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.

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.

The Suicide Tree

02.05.2024

When I was a teenager, my grandfather told me a story about a tree in the church graveyard in the corner near his house which we used to walk past every time we went to see him and my grandmother. My grandfather used to live in London, so it was always an adventure to go and see him, because we lived in Essex. London was different, exciting.

But the problem was, that we didn’t know what London was really like. In Essex, we were protected in the Indian family. We lived secure lives. We had stability. We were raised the old-fashioned way. We expected adults to be together forever. Marriage was for life. What other people did hadn’t penetrated our lives.

We were just sitting there on the sofa. My grandfather began the story. It was a very short story. One morning, just a regular morning, they found an Indian man hanging from that tree we walked past every day. Dead.

He had married a woman from India and had called her over to England. But then, shortly after the marriage, she started hanging around white people. And then, she left her husband for a white boyfriend.

Everyone said it was a suicide. That the husband had despaired of life. But, my grandfather said, how could anyone be sure? What if it had been a murder?

A story that was forgotten at the time. A mysterious affair seen through the eyes of a teenager. Shocking because it was the first realisation that an arranged marriage was not for life for everyone, like we had been taught that it was. Shocking to think that someone could break their wedding vows like that.

When I think back on that tale from the life which my grandfather told me – a tale I keep on thinking about over and over again nowadays – I remember what happened to him. My grandfather’s father deserted his family for another woman. Which meant that my grandfather was raised in absolute poverty. He later went blind in life because of malnutrition from the formative years of his childhood.

This was the man that had told me the story about the suicide tree.

The Bird Flies

23.04.2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Helen: the most beautiful woman in the world

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

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

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

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

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

The Three Dance in the Water

17.04.2024

the three dance in the water

around me

as it boils

the three dance in the water

around me

as it freezes

one clutches at the other

one whispers in the water

one she scatters liquid light

in their forms the foamy sun rises

with Aphrodite’s glamour

I the eye

I watch the water

and the water’s dance

and in it

I see the smile of Aphrodite

gliding towards me

like the dagger true

So this is the photograph I took. And this is the picture I made. This is the difference between my photographer’s eye and my digital art eye. The picture I made has become about The Three. The stars around which my planet is orbiting now. Two of them might already be gone. Maybe all of them will go. Man stands alone in the world.

in the love of the world

in the desert of the world

there is an oasis

the water is cool and fragrant

the water is the kiss of a mother

it takes the thirst of the desert

and by it

grows one lone tree

which casts a shade

which cools the water

which touches the heavens

Just to hold her hand once. To kiss it. And to put my palm against hers.

I am listening to Arabic music instrumentals on Spotify as I write. The sound is melancholic.

In a moment, I will get up and shave off this beard from my face. I want to give up. But tomorrow, I will see her again. Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow, the Tiger will still be the Tiger. Tomorrow, the hero in love will still be the hero. If you have loved, never fear. If you have loved, you can lose everything. But you cannot lose your courage.

phenka humne phool

i cast a flower

Uskein taraf

towards her

Us mein dil tha humara

within it was my heart

phenka humne phool

i cast a flower

jis mein chehra tha uska

within it was her face

phool ne kata humein

the flower cut me

koi shikayat nahein

there is no complaint

phenka humne phool

i cast a flower

uskein taraf

towards her

usmein jaan thi humare

within it was my life

Ukrainian women are exceedingly beautiful. I talked to one today. No one knows my type. I don’t tell people.

It was a moonlight night. I was in the country of the Arabs. I was in pain. There was the water. The stars glided across the water, the lights of the night. In the crowd, I saw a beauty from the heavens, an angel. She had forgotten her way and come to earth. She walked towards me. And then? She walked towards the boat on the water. I watched her going. My heart was breaking. In the beautiful night, the invisible rain of tears knitted themselves into the fabric of the sky. She walked away, I sighed. She walked away, I was flooded with melancholy. Across the water, I watched the boat depart. That moment is caught in my mind. It was Her. It was She. I watched my life walk away from me. And I stood there like a corpse, sighing into the windless sky.

