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

08.05.2024

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

Calligraphy from four years ago. Looking back in time.

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

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

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

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

Being told to keep my intentions secret

05.05.2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this what I wanted?

04.05.2024

wheeled flower

revolves

in a different sphere

wheeled flower

loves another man

befriends another

wheeled flower

flees from my life

leaving behind

the faintest scent

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

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

What I wanted was very different with Helen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Diary Entry

12.04.2024

I just came back home from an overtime event – 23.17 right now (diary finished at 23.41). In that event, I greeted and talked to literally every single woman that came in. They were dressed in their finest clothes, beautiful dresses. It was a black tie, glamorous event. In this job, all I do is talk to women all day sometimes. At the museum, them and their children are the main demographic.

Leg is fine as long as I walk around. It is standing still in one place or sitting at one place that is causing the pain. So today I did 27513 steps and I feel fine.

I was thinking about the one single Punjabi woman I ever asked out. I was in my late twenties back then and she was in her early twenties (fate is that I only ever meet women younger than me). She accepted and told me that she would come on a date with me. But then, she stood me up. If I had had more experience back then, I would have just asked her out again. But I didn’t have experience, so I didn’t. I could have had my children with her at the right time. She studied art history at the Courtauld. I wonder what she is doing now? But I will not look her up. I wonder if she ever wonders what would have happened if she had gone out with me? Same culture. Same upbringing. Both humanities scholars. It would have been good. She wasn’t the most attractive woman in the world, but then I am good looking enough to pass the genes on to the children and she wasn’t bad looking. I asked her out because she was Punjabi and to make my grandmother happy.

I am not a coward like the little boys in this country that can’t ask a woman out face to face. I don’t do it by phone or by email. I don’t sneak around second guessing myself. When I am sure, I am sure. And then I go for it. With everything in life. I don’t doubt myself.

My main frenemy was in a really good mood today. I haven’t seen her for quite a while. She was laughing and joking around with me. That is her normal personality. She is back to herself. Was it the holiday? Is it that she has a new person in her life? Or has she finally forgiven me? We will find out.

For this child, I have asked out women that I would never have thought I would ask out. Because the main factor is how they are going to behave around the children. That is first. My choice is second. So, first of all (after being the right age for the kids), kindness. For the children and for me. Then, the ability to converse. Third, looks. Even the ones that initially aren’t my type, you learn to think they are beautiful. Then, the accomplishments they have. So that my children can have them, including their languages if they have any and their cultures if they are different from British. And I prefer someone that can bring me genetic diversity for my children. Then, style (for me).

I spent about an hour talking to my friend in the context when I came in early. Her and me, we can talk and talk and talk together.

In the morning, I gave the tour I wrote at Kew Gardens. And, so beautifully, I had two young girls on the tour with their parents. The children were really getting into it, the older girl. She was running up to the front of the group to talk to me about what they were doing with plants at her school. And one of the young women with her mother asked me about what a botanist does. I was inspiring the young people for the future. It felt really good. I have put so many unpaid hours into this Kew Gardens project, lost so much pay. It is bearing fruit. Even if you just get one person interested, that is enough. Then it is worth it. The father really thanked me, and so did the mother.

I had my first meeting online at the place I volunteer for writing to bring about world peace through writing. It was good to hear the voice of the person I have been writing messages to. I know so many people now in so many different areas in life. Always people around me all the time. Everything has changed in my life since my time at my desk all day, researching and reading and writing. I set out to change my life. It has happened. There is just one last thing missing.

The young blonde friend I made in the Gardens was there today so I talked to her. She is super friendly to me. Maybe in time, I will know her enough to ask her. She is interesting, but I don’t know anything about her and there won’t be any opportunities. Right now, it is still the same situation. The hope for Helen and Girl 3. If either one of them change their mind. Then, there is potential girl. With her, there is uncertainty. If you can only ask someone once, you have to be pretty sure about things. And asking them directly scares them off. So there are still the three women in my life. Watching and waiting. Thinking about them. But they are perhaps all thinking of someone else.

Surgery Required

11.04.2024

So, it turns out I’m going to have to have surgery on my leg. The doctor was a Subcontinental woman. Did she break the news to me in a nice way? No. I had about two minutes with her. And during that time, all she did was tell me off and make it out to be my fault. When it wasn’t my fault in any way at all. That’s what they are like. I can say it because I am Subcontinental too. You don’t get any sympathy. You get blame. I’m used to it. Even in the Indian movies, all the girlfriends of the heroes do is to criticise them and tell them off.

