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 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?

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.

The Gardens; Neasden Temple; The Splendour of India

03.05.2024

the one that climbed your face

to put the fire in your eye

was a conjurer

the one that charted the nape of your neck

to cascade the water

through your hair

was an explorer of the night

the one who shaped the golden earth

to make the skin so lovely

that one

that one was

the goddess

You can either believe in the power of love and keep on writing. You can keep on hoping that Helen will change her mind. Or you can believe in the power of hate and separation. And expect that Helen will never be with you. You can either hope that Helen is free. Or you can despair that she is with the white men that she is always hanging around and that she has become someone else’s. You can either believe that Helen reads this diary, these letters to her. Because she has some feelings for you. Or you can believe that she does not read, does not love you, never thinks about you. What choice would you make? We live in the dream. The dream of love.

Slowly, slowly, the drops of water wear away the stone over time. Her heart is stone. Her eyes are stone. The water is each word wrenched from the heart of The Tiger. Each drop falls on the stone. It seems impossible. This love is impossible. This woman is impossible. Even fate itself is against The Tiger. He never sees Helen. He never talks to her. All there is is this meeting place. The meeting place of minds and hearts. And even here, Helen is silent. Even here, Helen is invisible. What The Tiger has is his memory of her.

And the memory today? While I was eating, I was remembering how Helen told me that the Indian diet is unhealthy and the diet from her country is healthy. Those are the kinds of conversations I was having with Helen. Arguments.

But do you know something about The Tiger? The Tiger fucking loves fighting. He loves the fight. The dance with the words. A warrior loves a warrior.

When you don’t want to live, there is a reason to live. When you don’t want to go on, there is a reason to go on. You have sworn revenge. For injustice. For dishonour. For love. Revenge gives you a meaning and purpose to your life. Revenge gives you the power to go on. You are filled with anger. And for your revenge, the revenge which will change the world and everyone in it, you live the life of The Tiger. The Tiger has come alive for one reason. The eyes of The Tiger have opened for one reason. Once upon a time, The Tiger was not the Tiger. Now, there is only one purpose. The revenge of success. The revenge of transformation.

We live in the world of our enemies. They hold the seats of power. They are demons with human faces. They rule the world with hate. They lie. They live shameful lives. They oppress the people. They seduce with the love of power. They have dishonoured our mother. Yet they live lives of privilege, ease and happiness. This is not a hallucination or a story. This is the world that we are living in. The world that must be transformed so that it becomes habitable again. Sometimes I look at this world and I know why the human race has survived like it has: because of the selfishness and oppression of its people, those that take and do not give but pretend to have a benign face despite it all, despite the absolute corruption of their power. The seduction and propagation of selfish power.

I gave the tour I wrote at the Gardens. I have had to change so many things to take account of the seasonality and the planting and the new places that have opened up. Without passion, you cannot perform. Without passion, you cannot revise and relearn. All I do these days is to learn things, interpret things and share those interpretations with other people. That is what it means to have a voice and to contribute, to change this world of ignorance and apathy through education. I live the life I was expected to live – without any of the rewards.

I went to Neasden Temple today and it was the first time I ever went there. It is the most beautiful building that I have ever been inside. I am fortunate to see, fortunate to live, fortunate to be there. Fortunate that I was able to go there from volunteering in the Gardens because it is nearby. I bathed the idol in water twice, once as myself, once as my mother. My mother is Hindu. This is her religion. Inside the inner space, the carvings were astonishing. The hand of a human had created this field of worship. The hand of a human had sculpted the dream to make this place.

And then, radiant with beauty and the gift of worship, I went into the exhibition space to do with Hinduism and India. It was a celebration of our culture and our achievements, which are not given credit in the Eurocentric and hostile West. Mathematical discoveries, medicinal discoveries, astronomical discoveries, insights into the human condition, the way to live, the way to celebrate and protect life on this planet. The way of living and thinking that has been there since the dawn of time and will be there until the dying moments of the human race on earth. The longest continuous way of being in the world. I have been raised in the religions of power to be powerful. That is why I am The Tiger. It is not just a name. It is who I am. The product of thousands of years of continuing, immortal civilisation. The splendour of India.

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.