High Pain Threshold

08.04.2024

beauty hides her face in the flowers

beauty hides her voice in the flowers

her lips are the scent of the blooms

her eye is lost in the petals

the sun is upon her skin

the sun is her lover

she whispers the pollen

she lures the birds

fragrant is the way

decked with the concealing flowers

soft is the poison

that steals upon the senses

beauty hides her face in the flowers

the sun loves the beauty in the flowers

The Olympics is coming. I am the fan of athletics and gymnastics. But now, there is no time to watch. I am the lover of the body. I am the lover of skill. I am the lover of the beautiful people. And the lover is separated from his beauties, the body and the skill. Life mirrors life, hurt mirrors hurt, separation mirrors separation. What does one expect? Less than nothing.

Going back to exploring digital painting styles. In art, without experimentation, there is nothing. Everything is an experiment. Never stick to one style.

People hate my digital art. So what? Fuck you. I do what I want when I want. When I don’t want to do it any more, I stop doing it. Just because someone uses traditional media doesn’t make them a better artist. Just because someone draws like a photograph, it doesn’t make them a better artist. Art is about capturing your ideas and your feelings. It is not surprising that no one can relate to the art of The Tiger. Because who else is The Tiger here? I am alone in this world. I am like the Western god. In a society that believes in individuality, I am the only individual. In a society that believes in personality, I am the personality. In a society that believes in culture, I am the cultured one. In the society of supposed men, I am the lone man.

Massive pains in the leg. In Hindu philosophy, life is suffering. You are condemned to the world. The doctor’s won’t pick up the phone. So I sent an email in the morning. They didn’t reply to it. Even the people that are paid to care for you don’t care for you. Such is life.

Fortunately, I have an incredibly high pain threshold. I even ran for the bus this morning feeling the shooting pains all over my leg. And I caught it too.

I will wait a couple of days for the doctor’s, but I don’t actually expect anything from anyone nowadays. The scene that comes to mind is Collateral when Tom Cruise the villain says that no one will even notice you are dead on the metro in a Western country for a few days.

A young blonde woman on the tube that was standing next to me on the way home leaned over me and kept on touching me the whole way home. She very nearly rested her head on my shoulder. Even the other women sitting down were looking at her to see what she was up to (a young brunette one kept on staring at me and then looking away when I looked at her at the same time – typical behaviour for these young women). If I had done that to a woman, I would have been accused of sexually harassing her.

Everyone on my tours today asked me what my name was so they could write their comments on the feedback forms and praise me. I had nineteen people in total over the quick tours in the hour. Some of them actually requested the feedback forms so that they could give me a compliment. One offered me a tip. Even when The Tiger is in pain, he is still The Tiger. I always perform. It’s what I’m known for. If there is one person you can depend upon in this world, it is me. I commit absolutely.

People think that I am wrong. They always think it. If someone rejects you in love, they are telling you that you are not a man. They have devalued you. They have judged you as inferior to them. And people are telling me that I am wrong for not wanting to remain friends with them? It is me that is right. But do you know something? I know that whoever they go with is worse than me. I am the best. I am what I would want if I was a woman. It doesn’t matter if even the ones that don’t love you don’t think it. The mind, the body, the learning, the heart. The patience, the love. The achievement of understanding. The freedom and the power. The spirit of The Tiger. India is everyone’s daddy. We are the oldest. We are the most knowledgeable. I am India. It is the name I call myself.

Two quotes from Indian movies in my translation, to share with the non-Indians and to spread the culture:

If freedom is a crime

Then the punishment is accepted

Now what will happen

Will be the will of God

(The Thugs of Hindoostan)

By heart we are soldiers

By mind we are the devil

We are India

(‘The older master is excellent, but the little master is outstanding’)

‘Day Off’: The Season of Pain Continues; First Official Kew Gardens Tour; Lunch Date with My Mentor; Travelling with Stranger Children; Westminster Abbey and the Notre Dame Exhibition; Leaving Drinks

05.04.2024

My Day Off is never a day off. It is always work stuff. Work has taken over my life. It is the only thing that I have in life really. It has always been that way. Whatever I have done, I have never met anyone to start a family with. So the only thing is to compensate with work.

Now it is the leg. It hurts in several places. Quite badly. Stinging. First the back. Then the paper cut. Now the leg. Pain follows me. It is the season of pain. Not just physical pain in the body. But also mental pain. I have made the mistake of trying to be around non-Indian women. It is my own fault. It doesn’t matter what you do with them. It is never enough. I didn’t listen.

