moment. Hope again. Trying again. Becoming new once again. The armour comes off one more time. If the sword is going to go into my chest again, then I will chance it.

In this photograph, I believe I look handsome and attractive. It doesn’t matter what other people think.

I am going to spend the evening reading. There is so much reading to be done.

I didn’t do exercise in the morning and I skipped breakfast again. I had to do exercise after jury service. But tomorrow is another day to try and get better. Tomorrow, I am going to get up early and do what I need to do. All it took was a change of scene and the stimulation.

My thought about Helen today. I think about her. It is not a secret. Every time I told Helen what I was doing, she wanted to do it herself. A language that I learnt. A university course. Photography. I wonder about what she was saying. Do you know, Girl 3 had all the same hobbies and interests as me? Potential Girl has the same interest as well. And despite having all of these things in common, I am not with any of these women. Despite talking to them all the time and being around them for six months plus in each case. It just goes to show you. It doesn’t matter what you do or who you are. There is always some excuse.

I Have to Get Better

06.05.2024

why do you drink
so much
what do you find
in it
if not the bones
if not the corpse
the corpse of
my grandfather
that died from a stroke
from drinking
why do you smoke so much
what do you find in it
if not the corpse
the corpse of my grandmother
who died from smoking
too much
the only drinking i do
is to look in your eyes
full of intoxication
when i am drunk
it is with those eyes
that smile
that laughter
that pain i feel
when you are so close
to me
and i don’t have you
in my arms
to drink again and again
from your eyes

Something happened today which was disappointing and very upsetting.

I was going to go straight home, but because I was distracted, I forgot a letter I needed for tomorrow in my locker. So I had to go back in. That wasted an hour.

When I got there, it was late. I didn’t feel like going home. I went and sat there in Trafalgar Square by myself for thirty minutes. I was looking at the water and thinking how beautiful it would be to go in that water and never come back out of it, like Virginia Woolf who drowned herself.

I kept on thinking about the film Collateral with Tom Cruise where he asked how long your corpse would be on the metro before someone realised that you were dead, or whether they would do anything even if they knew you were dead.

I keep on thinking that I am getting better, but everything is getting worse. The nausea came back.

There is something wrong. I used to be normal. Things didn’t affect me this much before. And I know what is wrong, but there is no cure and I can’t do anything about it.

So I sat there. And then, I remembered that I would have children at the end of this year. I have waited long enough. I’m not waiting any more. I promised myself those children on the pain of death. And straight away, I got up and got myself dinner. Because to have those children, I need to be at my most fertile. I need to be in tip top shape. I have to give them the best that my body can produce. I can’t starve and mope around wallowing in my own pity for myself and my situation.

I have to get better now.

I have to start getting up in the morning on time. I have to beat the habit of lying there moping about things and then skipping breakfast. I have to make sure I exercise every morning. I have to do my language learning and reading to keep my brain sharp because you have to exercise each part of your body.

Look at me right now. I haven’t shaved in a week. I haven’t had a shower in a week. I am finding it difficult to motivate myself to do anything outside of work. I am becoming undisciplined, the type of person I don’t like.

I have to stop caring about people that don’t love or like me back. It has always been the same problem. They never like you back if you like them or love them. Every one I have been with has asked me out or hung around me first when I wasn’t that interested in them. Every one I have ever been interested in has said no. All four of them.

You have to forgot that they don’t love you. You have to forget about them. You can’t keep on hoping that something is going to happen. With Helen and Girl 2, I have a really dysfunctional relationship with both of them at the moment. I can’t forget that they wouldn’t go out with me. And Girl 2 judges me and criticises me all the time and is obviously still angry at me. What about Helen? Helen is never going to be around and she always hangs around her white men that follow her around all the time anyway. She does not care that I love her. I want to believe that she does. I don’t want to give up.

Do you know the peculiar thing about Helen and Girl 2 which struck me today? I never think about them in bodily terms. I don’t even look at their bodies. That is not natural. I am a man with a high libido. I love women. That proves that things are dysfunctional. Because with Potential Girl, who is not white, I do think of her in bodily terms. Which is natural.

When was the last time I even had a proper conversation with Helen or Girl 2? I haven’t had one with Helen in about five months or so. It is about the same time period with Girl 2. They are both in the past.

I am writing this all down rationally. Not through feeling. In actual facts. Obviously, your mind in this area does not work rationally. Even while I am writing, I still want to be with them.

What is happening in my life at the moment? Last week some drunk woman messaged me on Tinder. She must have seen my like about a week before she got drunk and wrote to me. She is white. That is the only message I have had from a white woman after being on Tinder for five months. And because she wrote to me when she was drunk, I am not going to write back to her. Because I can put up with Helen, Girl 2 and Potential Girl drinking even though I don’t like it because I know them and I care about them. But I am not putting up with it in a stranger that I don’t even know. Today, some Afro-Carribbean woman matched with me. She is very beautiful, but, like most of these women nowadays, she is taller than me. So, again, I have another Helen – taller than me and the same age. Is she even real though? That’s the question with this dating app.

There is a quote in John Wick 4. It goes something like:

Those who cling to life cling to death

Those who cling to death cling to life

The more and more I keep on thinking about that quote, the more and more I keep on thinking that it is true. I want to cling to death. And that is why I live. And those that cling to life? What do they really know about living, if they have not been raped by death?

