The Many Forms of the Mother Goddess

13.04.2024

the three kisses

from the three flowers

the three pairs of eyes

from the three that I look into

in each kiss

there is a rose

and there is a thorn

in each kiss

there is life

and there is poison

this face that wants to turn away

this face that wants to hide

this face that is unknown

and my face

whose forehead

whose cheeks

whose lips

thirst for that kiss

and the result

So. Three women. There was supposed to be one. And when she was the only one I had and could think about, she didn’t say yes. Then the next one didn’t say yes. And now there are three. Difficulties with all three, including the one I haven’t asked out yet (maybe I never will – we will see).

With Helen (who is aloof but not nasty – although she has a temper as well – I have seen it) and Girl 3 (Main Frenemy, fiery and with my temper), the job is to rebuild everything and change their mind. It is going more successfully with the frenemy, believe it or not. Because she has my personality. Potential girl also has my personality. But with her, there are certain considerations and she is like Helen which is dangerous. In that she will treat a friend like a boyfriend and then hurt them when the moment comes. So you will always be unsure with her and you could be in for a lot of pain. And, like Helen and Girl 3, she can’t decide. So the best thing would be to leave her alone. But the thing is, can you think rationally about these things? You can’t. So with her, there is the cautious, cautious approach. If it looks like it, I will go for it.

Why not give up on all of them? If it is this difficult? Because I care about them and want to be with them. I think about them. I am intoxicated with them when I am around them. They might not think about me. But what can you do about that? When you have chosen someone to be with you, you don’t want them to be gone out of your life. I have known them all for a long time. I can see what they are like. Once you have them, they will be trustworthy.

In the Hindu religion, my mother’s religion, the mother goddess takes various forms. We are not like the West. We don’t just worship one goddess or one god. Our love is modelled on worship. You can love more than one woman. But you are only allowed to marry one. That is the modern condition. But without being able to love more than one woman, you would be screwed. Because when they disappoint you and turn you down, your life would be without any hope. Because how would you be able to love someone else? How would you be able to find the substitute to move on?

But Paris chose one out of the three. He chose the goddess of love.

Before in life, I moped when I was disappointed. Years wasted. When I could have been building a life. Because in some deranged way, I didn’t want to move on. Now, I will move on. I don’t have the time to waste any more. I have got through three disappointments in a row. Two at the same time – one from Helen. While I am watching and waiting for these three women, there are some potential candidates that have come into life recently. And they are showing the signs of interest. So things are happening again. What is not happening is that I am taking a serious interest in anyone else but the three women. Because I have seen them over time. I have developed the feelings for them. I have invested in them emotionally. Why start again when they are still in my life?

Lots and lots of tours today. One was for someone with one of those titles. He gave me a really good review. A woman thanked me so earnestly for giving me the tour and I talked to some PhD students who also really loved my tour too.

But the highlight of the day was something different. A little girl lost her owl ‘Hedwig’. I found the owl for her and reunited her with her friend. The family was so thankful afterwards, especially as I found her loved one so quickly. Just looking at her face made all the pain go away. In someone’s life, you are a hero and you gave them what they loved.

Achievement of the day? I used my French to talk to a lost child and locate her parents. One of the managers was impressed and asked me how many languages I could speak which impressed them even more.

Inroads into the art history assignment. I am thinking of doing a Biology ‘A’ Level as well since I am in the Gardens now and I am dead serious about everything I do. I will qualify myself so I can contribute. Because I love what I do and I do what I love.

Kissing a Woman For Real; The Suit Works; Lifting a Million Dollars; Recruitment Decisions

22.03.2024

The most successful book in my Open Access Press, THE MEHMI PRESS, is my book about Hindi films. It is read almost every day by someone. So, I have spread my culture. I have achieved something. All by myself. I am a doer. I don’t sit around and wait. I make my own opportunities and carve out a niche for myself. I do what I have been raised and taught to do – fight for Mother India.

A woman came up to me on the street and starting asking me where I got my suit because it was so lovely. Then, she asked me to kiss her. In fact, she ordered me to kiss her. She offered herself. So I kissed her. I am single. Nobody has given me any encouragement or any signs. I am free. As I touched her with my mouth impulsively, I felt the softness of her against me. It has been a little while. It felt so beautiful…

She was beautiful and young. She is from the same background as me, working class. They are friendly and they are not repressed like the women that I know. Maybe I made a mistake. By moving out of my class and thinking that somehow these other women had something that the women from my class didn’t have. Maybe I should change the women that I approach.