It was the first official Kew Gardens tour in the morning, the first one after I passed the assessment. I got really good feedback, which felt good, as I wrote the thing. It was particularly pleasing because one of the customers had been quite angry about something before she came onto my tour, so I changed her mind about the Gardens. The other thing was that I had children on the tour and one of the other volunteers told me that they came back to give me some really great feedback as well. So a success on all counts.

Afterwards, I had tea with one of the other volunteers that came onto the tour with me, to catch up on some stuff. She is Indian. Therefore we are friends. We have community spirit.

It was lunch with my mentor afterwards. He is such a genuine, friendly, wonderful guy. So I treated him to a meal with me in the orangery. And he bought me a present because I had recently passed the assessment – a beautiful book about the Latin names of plants. This is the second book that he has given me. He knows my weakness – that I love books and learning. That’s the wonderful kind of guy that he is. The book is a piece of art and I will treasure it forever. It is rare in my life to be given a present.

Afterwards I travelled in the Kew Train in a compartment with a young mother and her children. The family started talking to me, especially the children. They were asking me all sorts of questions. I like being around children. They are innocent and friendly and curious. They are not boring. As the sun shone in their eyes and I watched their unfeigned actions and conversation, I thought how wonderful it would have been to have been sitting in that train with my own children.

Kew palace was open so I went inside. Every single one of the women actresses inside came up to me and talked to me. It is a fact that I am good looking. So when someone sees me for the first time, they are impressed. One of them complimented my clothes which is happening more and more recently. But it just surprises me how women are always trying to talk to me nowadays when they get a chance. One of them, I spoke to for quite a long time about conditions for young people and I gave her some advice.

On the way to the station, I bought a book of political quotations from the charity bookshop.

I travelled down to Westminster Abbey and got quite a good shot of the policemen on horseback before I met up with the volunteers for an after work visit at one of the places I am at. It was really wonderful to marvel at the magnificence and beauty of Westminster Abbey. I couldn’t believe that more people from work hadn’t come. It was an amazing experience. I was mesmerised by the Gothic vaults and the rose windows, the stained glass. The ambience of the place was awe-inspiring. I also felt companionship with the greats of English writing – Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens whose plaques were there. The guy that was in charge there gave us lots of information.

I had another surprise with the Notre Dame exhibition. It was a video game type format, a virtual immersion into the building and the past of the cathedral. It was wonderful. Real time travel. I really enjoyed the whole experience and felt special that I had been able to do it in such peace and tranquillity.

The last stop of the day was the leaving drinks at my other work place. I sat there for about an hour before I had enough. I can’t watch people drinking and getting silly over it. It puts me off. I didn’t do it when I was young and I don’t drink myself. I am not used to it. I have been taught that drinking is wrong. And then, the same thing that always happened happened. I started missing the woman at my side. The beautiful day that I had had was spoilt. So I had to rush off.

I sat in Mcdonald’s and gorged myself on some Thai sweet chilli chicken wraps and fries. And I had a Zero Cola to try and cheer myself up.

When I got on the tube back home, the trains were all delayed and I started burning up. So as soon as I managed to get home, I stripped down to my boxer shorts so I could try and cool down and write this diary.

Three contexts that I am in done in the same day. That is my life right now. Just work. Nothing else. What else is happening in my life? Yesterday, the woman I matched with on the dating app turned out most probably to be a fake and a dating fraudster. I keep on getting messages from the dating apps because I am not using them. What is the point? There are no women. That is what I am trying to realise in my life. I am only attracted to beautiful women. I can’t settle. And they won’t go with me because I am Indian. So that is the situation. And I never meet any Indian women anywhere that are attractive enough or single and that I can start a family with. Society has fucked me.

What is Sadness? Or Disappointment in Love.

04.04.2024

disappointment in love
04.04.2024

the beast felt the rain of tears
down his throat
the beast felt the sword
in his heart
through his coat
once more
the beast felt
what the other heart smote

An awful emptiness consumes your chest and stomach. You feel tired and lifeless. You swallow. You don’t need water but you have a sensation that is like thirst. You are not hungry but you have a sensation of hunger. Your eyes hurt. There is no excitement. There is an awful silence everywhere. You can’t concentrate properly. Nothing seems worth it. There is no hope in anything. You force yourself to do things. You try to regain your positive grasp on the universe. It doesn’t come back into your hands. You feel insignificant. Rejected. Worthless. Alone. Alone forever. What is the point? Meaninglessness is what surrounds you.