Loving Without Loving; Talking Without Talking; Looking Without Looking

22.04.2024

In whatever this is with Helen – it is a relationship without a relation – I am not even friends with her, not her boyfriend – it is, as Henry James described it, ‘a flirtation without the benefits of a flirtation’ – I have achieved what we would think of as impossible. I have loved her without loving her. I haven’t even touched her one single time except by mistake. I have talked to her without talking to her – this is what this diary is. I have looked at her without looking at her – out of the corners of my eyes. She is the impossible woman. I have had to become the impossible man that pursues the impossible relationship with this impossible woman.

How much thought. How much time. How much investment into her. And what is in my hand? Nothing. I paid a price for love. It was an extortionate price. And despite paying all the costs, I had something taken away from me. My hope.

And, after one and a half years of effort, here we stand. It has been a tiring game. I have tried to exit this game so many times and take Helen out of my life. Every time, I keep on saying, never talk to her again. Possibly, the game is completely over. Possibly, she is with one of those men that follow her around. They are white. You can’t compete with them if you are Indian – that is this society and the women in it. There is nothing you can do about it. Absolutely nothing.

And this is the powerlessness of this situation in Western society for us. You have to watch the same story unfold over and over again. If the men they go with are not white, they act like white people. You can’t force someone to love you. So there is nothing you can do about it. You are on a perpetual trial with these women because of your culture. Nothing is ever good enough for them. It doesn’t matter how much you care about them. They will never accept you or look at you like a man. Because you are not a man to them. You are something else. Something less than a man.

And who are they going with? These low testosterone little boys that have never fucking grown up with their inane conversations. No achievements. No original thoughts. No fitness. People that I wouldn’t ever entertain the thought of going out with in a million years if I was a woman.

But it is what it is. You can either give up. Or you can hope to meet just one person out of all of these women here in this country that is not like that.

You know, I talk to different women almost every week on these apps. Helen has the opinion that I am not eligible. But other women don’t think that. I am still attractive. I have always been attractive. It has just been the question of meeting someone that I am interested in. Some of these women are very beautiful. And there is a particular ethnicity that finds me very attractive I have discovered. And I am not talking about Indian women.

I was looking at a woman today that I have recently met somewhere over the last few days. I have literally done nothing to her and she avoids me. For no reason. And then, I saw her talking to a white guy, white like her, and she was smiling at him and making an effort to talk to him after the first time of meeting him. What do you expect? Some if not most of them are like that. You get used to it, even if you don’t like it and think it is wrong.

Unlike some of these women, I don’t tar everyone with the same brush. You have to keep on hoping that you will meet the one that is not like them at some point. They literally all can’t be the same. Some of my friends are not like that – they are in relationships with men from other cultures that are not white. That’s how you know that you can trust them.

So, the loser in love speculates on the women in his life in this white culture and this white life. He is a loser in love not because of any other reason but because of the culture in which he was raised. These women think they are all unique individuals and their ‘choice’ is their freedom. That is their false consciousness. They are not free. They are controlled by a white supremacist society and patriarchy. That is their love.

So what happened today? The highlight was fish and chips for dinner. And shopping in Marks and Spencer’s for lunch tomorrow. There are two things you never lose interest in in this world – food and women. However disappointing women have been for you, you always find interest in the new ones that come into your life if you are attracted to them. And that is the luckiness of evolution and women. They complain all their lives that men are attracted to them and approach them. But without that attraction, why would anyone ever make even the first move? It is the elegant thinking of mother nature to keep the human race going, the impetus behind every ambition and every move. The beautiful woman. And thankfully, in this world I am moving in at the moment, there is always a new beautiful woman that comes into it. If number one says no, there is number two. If number two screws you over, there is number three. And now, there is number four. And if things aren’t going to happen with number four, a new interest comes into the picture. So, that is what is happening right now. Indian people have a saying – he who tries never loses. The prize is the family and the child. The biggest prize in the whole world: the future.