A few days ago, I was thinking of kissing a woman. Now I have kissed one for real. Everything changes in just a few days.

In my book of relationships, it says that you should not tell someone that you love that you are around other women or think about them. Of course, you shouldn’t tell them that you are kissing other women. But I have warned Helen. If you don’t give me what I want, I will go with someone else. I am not going to mope around after her because my time is precious. I need my babies and my family. Even if it is a stranger. She doesn’t care. She hasn’t done anything. Who knows who she is doing what with? How long has it been that she knows I love her? She must think that I can’t get another woman. I can. Whenever I want. If I hung around those drunken women. I don’t. They are not my sort.

I have known her for a year and half. I have been talking to her through this diary for six months. If she had any feelings for me, she would have kept me for herself. It is me that can’t move on from her and keeps on hoping that she will change her mind. Even now, I am hoping that she will change her mind. So many women that are strangers to me look at me, think about me, are clearly attracted to me. On the tube back from London, a blonde woman was staring at me in a sultry kind of way and wouldn’t look away even when I looked at her. It is obvious. But this is Helen and how she is. She cannot bring herself to show me any affection.

I am not the one that is doing anything wrong. She has promised me nothing and given me no encouragement. I want to commit to her. I care about her. I want her to be the only one in my life so I can focus on her. She is not letting me.

Do you know, someone – probably Helen – has been thinking to themselves that this is the time that Suneel writes and has been checking my diary over and over again to see today’s entry? If that is Helen, then that is her personality. She will say to me that she is not interested in me. She will not do anything about anything. And yet, she has to read my diary where I am telling her that I love her. She misses me when I don’t write to her. She has gotten used to talking to me in the night. But still, nothing. Figure that one out. What does Helen even tell herself about me? I am obviously not a friend. Because a friend is not romantically interested in his female friend. A friend doesn’t write love letters in his diary to his friend. But Helen wants me to pretend I am her friend even though she knows that I love her. And that is what I have to do. In the writing, I can be myself. In real life, I have to be a friend. So Helen probably lies to herself about me.

The one I kissed was the fourth woman today that approached me on the street to tell me how wonderful my jacket was. Helen might want to show me that she is not attracted to me. Other women are. They want to make conversation with me. They think I look nice and dress nice. But as I often say, I am not desperate. Either I have to know you for a long time to develop feelings for you, or I have to be physically attracted at first sight. And I don’t hang around drunken women like the one I kissed today for serious things like a mother for my children.

We went to the Bank of England Museum and I lifted about a million dollars worth of gold bullion. The other guys were from the place I work at. I talked to quite a few of the staff. They were really friendly women – nowadays, everyone is really friendly to me. I have a trustworthy face for a lot of people and they like my clothes.

I did some recruitment today somewhere, assessing the candidates. It was an interesting experience. But obviously, everything for that has to be confidential.

The Three Women; The Nightmare of God; Time Runs Out; Love Runs Out; A Good Day at Work; A Thank You Note; The Rejection of Difference and Repression

18.03.2024

There is a moment when the shine comes off reality. Some people hide from the ugliness of the nuts, bolts and the naked mechanisms. They deny, flee. But then, what about those that lock their eyes on the terrible truths and try to change the fabric of things in this world? Are they heroes or monsters?

When I finish a piece of art, I am always proud of my handiwork. It is a piece of me. So I was pleased with this one. And when I do the work, because it is digital art, I always post it straight away to share it with the world. I make it for the world as a gift. I work quickly. I think of my art as calligraphy – skills learnt to convey expression in a moment, years of refinement to produce spontaneity. The influence is from Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, the beautiful writing.

I was wondering if Helen really wasn’t well or if I had just read that into the situation. She didn’t look well to me and then there are other memories involved. Me and Helen are almost strangers to each other now. We haven’t talked for a very long time because we are never together any more. She knows about me because I want to believe that she reads this diary every night. What do I know about her? What I know of her is based on her behaviour rather than what she has told me. Her behaviour is distinguished by kindness and care. That is her personality. That is the personality of all the women that I am interested in. It is has become the most important thing.