It is said in a Hindi song in the film Guide: Today once again I have the desire to live/Today once again I have the intention of dying.

Being told to keep my intentions secret

05.05.2024

Everyone keeps on telling me that I will scare off and offend women if I say that I want to be in a relationship to have children and start a family. And they told me not to mention that I wanted children for the bloodline and the dynasty because that makes me sound patriarchal.

What is so wrong with what I am saying? Even the animals only want to have their own children. They don’t look after the children of other animals. It is natural to want your own.

Scientifically, we have ‘the selfish gene’ which wants to clone itself through offspring. Our bodies are geared towards sex and the purpose of that is to have babies. All I am saying is what is natural.

Culturally, the family is the unit of society. Why wouldn’t I want to extend the unit for my own family and dynasty?

I don’t understand this new generation of people. Literally, in the Bible, even in Western culture, it says that you should marry to have children. How have things changed so much for these Western people that what I am saying now is literally wrong?

It is not like I literally just see women as bodies to bear children. It is not like I only see them one-dimensionally as mothers. After all, you are not attracted to anyone. You are attracted to them for their personality and who they are as individuals.

In my view, it is lying to pretend that you don’t want a family when you are getting into a relationship to have a family. That is the main reason. You can get company from women that you like everywhere. What if you want something more than that? What if you want to build a future with them?

This culture and its values and its way of talking and thinking is incomprehensible to me. All you do is lie and cheat in relationships here. What happened to honesty?

Let me tell you something. What you want is never wrong, unless you want to commit a crime. It is not a crime to want your own family for your dynasty and your bloodline. There is nothing wrong with it. So why am I being told off for wanting it, thinking it and saying it? Just because other people don’t think the same way as me? It is not a secret. It is not shameful. In my view, it is not even private information, over-sharing or inappropriate. Yet I am being told to keep it as a shameful secret. That’s this culture for you.

Do I care if people think I am sexist and patriarchal? No. Because I am not. Not only have I taught feminism in schools, but I have written and given tours about it. I have helped women with their studies and their career ambitions. I have recruited women for roles at university. If I have chosen in my personal life to find someone that will prioritise the family and give me a child, I don’t think that makes me sexist or patriarchal. And I don’t agree with what Western feminism tries to say anyway. You are a body. I am a body. The body is the basis of our being. That is what science and psychology persuasively suggest based on empirical evidence. Science tells us that nature has decided that our main role in life is to have offspring based on analysis of evolution and animal behaviour. Not to go to the restaurant and chat with someone the whole night for ‘company’ which goes nowhere and doesn’t create any results for the good of society or anyone.

If other people want to waste their time on ‘company’ which goes nowhere, that is fine. Go ahead and do it. No one is judging you. So why judge me for wanting to produce results? This new society is incomprehensible in so many ways.

Today, I kept the whole evening free. I have been feeling depressed and exhausted over the past few days. But today, I feel fine. So I am just going to do some reading.

Is this what I wanted?

04.05.2024

wheeled flower

revolves

in a different sphere

wheeled flower

loves another man

befriends another

wheeled flower

flees from my life

leaving behind

the faintest scent

My friend always tells me off. He says it is my own fault that I don’t have Helen. So I said, but she must have some interest in me because she reads my diary and my letters to her. So I must have at least caught her interest somehow (but who knows why she reads? Maybe she laughs at everything I am writing and jokes about it with her friends). And my friend said to me, ‘is that what I wanted?’

Of course it isn’t. This space is just the consolation for not having Helen. For not having Girl Number 2 who I went with to get away from Helen because of the misunderstanding. For not having Girl Number 3 because she also said no. For not being able to ask out Potential Girl because I don’t want to hear her say no because I am older than her. Because if I heard her saying that, then I wouldn’t want to talk to her again and we are friends.

What I wanted was very different with Helen.

And what I wanted from life was also very different from what I have. Where are the stimulating intellectual conversations? Where are the women? Where is the reward and recognition for hard work, talent and original thought? For creativity? But this is the world. It is disappointment, frustration, torture.

I was thinking today about why I didn’t move out of the family home when I was younger. I was going to. I guess what it comes down to is the assessment of love. From my mother, I get unrivalled love. From this society and the women in it, you get no love. They can’t love you. They are incapable of it. The way that my mother loves me is the love of the poor. Who have no possessions. So they make up for it with love. Because love is the most important thing in their lives. And this society? They have possessions and no love. I am hanging around city types when I am from the village. I am hanging around white people when I am not white. They talk about diversity and inclusion, on getting on with people from all walks of life. They try to make it sound like it is easy. It is not easy. We come from different worlds.

So my assessment was right. My mother can love me in all ways except for one. And the women here? They can’t love you at all. I was confirmed in what I thought about things. Even the Indian ones, they have Westernised them, so they can’t love you if you act like you have been brought up to be – an Indian man.

My friend wrote to me with her cracking of a puzzle today. So that was the most intellectual conversation aside from the tours I gave. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough of the languages to have been able to contribute much to that discussion. It’s why I needed her help in the first place. I was just listening and seeing how it matched what I had written about the picture in the puzzle.

I gave my friend some portraits I printed off for her for her birthday as well as a book on a subject that she wants to study. A birthday present.

Complete depression today. But I finished off my art history assignment just now and sent it off. I worked all day. Life has entered a sad phase.