But at least two things didn’t happen: I didn’t die and they didn’t have to cut the leg off. I knew everything was okay. It is just the pain. And I will just have to put up with that. Why? Because life is pain. The only thing that can happen now is complications with the surgery and side effects, but there is a good chance that nothing bad will happen and it should all be okay.

Do you know how I developed this problem in my leg? I loved a non-Indian woman. And she didn’t love me back. Then my grandparents died and I got sick. And then I put on a lot of weight. Which ruined my leg. So that’s where the problem in the leg developed. I am still suffering from the past. And those people that tell you to forget about the past? What other problem have me and the Indian men in this country, and the Dalits or the Untouchables in India had except for the fact that no one will love us? The people that don’t love us are telling us how to solve our problems. And to forget the past and the present where they don’t love us. When our problem is that they are not giving us love. What a fucking joke.

Do you know what guilt is? When my grandmother was dying from cancer, I was living with her. She couldn’t sleep in the nights without a man in the house. One time, I came back home and I was talking to her before I went up to study in my bedroom. I talked to her for about half an hour. Because I felt sorry for her and thought she was lonely. She told my mother afterwards that when I was talking to her, she was going through the most torturous pain. But she wouldn’t tell me. She just kept on nodding at what I was saying. She didn’t want to hurt my feelings. I think about that over and over again. That is what guilt is. I couldn’t even see that she was in pain.

My Instagram feed is full of dating advice. It is always the same: don’t be a nice guy. Be a complete douche bag to the woman that you care about, be aloof from her, treat her like she doesn’t even matter. What a lovely world of love this Western society has created for its women. And some of these people have the gall to call me a misogynist when that is their culture and their ‘love’. Even the women themselves are saying they want the man to be like that. What a culture. If you love women, you are a sexist pig. And if you treat them like you hate them or don’t care about them at all, then you are accepted and you aren’t sexist.

I finally told someone in that context that there is someone there that I don’t like. I don’t like to talk about people behind their backs. I wouldn’t want someone doing it to me. It was a special situation of honesty. I don’t just not like them. That is me being euphemistic. And it is very unusual for me not to like someone in this industry, so that is saying a lot.

I asked my friend from another country if she would cook something for me for that context for lunch. So she said yes and she invited me to do dinner together and she would make me something then too.

I was thinking about Shiva and his stillness – the short note I wrote yesterday. He lies down below Kali when she is in her rage and in her destructive dance. He lies below the Ganga (Ganges) when she flows down from heaven. Do you know that Shiva is represented by the phallus? The lingam. That is his body. That is what is withstanding the flood of woman. How he is able to withstand the flood of woman’s power and to become united with it, to channel it and control it, to merge with it into creation, is by being the phallus below woman, completely still. It is a sexual thing. The woman is dancing on Shiva who is the phallus, or flooding down on him: that is the essence of the act of union.

I have never told anyone something peculiar about the name my mother gave me. Some of you who have been reading know how I got my name. Sunil Dutt saved the life of Mother India in the film of the same name. He rescued her from fire. While he was recovering in the hospital, she came to take care of him and then they fell in love. He played her son in the movie. The son married the mother. That’s why I call myself Oedipus and my life has been that of Oedipus. However, there is a little peculiarity in this love story. Because in the film, the mother kills the son because he rebels against tradition and culture and morality by trying to abduct the woman he loves from her wedding ceremony. My mother didn’t just name me for the one that marries Mother India. She named me for the one that rebels against Mother India too. There is a paradox in the name that she gave me. The paradox is that she named me after the rebel, he who rebels against everything and everyone. I am the middle child. I have been named after rebellion. I live for rebellion. The rebellion of love. You can’t escape from your name and the fate that has been planned and dreamt of for you. Try to escape your fate. See what happens to you. We rebel in the name of love for love. We are the warriors of love. Inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab sada zindabaad! Long live the Revolution! May the Revolution live forever!

How much longer can you love someone who is not in your life for more than five minutes in a week? That doesn’t talk to you? Who has rejected you twice? Who you have only talked to for about one hour in total in about six months? But are these the wrong questions? Isn’t the question, can you stop loving someone who you love? Despite everything?