It has been playing on my mind that Helen doesn’t seem well. Am I contributing to that with this diary? Why does she read it? The fact is that Helen suffers, with or without this diary. And then, when I saw her it was after a day in the weekend. Perhaps that is why. But feeling unwell also goes with stress. But all this could be a misunderstanding. Perhaps Helen is not unwell at all. Sometimes, I see her face and it changes from how I remember it. How do I remember it? The flashing brown eyes when she ambushed me – because usually her eyes are dark and black. They changed colour. The time when she changed her hair and I couldn’t recognise her when I looked into her face. The serious look when she is talking about something which she thinks is important, the intensity of her. The frown that goes down sometimes when you say something. The smile, like the smile of the Mona Lisa.

When people around you are unwell – possibly Helen and then my other friends – you wonder if there was a god, does he get nightmares about the way that he makes people suffer on this planet? How does he live with the guilt of what he causes to happen if he were real? Because it is not just them that suffer. It is the people around them that care about them that suffer as well.

In this low period, time has run out. It seems impossible to get anything done before and after work. Life is rushing along. There are so many unfinished things. Because the motivation for everything is going. There is no excitement or goal to work towards. What is the point of everything? When you are never going to get love out of it? That has always been the motivating force for everything.

Today’s workday was amazing. Even though I can’t control anything in my love life or my personal life – because you can’t control the behaviour and choices of other people – I can control what happens at work. Because when I do things, I am dominant and people follow me, whether or not they give me the formal recognition for it. So today, I gave tours in the art gallery which I wrote, including to one of the curators, my favourite. She loved the tour and gave such good feedback. She told me that I had made her see things in these familiar posters which she had never seen before. I don’t go on about it all the time, but I am very clever. And people recognise that when I talk about things. I went to a meeting to improve experiences for visitors within the museum and I think I made what was quite a good suggestion. I also helped a colleague with a problem that she was having. People often come to me for advice there. Because all the people that are close to me know that I make an effort for them and that I will always help them because they are like my family to me. I did some things for some of the people there that I will not mention here but which made me feel good about myself.

But when I got home, no matter how good the day is at work, I have to return to the situation. My personal situation. Your job can’t love you back. You can get satisfaction from it. But you don’t get the most important feeling: the feeling of being loved. Only a woman can give you that love and your children. That’s what these career women in London don’t understand. If you leave your job, you will be replaced within a week. Life will go on. People won’t even miss you that much after a while. But in a family, you are irreplaceable. You rule over everyone’s hearts. But such is the world that people have chosen a career and money over what is most important: love.

Someone sent me a thank you note for something I sent them. It was nice and unexpected. I like looking back at these notes and thinking about how you might have improved someone’s day just a little with what you did for them.

Lately, I have started thinking I should end this diary. This diary was the expression of love and an invitation for love. But where is the love? But now, it has become a habit. What can I write to Helen now? A love poem? She knows I am thinking about her. Should I complain that she does not love me? What else have I been doing? The speculations about Helen, I keep to myself. The jealousies I keep to myself. The darkest thoughts, I keep to myself. If I told the reader some of the darkest moments and the thoughts, the intensity, they would be shocked.

My hope for the future is that someone doesn’t have to live through what I have had to live just because they have been raised differently and from another culture. But the reality is that things have actually got worse over time and not better. Things will always be like this in this country. Because it is hate that rules and not love. And these women, they are nice people for the most part. But the way that they are and how they treat you is just as bad as everyone else because they can’t accept or love difference. And they don’t even realise that this is what it is. And on top of that, they are repressed. Repression is even worse now than it was in the past. And I feel it is linked to the rejection of difference. I know it. I can feel it. I always follow my intuitions.

Chocolate; A Kiss; Pride; Helen the Heroine; The Nurturing Instinct; Teasing

15.03.2024

the kiss

15.03.2024

what does a kiss take?

a kiss takes a thought

and makes it into a story

a kiss takes a dream

and makes it into a quest

what does a kiss give?

a kiss gives a moment

which becomes the eternity

of memory

a kiss gives an awareness

which changes your destiny

beware of a kiss

I eat chocolate every day because it simulates the same emotion as love. It makes me feel good. It gives me what is missing out of my life. I have been suffering from love starvation recently. Chocolate is a slight solution. It’s no accident that it relieves depression in the Harry Potter novels and is a cure against the Dementors. The author had a divorce. Like me, she was separated from the one that she loved. I told someone the other day that it is a simulation of love. She told me not to say that. She said it was sad to say that. What do these youngsters know about what it is like when the most important thing in your life is not there?