This is what sadness feels like. This is what disappointment in love feels like.

Every morning, you try to struggle out of bed. You have to force yourself eventually to make sure that you are not late for work. You are so tired. You want to sleep forever. But you really can’t sleep that much at all. You can’t forget your disappointments. You can’t forget that you are alone. You can’t forget that you have no hope. There is nothing that you can do to change your situation. Everything that you have done has failed. You are a failure. You have failed in the most important thing. The one that you love is not with you. She is going to be with someone else. She might be with someone else right now. They say it is a bitter pill to swallow – this is what it physically tastes and feels like. It is like you are trying to swallow poison, the poison of this hard, apathetic, unloving, unfeeling world.

The motivation for everything goes. Discipline slowly corrodes away into nothing. Your dream of love which has kept you going all your life is being destroyed. It is what gave meaning to your life. You know that you will never be happy. You are certain of one thing: that you will always be unhappy.

Around you, you know that everyone else is getting love. The reason you are not getting it – what does it matter? It is the unfairness of the situation that is the worst thing. If you weren’t Indian. If you were exactly the same, but not Indian. Then, you would have had love. It is the unhappiness of injustice.

Again and again, the same fantasy creeps into your head. You watch yourself hanging from the gallows. Swaying in the wind. You keep on imagining putting your head in the noose and tightening it. The sweet release of death. An end to your misery.

But, you would never do it. Because in your culture, it is an act of cowardice. And perhaps, this is the essence of this sadness and this disappointment in love. There is a small kernel of resilience within it. Now matter how bad things get, you will keep on going. Because she might not have loved you yesterday. She might not love you today. But she might love you tomorrow. And maybe, if she never loves you at all, past, present and future, maybe someone else might love you.

So the kernel at the bottom of everything, the survivor behind it all, is the deluded fool, the irrational, the mad, the dreamer. The one that believes that somehow, in this cold and hard world, somehow you will get love. Despite the fact that you are an Indian man in a white society where you are not worthy of love, no matter what you achieve, do, think, no matter how much you love someone.

So this is what sadness is and what disappointment in love is. You live even though you don’t want to live and you dream of dying. And you are dead. You are a living corpse.

Rough Day

23.03.2024

Rough day. Life is beating me up. I feel like shit. I actually literally feel like I have taken a beating.

When I went home, I couldn’t even listen to my music on the commute home. There was a problem with the headphones. You can’t even drown out the world. So I closed my eyes and shut everyone out.

I had to call up my friend in the evening to talk to her so I could feel a bit better. The thing about her is that I know that she loves me, so she always makes me feel good about myself. Her voice is soothing, she is kind. Kindness and comfort. I comfort her – she is ill. We comfort each other.

She told me to sleep with the angels when she said goodbye.

So now, I feel a little better. But the awfulness of life is still striking at me.

The last chapter in the book on relationships that I read confirms my experiences about love. At first, you think that the person you love is going to make you happy. Then, you find out something. That they are going to make your life fucking miserable. You are going to suffer. It is mental torture.

A long time ago, someone in my family told me that I wasn’t right to have a relationship outside of an arranged marriage. I got sick from something that happened after something that happened with a woman and then after my grandparents died one after the other afterwards. People are scared that it is going to happen again. I was sick for a long time. She has told me that you don’t understand what the women here are like. She knows. They don’t think anything about torturing you and punishing you. Wrecking your whole life. They would kill you if they could. They are not like us where you are with someone for life no matter what.

But because I am a warrior, I don’t have fear. I know that she is right. And even though I know that she is right, I am still going ahead with my plan. Because when you have fought for love in your life and paid the terrible cost for it and for your freedom, you can’t go back. No matter how tempting it is or convenient.

I have decided that I am going to have those children at any cost and the mother for my children at any cost. Even if I have to risk my health for it.

If I can’t get the mother for the children, I am going to have to buy the children and then alienate everyone around me.

One time in my life, after the illness, I gave up on the dream of love. I decided that I was just going to live by myself as a bachelor. That was over several years. I wasted my early thirties moping over what had happened. Then, one day, I decided that I needed my children. The question is, whether I decided too late to have a mother for the children. That is what I am investigating at the moment.