Diary Entry 15.04.2024

one in love

takes every risk

the hero in love

is known for doing

and daring

one in love

lays his heart on

the bed of nails

for the glossy black heel

to trample it down

to kick it away

to turn its heel upon

one in love takes

every risk

one in love

swallows his fate

as his destiny

flies from his hands

Before I began this diary, I sat for two minutes staring at the white screen on my laptop. Helen. Girl 3. Potential Girl. Maybe even all three of these women are reading my diary. They are sitting there reading my thoughts about them (although I avoid writing about Girl 3 and Potential Girl for various reasons – including the fact that I don’t see them for about five minutes a month like Helen and I don’t need to communicate to them like this). They know that I like them. It is not a secret. But do they care? Nothing is happening (although, to be fair, I haven’t actually asked Potential Girl out and I am not sure if I should or not yet).

I have started wondering if I am too old for all this stuff. There is nobody in a reasonable age range to me that I actually know and talk to and that I am attracted to that is actually available. Every woman I know is younger than me. They come from a different generation, aside from the fact that they are all from a different culture. The ones in my generation are too old to have children anyway. I have tried events. There are no women there. I have tried dating apps. That is not working how I want it to work – the women that are interested in me, I am not interested in. If they are strangers, they have to be beautiful. Otherwise, I am not attracted to them. The beautiful ones show some interest, and then it fizzles out. What should I be doing? I am not going out to pubs and clubs and hanging around those drunken women. I’m just not going to do it.

People tell you sad things sometimes. Someone told me something quite sad today. And I understand her. And I understand the other side too, how the others saw her. Human relationships, when they end badly, are some of the saddest things in the world. I feel sorry for her and how much she had to suffer. And I understand it. She is going to suffer what happened for the rest of her life. This is the nature of love. It is absolute violence and carnage when it goes wrong. Because for some people, love is about control. That’s how they express their love. You have to learn to be a love and live, live and let live person. You can’t control someone else. You can’t force them to become you. But who learns this lesson in this society that we live in? It is a society of control freaks that can’t live and let live, people that have to feel exactly the same as each other before they can love them. They can’t love difference. Hence my situation right now. Because I am difference. And I won’t let anyone control me.

Today, I helped my friend with her dream. It was a dream of education. I went through my comments with her for her writing. Do you know how many women I have helped with their dreams? Even though I am busy all the time? So many. And then, do you know what I got for my care and attention? Just because I think that if I were a woman, I would prioritise my family and children, like I even do as a man, over a career, I am told that I am against women. That’s reality. It doesn’t matter what you do in life. That is how you are judged by the people in this society. Because you are Indian and they make assumptions about you.

I have been told to talk to everyone that comes in the galleries. So that is what I have been doing all day. Some of those women with little babies are literally desperate to talk to someone adult for a change. They just won’t stop talking. There were two like that today. Then, the other one that wouldn’t stop talking was a French schoolgirl because she wanted to practice her English with me. She was actually perfectly fluent and really showed up her classmate who stared at us talking without saying anything.

Today’s highlights from the tour about women artists I created: taking around a father with his two little girls. That tour has been written for women. When I told them at the end to keep on making art to share the thoughts in their head, the father started asking me if I made art. He thanked me for being so kind. The other highlight was that I gave my tour to about twenty young schoolchildren and made all the language and the ideas very simple. Later, the teacher came up to me to thank me for taking them around the poster gallery like that because they wouldn’t have known how to talk about the posters. I don’t need to say it – the tours are always the best when there are the little children there for the future. You plant the seed and see if it takes.

I was shopping for lunch tomorrow at the Marks and Spencer’s since I have a day off. I was looking at all the people rushing around at that time. And what I was thinking to myself was that these are the same people that have created this world around me. A world where I can’t just sit around and read and think all day. A world where the thing that I am the best at and that makes me special, my cleverness and ability to see the things that no one can see, my ability to put things together that no one knows go together, my originality, my creativity, my mind is all redundant and unused. All those massive ideas I have that would change how people think and what they read are just sitting stockpiled in my head. I don’t have time to write them up. Because I have decided to chase this family. And this family is not happening. I am wasting my talent for the dream of love. For money for the family that isn’t there. I have sacrificed my ambition for love. I did what I say that everyone should do: put the family first. The question is, how long? How long before I give up on that dream and just buy the children? At some point, I am going to have to accept the situation – I am not like the other people in this society.