When I Say Goodbye to Helen

02.04.2024

One day, it will be time to say goodbye to Helen. Either she will stop reading this diary. Or I will stop writing. One person will exit the game. And then, the game will be over. Right now, Helen is winning this game. Whatever strategy I have adopted, I always lose. I hate losing. In any game. I play to win. One day, I will be sick of losing. Not right now. Robert the Bruce watches the spider falling again and again to rebuild his web. It is the story that my grandfather told me. The spider will keep picking itself up again and again. It goes on instinct. The web of words is created every night. And those gossamer threads we spread around the image of our darling. She is the nourishment of what it is that we are. She is comfort. She is the dream. Without the dream, there is no life or desire for life. That is where the spider is at the moment, though he falls. He falls in the fall of love, the glance from those fell eyes, the honey dripping from those lips, the waterfall in her hair and the blackness of her eyes.

After work today, I walked home with my new friend. And she took me grocery shopping with her on the way to the station. Why lie? I like being around women. That was interesting to me. Just being around them makes you feel good about yourself. They have always been scarce in my life. Now they are in my life. But because they were scarce before, they are all special to me, valuable. I could learn them for my whole life.

The highlight of today was dinner. I don’t like to write what it is. It is not nice when I know nobody else can have it as good as me. My mother is the most wonderful cook in the world. Her food is her love for me. She will spend all day cooking for me. How can anyone else in the whole world eat as good as me? It is impossible.

After I got home, I did a bit of shopping myself. I picked up some things which I really fancied: cherry yoghurt and cherry jam. It is the season of the cherry. The most beautifully flavoured fruit for me. The tartness and the sweetness combined. Why did they say that the cherry is virginity? Because the sensuousness of the taste is sexual, animal.

It is almost bedtime. And therefore time to read. Tomorrow morning, I have promised myself that I will pick myself back up and throw myself once more against the world. Tomorrow morning, I have promised that I will win the day for my people. Tomorrow morning, once more, I have promised myself that I will be The Tiger, The Machine. The prayer of the Punjabis, of Mother India. Her true son and lover. No one amongst us has this mind. No one amongst us has these privileges. No one amongst us has this support system. No one amongst us has had the best education in the whole world. No one amongst us is so strong, ferocious and powerful. There is one that has come into this world. There is one that knows the unknown things.

Inquilab zindabaad! Inquilab saada zindabaad! Jai Maa Kaali! (Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution live forever! Hail to the Dark Mother Goddess!) Remember the promises that you have made and the oaths you have sworn. Remember It is time to get better. It is time to be the best again. The lone man in this country of non-men. Punjab expects. India expects. The village expects. Jai Maa Kaali!

The Predictability of Unexpected Frustration; Cancelled Holidays; Why I Asked Helen Out: Scarcity and Abundance in Love; The Anger of Women as an Evolutionary Tool in Courting, Status and Ambition – The Depression of the Young

29.03.2024

heart dragon

flew the dragon
from the heart
fired the dragon
from the heart
the anger of the blood
was in him
the madness of the brood
was in him
flew the dragon
fled the pain
frolicked the fire
and fed the hunger

The whole day went fine. The journey home went fine. Then, just before dinner, I asked a question. And then my whole day was spoilt. When you have really built your hopes up for something, there is an inevitability about it not coming to fruition. When you depend on other people, often in life you are going to be disappointed.

So four days of my holidays are cancelled. I was going to go Italy. How long has it been since I have been abroad? And have I ever gone to a foreign country which it was me that picked? Never. So, I have to decide now. Either I can give up on this holiday. Or I can go somewhere by myself. And, for the first time in my life, I can go to a foreign destination that it is me that wants to go to.

I spent all day talking to my boss who is a traveller and she was recommending Sicily to me and the people I was going to go with. I was really getting into the idea of going.

You know, when you plan something with other people, this is almost always what it turns out like. When I say I am going to do something and I agree with someone, I never back out of it. At any cost. I see it through until the end. Even if it is the bitter end. That’s why I don’t actually really trust other people.

It is sad. Because recently, someone I knew for only a few months invited me on a holiday. And then people you have known for that amount of time are doing this to you. What do you expect out of people, really?

I’ve started getting used to the fact that someone is always going to ruin my day and my plans.