This morning, I saw a stranger woman. On these dating apps, you look at the photographs and you don’t feel anything. You are numb. This whole day, I thought I wouldn’t see any woman that I would look at. But then she was there. Beautiful, stylishly dressed. My exact type. We locked eyes. And suddenly, I was thinking about kissing her. A long kiss. You know what they say? They say ‘in your dreams’. It’s probably what Helen thinks if she does not say it. What encouragement has she ever given me this whole time? In your mind, it is not a crime to kiss a woman. As long as you don’t stare or make them uncomfortable. And just looking at her and thinking of holding her and kissing her sent a surge of feeling throughout my whole body. I could feel it in my head. The sense of connection and intimacy which you remember from before, which you are missing and craving. Of course, I did not talk to her. You see women every day that you would want to be with. And yet, if you ever tried to talk to them, they would treat you like a serial killer. The ones you know for six months or more do that – so with the ones you don’t know, it would be even worse. And you know something? I am never going to meet that stranger ever again. You never do. Life is not a movie where you coincidentally keep on banging into women again and again until they fall in love with you. And when they are in your lives all the time on a regular basis? Like I said, this is the society of love.

I passed the assessment at the Gardens. I’m officially on the team now. I put in a lot of time and work to do it. Because it was my duty. To save the world and all the plant life in it with my talents. To make a contribution. I have been raised to be a hero. I do the things that a hero does. I commit to education and learning to transform the world and make it a better place. It was my grandfather’s dream, my mother’s dream, so it is my dream. I do my level best to fulfil my duty. And when I do fulfil my duty? Then I am proud of myself. Because what do I get from it? I am in some gardens which I love and around nature. But I lose a whole day’s pay to do it. I travel one and half hours there in the morning and then one and a half hour’s back when I go in every week. But it is all worth it. When someone or something is worth it for you, you do it. Because as I often say, I have to look in the mirror and not see a monster. If other people can’t see you as the hero, that is their prejudice. Because I have done a lot of volunteering – and work that was hard and very involved. I know that I am a hero. Not just in terms of volunteering, not just because I am the first one with a PhD and published work in my family, but in my personal life and on the streets. I am proud of myself for doing what it takes to be a hero.

And in this diary, I am the hero. What about Helen? Is she the heroine? What have I actually said about Helen in this diary? Nothing really. Because this diary is not about Helen. It is about me and my love for Helen and what happens when you can’t get your love in life, when your love can’t die and you are stuck and can’t move on because of this society of love and its ‘diversity’. There is a big question about Helen though. Why can’t she stop reading my diary? Every night. Why was Helen so uncomfortable when I stopped talking to her and avoided her? Considering she told me that she didn’t even know me? Why does Helen even care in the least what I think about her? We never went out together because she is the one that said no. She is not my ex.

And yet, how can Paris stop thinking about his Helen? At any moment in the war, he could have handed her back over. It would have been over. Paris can’t. It doesn’t matter about the cost. Paris is in love with Helen.

I have been calling my friend every day because she is poorly and she is all alone. Everyone that has needed care and attention in my life and I could help them, I have done it. I am good at nurturing people and nursing people. Because I have a lot of patience and I am a caring person. Some people think I am nasty because I make jokes and tease people. That was the humour back in the old days which is what these youngsters fail to appreciate. I went to a boy’s school. That is what it was. Just because the rules of humour have changed whereas we are still the people with the same upbringing and experiences. It is not meant to be nasty – it is a form of friendliness. But the youngsters nowadays can’t laugh at themselves like we could. They are anxious and have issues. They lack our confidence in ourselves. However, times change. I have been taught my lesson. Not around 99.9% of women. With the men, it is still okay, with some of them.

Suneel’s Holiday: The Sleepless Night of the Lover; The Lover’s Hope; Juliet’s Game of Death; Two Opposing Views from Friends; Total Workout; Will vs. Mind, Dream vs. Capacity

05.03.2024

At one with beauty. Free cakes and a drink here. Guess where?

She cannot see where I am. If only she shared my eyes… I cannot see her world. If only I could learn to imagine.

I could kiss her goodbye to me

I could caress the words of her speech

a sweet bird that sings flies from her throat

and wild honey falls from her tongue and lips

There is a pattern. When I check to see if she has read my diary in the night before I sleep. If she has read it, then I can sleep an unbroken sleep. And then, if I have not seen that she has read it, I wake up several times in the night and then I have to check the statistics to see if she has read it yet. It has to be her reading. If I found it wasn’t her and I was wrong… That feeling of closeness when I am writing to her. It is like having her in my arms. In this one world of writing, she is with me. What if someone took that away from me?