Someone said to me today (I think she was joking) that I was flirting already with the new women that have come in. Is it flirting when you are being friendly with a woman if you are a man? Was she just joking? I am a man. I like beautiful women. I like talking to beautiful women. It is a fact. I’m not going to deny it. Why should I? If you don’t harass them and bother them, you are not doing anything wrong. Even if I am flirting – and I would say that I don’t know how to flirt – there is no law against flirting, as long as you don’t make innuendoes and insinuations and offend them. How do you even flirt with a woman? Is joking around considered flirting nowadays?

Staying Upbeat – The Mental Challenges of a Customer Facing Role

Dr Suneel Mehmi – Visitor Experience Assistant and Tour Guide (London)

04.04.2024

When everything is fine, it is not hard going. You enjoy meeting new people from all the varied walks of life all around the world. You enjoy talking about things that you are passionate about: art, history, culture. You enjoy inspiring people and making their day. The customers are like your friends and guests to the place.

However, as soon as you feel sad, everything changes. Because now, you have to put on a brave, happy face. You have to conceal the sadness inside. All the insistent troubling thoughts you have to choke down. You have to fake being upbeat and happy. You slap the fake smile on your face. You laugh even though you feel like crying. You push everything down so that it can’t come to the surface.

You become an actor with a performance of joy.

One time, I watched an interview with the Hindi film actor Anil Kapoor. He was shooting the movie Mr. India, one of his finest performances. There was a scene where he discovered the powers of invisibility and he was supposed to be deliriously happy. Actually, he confided to the interviewer, when he had to shoot that scene, it was one of the saddest days in his life. At the time, I thought to myself what a cruel career he was involved in. But the more and more you work in a customer facing role, the more you have to perform emotionally (the more you have to hide your sadness from friends and family)

In any workplace, such is the culture in the Western world, you have to hide the fact that you are sad. But since customer service is a performance, you have to do it in an exaggerated way in a customer facing role. This is the mental challenge of the role. You have to completely eliminate your emotional self and personal life from the equation so that you can perform. You have to wear a mask, forget about yourself and what is going on in your life. The role calls for the mastery of emotion. You forget yourself so that you can form a bond of empathy with your guest and make their day. You forget about your happiness so that you can make the happiness of the other. It is the extinction of self, the act of altruism, the act of putting others before yourself. This is the greatest mental challenge of a customer facing role.

The Long Wait; Sour Worms; Excitement in Life; How Sisyphus Lives; Reluctance; Pillow Talk

16.03.2024

On my desk, there is a packet of sour worms which I picked up in Amersham. Sour sweets are some of my favourite things. Yet I haven’t touched that packet in several months. I am losing interest in doing things.

Today, a new art history book came for the course. I don’t have time to open it up. And I don’t feel like it. When I make time to study, I enjoy it. But before, there is no excitement.

It is all coupled up with the problem in getting out of bed in the mornings. There is no excitement in life any more. Because the person I love has told me that she doesn’t love me. She said something to make me leave her alone. Now it is just a case of going through the motions because so many people depend on you to perform. In this society, so long as you function at work, nobody cares about the rest of your life.

And work? It is a career I chose because they wouldn’t let me become a university professor because of their racism. My main ambition in life is to be a writer and a researcher. Do I have time to do that now? No. Because in this society, you have to get a job to get a woman if you have brown skin. And even when you get that job, there is always some excuse why they can’t care for you.

But, I do enjoy my job. I do enjoy studying. I enjoy the things I do. It might not be ideal, but it is fulfilling.

It is the excitement beforehand. Because there is no woman you love. Do you know what love is? Your mind feels like it is on the high of crack cocaine. You can’t ever feel better than that. It is exciting. You have excitement in your life. You have a million plans in your mind at the same time. You are looking forward to being around her, talking to her, looking at her. There is so much to hope for.

What is there really to hope for now? We live in this society of love with the lovely people in it. People who just can’t love you or give you a chance.

I was thinking about waiting today. You can wait your whole life for something that you want, like a family and children and someone to love and care for. A whole life waiting for something that never materialises. How patient do you have to be to do that? Because you don’t want to settle. You want the right person. They don’t have to be the perfect person. They just have to be someone that you think is special. And that makes you happy. So you keep on waiting. And then, when you find that person, you realise that all you have to do is wait some more. Because they don’t want you. So, this is your life. You live in frustration. You have to live in hope. That’s all you have. And sometimes, you even give up hope. You resign yourself. But the final resignation is still to come. Because when you finally accept that you are not going to meet someone that likes you and that you like, that’s when you will have to strike out on your own and get your family a different way. By buying the children from someone and raising them yourself without a mother. You are going to have to punish yourself and your children and everyone around you to get what you want.