I am tired of my relationships with a lot of the women in my life. I have to hear all of their problems and issues. And where I don’t get anything out of it, I have to help them and advise them about stuff and listen constructively. And all the while, they are treating you like some kind of non-man, like I am some type of woman that is literally invisible as a man for them. And you know what? There is nothing that I can do about it. I’m going to have to keep on giving them that help and advice while I am not getting what I want out of it. A relationship. A family and children.

I don’t think of myself as a nice guy. But other people do. And what that means in this culture – it’s true what they say – is that nice guys finish last. But what can I do to change my personality? I’m used to listening to what people say and taking care of them. In our culture, we value kindness. You are supposed to be kind to people and help them.

My friend told me about a guy that was after someone when she was young. He used to cycle miles and miles to see her. And she didn’t want him. But now, sixty years on, she thinks about that person sometimes. And she realises that he was goodness itself. He would have loved her properly and taken care of her. When you are young, you don’t realise who really loves you and the value of someone. Because for her, he was too earnest. He didn’t play the game. He wasn’t crafty. He didn’t hide his feelings and play hard to get. He was honest. They hate your honesty. They hate that you care about them. All my friends have told me the same thing. Pretend that you don’t care about them.

Well, this is life. Nothing helps. Nobody can help you. Destiny itself is against you.

I was in the Gardens the other day. When the artist Marianne North’s father died, her only companion in the world, she didn’t talk to anyone. Like me when my grandmother died. But then, one day, in her forties, she decided to challenge the conventional views of women at the time and she embarked on a worldwide adventure to paint plants. I was standing in her gallery amongst her paintings and I felt like crying. I didn’t. I know what she went through. And I made a mistake. I didn’t do what she did. I didn’t give up on the world and go to foreign countries. There is no place for me in this culture. There is no place for me in any culture. Anywhere I have gone, I have never belonged. Other people are not like me. I am different to everyone else. And when you are different, you suffer. There is nowhere for you. You never fit. I have a few close friends I can talk about things with. Because they think deeply. They are kind people. But there is no one to make my own world with, my family and children. I have looked in so many different places.

I just want to walk away from everyone and everything. But I can’t. I am chained to my life and my responsibilities. I daydream about being in jail away from everyone. Or in a mental asylum. Or on a cruise ship. Or living in a lighthouse or looking after a millionaire’s property. Somewhere where I am completely alone. I don’t have to talk to anyone in these conversations where you can’t have a private, personal conversation. I don’t have to talk to people who are never going to love you, that don’t value you, that can’t even see you as a man like they can see some stranger that they have known for just a couple of weeks. Where I don’t have to talk to someone who just thinks that you are never going to be good enough for them.

Babies in Love; Scar Tissue; Women and Losing the Shine on Life; Getting Rave Reviews as Sandeep; Managing to Read; Massively High Libido; Sad News; My University Friend Writes

17.03.2024

The last chapter of the relationships book that my friend lent me said that people act like children when they are in a relationship. You have to forgive them for doing it. Because they can’t communicate what they are thinking with each other. There is no honesty or attempt to articulate issues. Other stuff takes over and they no longer behave with the self control and consideration of adults.

When I went to get my haircut last week, the barber was suffering from a horrible toothache. He was a young guy, unremarkable looking. And he was complaining down his phone as he cut the hair (he had it crooked in his shoulder) about the toothache in a childish kind of way to someone. Maybe he was distracted, but he pressed the machine hard into my forehead and it was painful afterwards. Today, the scar tissue has fallen off, the scabs. I scraped it all off with my fingernails. There was a massive amount of it. But nobody noticed. Nobody ever notices anything about your face or what happens to you. Either they are not observant, or they don’t get close enough, or they don’t care.

I don’t think Helen is well. Last time I saw her, she didn’t look like she was alright. But she still smiled at me and said ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. Whatever you can say about Helen, she is a nice person. Why pretend that she isn’t? It’s why I liked her. The complaint I have about Helen is the same complaint for all the other women in London – they just can’t love you. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do or how much you love them. You are just never good enough for them. They will never accept you. That’s the love you get in this country.