Yesterday, before I fell asleep, she had not read the diary. It was about 11. 30 pm. So I woke up at three o’clock in the morning, restless to see if we had been one in the writing. And then, I could not sleep. Now it is 8pm. It has been a seventeen hour day after about three hours sleep.

When I dragged myself out of bed, I did all the exercises, meditation and chi building exercises. I went to volunteering in the morning and we got quite a lot done. It was a very productive session. But there will be a break for about a month. So I will miss talking to a good friend and a good person. But what that means is that I can work on things in my own time, more conveniently without the commute there and back.

Over there was one of my favourite friends, one of the loveliest and kindest women in the world. And others that I feel close to. I got free cake and apple juice too and networked with a friend in a different department, another very friendly young woman.

I said my goodbyes and exited fairly quickly because I had to meet up with my friend in my local area, a huge park with a lake in it. While I walked over there after the rain in the mud, I phoned up my friend who had just recovered from the operation. I mentioned to them that I had met her recently again and spoken to her. I got two opposing pieces of advice from my two friends. The man said that I should forget about her. That nothing was ever going to happen. She had made up her mind. The woman told me that one of her friends had been proposed to two times and rejected before the woman finally accepted. She told me that a woman knows a woman and that persistence pays off. Who is right out of those two? The woman told me what I wanted to hear. The man told me what I rationally think. Do you know what the lover’s hope is? It is the most precious thing in the entire world. To one day be with her. To one day love her and have love back from her. In the myth, when all the suffering of the world came out of Dora’s box, hope was the one remedy for all ills. Of course, I know that I am not proposing to her. I have been rejected even for a trial, for the first baby steps. It is completely different. Your women friends don’t want you to be hurt. They will protect you from reality with their soothing words, even if they don’t really believe them themselves. Nobody wants to see someone that they are friends with suffering.

The misunderstanding between Romeo and Juliet takes place over Juliet’s silence and her pretence of death, a symbolic way of saying that she has separated herself from her Romeo. Her acting out of separation confuses Romeo. The fact that she maintains silence confuses Romeo. He makes the wrong move. He gives up. He thinks that the love is impossible. When it is possible. This is the gulf of misunderstanding between a man and a woman, a lover and a lover. You can even misunderstand the ones you love more than your life. Because there is something in women, something in their love, something that they want to express without words, by playing dead, by feigning complete separation from the ones that love them. And then, how can you play the right move in that situation? The game might be beautiful, but it is deadly. Because if you make the wrong move, like Romeo, you die. You are separated from the one you love forever. Somehow, Juliet has to talk. And somehow, it has to be worked out if Juliet is just feigning separation.

Work upon work has piled up. Three hours sleep and a seventeen hour day is not conducive to productivity. I managed to get a bit done but it was with a lot of force. Writing is something that requires relaxation. Where is relaxation in my life? I am involved in almost everything that goes on everywhere I am in some way or the other. People all around me are asking for time and attention. Assignment deadlines are coming up. The assessment at the gardens is coming up. Everything is saying go for Helen. With everything that you have got. But I am not allowed to go for Helen. I am constrained by the situation. And by Helen herself. If she hadn’t said what she had said, I would have forgotten about everything else and I would have manned up and tried again. You have to respect a woman’s choice. So the will is being defeated by the capacity. I want to save the world. To do that, you have to do the hard work. I am going to have to wake up early in the morning and try again. Because when you fall down, you are expected to get back up again. You are expected to be a man, no matter what. From the culture and background that I come from, if the man does not get back up again, the whole family will starve. They will die or live lives of suffering and hardship. There are people that are depending on you. There are people that expect. They expect you to be the Tiger. They expect you to be the Man. The Machine. Whatever the situation. My name Suneel means God. If God cannot exert his will in the universe, who can? So tomorrow it shall be done. It has to be done tomorrow. I have promised it for tomorrow now. Tomorrow, all the energy will come back again, the power of God that is within me. The strength is within you. All you have to do is find it. Writing is your ambition, your desire, the meaning in your life, your first love. Everything else in the world you can abandon, not your love. And if you don’t do your ideals, they die with you. There is the planet and humanity to save. Fighting is your destiny.

Rest for two hours before sleep. And then get up and wield the axe again. And swing it so that it hits the target. You are a warrior. Act like one. You are a fighter. Fight. Your head has to be held up high for everyone in your community. Make sure it is held up high. The war is still on. Without the warrior, the war would be won by those that do not deserve to win. History is on our side. We are going to vanquish our enemies and win the love of the world. Satyemeva jayate: In the end, only the truth alone will triumph.