Today I didn’t want to write this diary. All I did was work all day and then some overtime. What really happened? Some woman with her little baby kept on walking in front of me at work. Finally, when she was leaving, I talked to her a little. And, as I guessed, she was keen to talk to me. There is a certain ethnicity of people – not Indian – that find me attractive or interesting I have found out. She was from that group. After work, I was eating my dinner after the overtime and one of the women sat down and talked to me after the shift. We sat there for half an hour. Because I didn’t feel like leaving and going home because what was there to do at that time in the night really?

Why did I write the diary? Because Helen is not here with me for some pillow talk. This is the only way I can talk to her in the night time and share what happened in my day. Instead of talking to her, I write a monologue. I believe that she reads it. Thinks about me. Cares about me. But maybe I am wrong even there. We cling to our illusions and our dreams. They give meaning to our lives and shape to our experiences. While she is reading, I write for her and to her. I think about her even if she doesn’t think about me. It would be easy now to stop writing. It would save a lot of time. I could use that time for something else. But how can Paris lose even a moment with Helen? When she is what he thinks about? Paris doesn’t want to be in love with Helen. It is not practical. It is costly. He suffers. But what you find out in life is that you can’t control things like that. You have to go with what you are feeling and you can’t shut it off even if you try to. You look around the world and it is hate that rules. So you make the mistake of thinking that love is not a powerful thing. But then, you fall in love with someone and it takes over everything. And then you realise why they sing about the power of love and you realise why they think of it as strength. But at the same time, you realise that love is a weakness and a disease. It literally makes you sick. But that is because you are starving for love, not because of the love itself.

So I write. I think about her eyes looking into mine. I think about the way she turns her mouth down into that little frown and how she creases her forehead. I think of that sweet voice caressing my ears. I think of her arguing with me with her serious face which looks a little sad. In your dreams. That’s what they say. In your dreams. In your dreams, it is permitted to imagine her there with you in the night time with you in your room.

The Babysitter; Indian Blood Composition; How Other People See My Job; Researchers at the Museum; Women’s Feet and Body Language

07.03.2024

Some babysitter came into that context two days in a row, yesterday and today. She looked familiar so I asked her today if she had been before. She got annoyed that I couldn’t remember her from yesterday. Do you know why I couldn’t recognise her? Because she had taken off her coat which she was wearing yesterday. Why was she getting annoyed at me? It doesn’t surprise me. Women are angry at me all the time. Did I want to go into the fact that I can’t recognise them when they change their appearance? No. What was the point? I didn’t even talk to her yesterday and she was annoyed at me for not recognising her.

The likeliest outcome is that I am never going to be with Helen. One day, a few years from now, Helen may look back at this episode in her life when I was in it. She won’t regret not giving me any love back. She will probably wonder why she read my diary every night (because she is getting love for free without having to do anything for it, whereas I am having to suffer for love without getting anything out of it). Because by then, most likely – she might even be with someone now – she will be with someone. Whatever issue she has now will have been resolved. The only person that is going to have any regrets is me. That I didn’t get her. That I loved someone that didn’t love me back. Again. Sometimes, I wonder if there is something really wrong with me. Why has this happened three times? Do I just unconsciously go for people that are going to disappoint me and hurt me? Am I a secret masochist?

Actually, the main feeling I had when Helen said no the first time – aside from disappointment and despair – was shock. I literally couldn’t believe that she was saying no. How can you be so mistaken about someone and how they are acting and talking? But such is life. Such are the relationships between men and women. Such is the unconscious. The unconscious seems to love pain. It revels in it. It likes to punish me.

I read an article that Indian people probably come from Iran and that we have a lot of Neanderthal variety genes in us from mating with them extensively – more than in other countries (90% of all known Neanderthal genes). They’re trying to guess why.