That’s why I don’t try to ‘integrate’ here. I maintain my own Punjabi identity. Why should I change for them? When they will never change for me? Where’s the equality and the reciprocity? I have fought for this woman that is going to come into my life for my whole adult life. I didn’t have an arranged marriage, I fought for love. I did everything that I was told and supposed to do to make myself eligible. I accept things in them that are regarded as wrong in my culture – talking to other men and being friends with them, drinking and going out at night to clubs and pubs. Having had relationships with men before. Why should I always have to bend in everything? What about my expectations? They are not much – a family and that someone lives where I live, which happens to be with my parents. My parents aren’t going to be in charge of us. They will leave us alone. I don’t expect someone to stay at home and look after the children if they don’t want to. But apparently, that is too much to ask for.

There is just one potential woman in my life right now. With Helen, it is wishful thinking. She has been reading my diary for six months every night. Nothing has come of it. With Girl 3, like Helen, I feel that she is thinking about it. But they do nothing and won’t let you do anything either. So it is stalemate. You are only allowed to ask once. What can I do about anything now? They won’t make the moves themselves. But there is a problem with that potential woman. I won’t go into it here.

But because there are literally no women, now the shine has gone off life again. I don’t expect to meet anyone now. There is no excitement and nothing to look forward to. Everything seems absolutely pointless. I talk to people because they haven’t done anything wrong, but my heart is not really in it, except for my best best friends because they give me comfort. Today, I had to get in contact with two of them so I could have their words to hug me and make me feel better. I didn’t tell them that. I don’t tell my best best friends about how I feel because I don’t want them feeling bad for me.

I did a tour and then some of the people told someone that my tour was amazing. I am not arrogant but I expect people to like my tours. I work hard on them. So I wasn’t surprised. But then the person told me that they remembered my name as Sundeep, a generic Indian name. This also didn’t surprise me that much. I have told people that the reason I don’t get reviews on TripAdvisor is because people can’t remember my name. It is not just with me. I know for a fact that people can’t remember the names of the women with foreign names either. Because they ask me what their names are. When I was getting published and some people cited my work, they thought I was a woman as well. They are not familiar with my name, can’t remember it and make assumptions about it.

The big challenge in life at the moment is getting into reading again. The problems have been taking over. What is there so good about life compared to books? A life where you can’t even get love from just one person? All I needed was just one person. And I can’t even get that because of how they are. It is a big disappointment, the biggest disappointment in my life. And it is something that I can’t control. What can I do about it? I can’t magically get taller. I can’t magically stop being Indian. I can’t magically forget about all my duties and responsibilities and promises and just move out and live by myself. I can’t magically start drinking and start going clubbing. I can’t magically just change careers and get a top status, massively paying job. I can’t magically become white or start acting like a white person. I am what I am. I do what I do. I’ve already done too much for these women. It wasn’t worth it because I didn’t get my reward and what I was promised. Why should I keep on doing stuff for them all my life for nothing?

The irony is that I was going through some statistics for sexual behaviour in America today, a contemporary psychology article. Compared to these men, I have abnormally and massively high levels of sex drive and libido. I knew it already. I am an athlete. What my body demands is a lot. I have high energy, high stamina. I am intense. I’m not like other people.

Two bits of sad news today. My friend who is recovering from the operation is not well again. I phoned her up in the break at work and talked to her. What is there to say? But those words that you say, they are looking for them. They are looking for comfort and reassurance. The same thing that I look to for her, I have to give her as well. That is our relationship. I spoke to her every week on the phone when she had cancer. I spoke to her every week on the phone through Covid. We are so close to each other as friends. I have been calling her every day this last week after her operation. There are different types of friendship. I love her as a friend. And if the situation was different, I would have loved her more than a friend. Because she is my type of person. In many ways, she is the ideal woman.

The other sad bit of news affected someone I know. This person does not realise that the times have changed. People now are easily offended, scared and quick to blame people. They are judgemental. So, for that reason, you have to be super careful around them so that their misinterpretations – of which there are many – are limited. That’s my initial impression about what happened. I don’t know – maybe I am making assumptions. I heard it off the grapevine. Because, unfortunately, maybe it did take two to tango in this situation. Who knows? It is still sad what happened.

My old university friend and me were sending each other messages today. As an adult, she is my oldest lasting friend from over twenty years. And we have both always been interested in writing and have written to each other for twenty years. Why? Because we are both Indian. Like I said, this is this culture. We live in the culture of love and acceptance here in England – as you can see when you read my diary and you know how other people treat me in this country. It’s the evidence for history.