Watching the Maori War Cry Against a Racist Government: The Female Warrior Goddess

14.01.2024

THE VIDEO

The video has gone viral. New Zealand’s youngest MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke performed the Maori war cry in parliament as a protest against the government’s racist policies designed to eliminate Maori culture and rights.

The 21 year old has vowed to protect Māori rights and culture.

The war cry is a response to New Zealand’s new prime minister, Christopher Luxon. He said that he would review or repeal a dozen policies relating to the Maori population when he was elected.

“We’ve got a right in a democracy to protest, and you’ll start to see various forms of that, and in a more invigorated way, than we’re probably seeing in other places where Indigenous people have had to assert their mana (power),” said John Tamihere, Te Pati Maori president.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/meet-new-zealands-youngest-mp-whose-parliamentary-war-cry-went-viral/tewa1dqqo

WHAT IS THE WAR CRY?

‘Maori Haka’ energizes warriors before battle. The war cry is a symbol for the spiritual war to begin against the racism of the white (male) majority in New Zealand who can’t stomach difference or give respect to the people that were in the country that they colonised.

Haka is the Māori word for dance. It is usually a group performance. It includes chanting and actions like stamping, with hand movements, and facial gestures.

https://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-what-is-maori-haka-native-war-cry-performed-by-new-zealand-youngest-mp-hana-rawhiti-maipi-clarke-in-parliament-3073688

SUNEEL’S COMMENT

Watching those eyes blaze with fury. Watching her words blaze with fury. Feeling her power. Electricity runs up and down my spine, the blood pulses in the body like fire. The excitement is rising, building, unquenchable… Pride. Admiration. Hope for the future. Passion for the fight again…

In my diary a few days ago, I wrote that 2024 is going to be the year of the fight. This is the first solid action in the fight, the first sign of the year. The one who is like me. The one who is in the spiritual war. The new generation. The woman fighter, the warrior goddess that we pray to on my mother’s side of the family, our heroine and our idol.

The woman warrior, Durga (‘the Invincible’), The Mother Queen, The One with the Tiger, whose insatiable fighting form is the bloodthirsty Maa Kaali (the Dark Mother) comes in the hour of your greatest need. When the world is threatened by the utmost evil and oppression.

It is important that the warrior is a native woman. This is the direct opposite of the white man in charge, the oppressor. She is the challenger. She is difference in all of her beauty. Woman have historically been the weaker in history. Even now, she is the weaker. She is in the minority. When she fights, she is wounded. But because she is wounded, she is more dangerous.

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke stands for all of us threatened by the neo-imperialism of the colonisers with their hypocritical talk of ‘integration’ and ‘diversity’ when they cannot even stomach the sight of us in the workplace or in their personal lives. The empire is not over yet. Maori culture, as she says, has survived for seven generations despite the colonisers and their mission to eliminate difference from the world. (SOURCE – LinkedIn)

This war cry was brought to me by the Indians on LinkedIn. This war cry resonates with the Indian. We understand that the war cry means. We have held on to our culture through six thousand years despite invaders and colonisers. We have held on to our heritage, language, art and culture despite everyone and everything. We have survived the illegitimate British Raj. We will survive ethnic minority status in the Asian Diaspora despite disrespect, distancing, forced isolation, hate, prejudice, lack of representation, lack of opportunities and the racist rhetoric of the government which promotes all of the discrimination against us and codifies it to keep us away from power.

When in Rome, we will not do what the Romans do. Where the tiger sets his feet, that territory is his.

We have held on because we have the mother goddess, the female warrior. The One with the Tiger. We know her spirit.

When I look at this young woman and I hear her war cry, I see my mother. The mother that named me after the real life hero that saved the life of the actress that played Mother India in the film when a fire broke out on set. The mother that gave me the Mother Goddess to protect me through my life, the warrior goddess. The mother that gave me the Indian languages I can speak and our own culture and identity by refusing to speak English and kow-tow to white British culture. The mother who gave me a culture and a language, a way of seeing where we are not inferior to the white neo-imperialists in this government and in this country. Where we are seen as men and tigers.

India salutes Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke! Inquilab zindabaad! Long Live the Revolution! Long live the fight to preserve the way of life that is ours! Long live the warrior goddess! Long live difference!

Now, the year has started.