It’s probably because we are attracted to difference and because we are the most cosmopolitan, inclusive and diverse people. We accept people’s differences and still see them as ourselves. We have been taught that everyone has their own path to truth. In my family, everyone has had a mixed religion marriage going back two generations:

Grandfather: Guru Ravidassia, Grandmother: Sikh

Father: Guru Ravidassia, Mother: Hindu

All these Western people boasting about their cultural diversity when they won’t give you the important things because of your ethnicity… Indian people are the ones that are truly diverse. From prehistoric times. In Hinduism, we accept that each has his or her own gods that they worship. We celebrate the religions of other people. We greet them in their languages. It is our way of life. At least, in my family and in my background. The modern people that have been corrupted by colonisation and the Western state are just as bad as the racists and hypocrites, if not worse. The life we live is the old way of life. The way of life that has endured.

Sometimes, when someone with a PhD comes into the museum, I tell them that I have a PhD as well. And then, you know what the response is? They ask me what I am doing working in the museum. That’s what other people think about my job. They look down on it. Actually, my job suits me. And I don’t care what academic people think about me. Do you know what I think about them? Academic people – for the most part – are a bunch of snobs. They are ill mannered, cold and distant. They are selfish. They are always too busy for you. They are not my type of people. There are some good ones. But the lifestyle makes even them distant, because they have so much work piled onto them. They usually come from the white, middle class and have been privileged their whole life.

A bunch of researchers at the museum that I interacted with today. It was like being a graduate student in the university again, listening to other people’s research. I listened to their projects. I can understand why they are studying those things. However, it was stuff that I wouldn’t have studied myself. It is very rare that someone does something that interests me personally. I mean, I could see what the importance of their topics was. But to spend years and years on that stuff is a different matter entirely. I go for the biggest and most challenging topics. I am ambitious. Things that people have never thought of before. Things that no one has ever discovered before. I know a lot. I keep it to myself. Why should I share it if I am not going to be rewarded and recognised for it? The mass of people on this planet are ignorant. They are not going to thank you for finding things out. They will go on being ignorant. Why should I kill myself for the ignorant and those that misunderstand everything that you write? I gave up my projects for a family. For some heirs that I can pass my knowledge on to. Now it is the time to find someone that is not selfish and ignorant so that I can have that family.

There was a very beautiful woman on the Tube today. Our eyes locked as she boarded the train, beautiful blue eyes. She made her way in and suddenly, a few stops later, I noticed her foot. It was pointed directly at me, although she was seemingly immersed in her phone. She kept it pointed at me the whole way on the journey when there was no other rational explanation for why it was pointed at me when it could have just been pointed anywhere. In terms of body language, if a woman points a foot at you, it usually means she is thinking about you. And is possibly attracted to you. Do you want to know something weird? Women are always pointing their feet at me. Even when it is really awkward. I have tried some of the poses myself. Some of them actually hurt. Like when they are standing right next to me in a group of people and they turn their feet at right angles to point at me. I was watching someone the other day. The foot started off pointing at someone else, but eventually it kept on moving in my direction and ended up pointing at me. She does it every single time. And then, to prove that I was right, she looked at me first right after she finished talking. People reading my blog probably think I am really vain and conceited. I am not. It is literally just a fact that people tell me that I am good looking all the time, not just family members. I can see what I look like in photographs. Indian women with much higher paid and high status jobs than me like my profile on dating apps because of my looks. Why else? And I can see women pointing their feet at me all the time and sneaking looks at me on the Tube. I am not boasting about it. It is just a fact. Someone at one of the places I am at told me that the reason none of the women that come in ever complain to me about anything about the place is because of the way that I look. She said it was because of my eyes. She reminded me that they are just seeing me for the first time. And yet, despite that, I am having to look around for a woman. Because the only ones I am attracted to are not attracted to me. Or if they are, they won’t do anything about it or give me an opportunity. A woman’s unconscious is full of desire for you. But their conscious won’t let them do anything about it.

That is the difference in life. If I was physically attracted to someone, I would give them a chance to prove themselves. It wouldn’t matter if they were different to me. Because I come from the old Indian culture and we accept and compromise. Do you think Helen is the same as me? She is not. We argued a lot about things (Girl 2 pretended she was exactly the same as me – I won’t go into details). It doesn’t matter. Because you don’t have to be a clone of someone to be with them. And if you were, that would be boring.