The first time I asked Helen out, we had stopped being together in that context. I missed her. She was the happy point in my life. So I asked her out so I could have her with me. Just me and her and no one else interrupting all the time. It was a solution to a problem of scarcity. But Helen doesn’t have the same problem that I do. There wasn’t a scarcity of happiness in her life. So the time that I was talking to her, I was just another man that was talking to her. And Helen does not lack an abundance of men talking to her. For me, she was special. For her, I was no one. That’s how love in this society operates. The women have the abundance of love. Maybe some men do. Not me. I haven’t had many women in my life or much love from them. What can you do? I am Indian. I was brought up in a white society. That’s what it was and is for us from them.

When a woman is angry at you when there is a suspicion of interest on one side or the other, does it have an evolutionary element to it as a successful strategy? Because when this woman is angry, for seemingly nothing, it makes you pay attention to her. You think about her. You start wondering why she was angry at you. You start doubting yourself. You have to conciliate her. So she gets the power. This is not the first time. It has happened many times with these young women in my life. Ones that I have liked and ones that I haven’t. Over what? Is it just a strategy to gain attention and control? What is so maddening about the way I talk and act? If I was really that bad, why do 99% of people not say anything about it to me?

The young people nowadays are suffering from mental illnesses and depression. It is not a good time to be young. And when you don’t have status and your ambitions aren’t being fulfilled, it stresses you out. Status gives you everything in this world: respect, love, admiration. But look at me. What status do I have? Yet I don’t get stressed out. You know why? Because I know that I am more intelligent than almost everyone else. That is my status. I know things that other people don’t know. I have observed and read. My ambition was to be more intelligent than other people and know more. I keep all my secrets to myself for the time being. Because why would I reveal them when I am not going to get any recognition for them? I’m not going to kill myself to try and cure ignorance and selfishness in this world – because you can’t. The world is ruled by the devil, like the Christians say. Someone might know more about specific things than me. But the things I know about are colossal and determine the ways that people think. Plus, the other thing is that I have achieved all my ambitions. When I wanted to be a teacher, I became a teacher. When I wanted a PhD and become a doctor, I became a doctor with a PhD. When I wanted to get the best results at sixth form and university, I got the best results. When I wanted to work in museums and art galleries and give tours, I got a job and did that. When I wanted to become a published author, I did that. When I wanted to be an athlete at school, I did that too. That’s why I don’t get stressed.

And what about not being able to meet someone I like that likes me back? Do I get stressed about it? No. I have been through a lot of psychological symptoms because of it. Maybe I am secretly stressed in my unconscious. But not in my conscious mind. Because there is a solution. Just like the situation with Helen when I asked her out, there is a very simple solution. Buy the babies from a surrogate mother. Forget about having intimate company with a woman. I just have to harden myself enough to do it.

And the other thing is, I know that I am a good catch. I don’t lack confidence in myself. I am handsome. I am well built and muscular and athletic, with lots of power and stamina. I am well read and cultured and educated. I am good at talking to other people and they find me interesting. I take care of other people. I try to be kind and polite and listen carefully to other people. And I stay clean and wear nice clothes and fragrances. I am good at looking after children and I put other people before myself. I am loyal and I don’t cheat. I work hard at my relationships. So if someone doesn’t like that or can’t see it, I don’t beat myself up about it. They can go with someone that can’t love them as much as I can just because of their money, status, skin colour and height. What else do you really expect from other people?

A Friend’s Birthday Drinks; When the Party Finishes; Burger Delights; In the Night; Love from an Indian-English Pair; Real Happiness

28.03.2024

Yesterday, I felt pretty low. I talked to her for five seconds in the whole day. And in that five seconds she attacked me. The genuine moment of happiness was when I was going home and picking up a free treat on my loyalty card at Marks and Spencers. I was thinking about who to give it to. First I thought of my work family. Then, as I was walking past the homeless guy in front of the train station, I suddenly decided to give it to him. The smile that lit up his face was the genuine moment of happiness in the whole day. Here was someone that didn’t have anything and they were happy with just an inexpensive bag of sweets that a stranger had given them. He smiled like it had made his whole day. When I am feeling low, giving something to someone makes me feel good. Because you share something with them and you feel like you are making someone happy. Even when you are not happy yourself.

I gave my tour which I wrote on request to an Indian man with a white woman and their child. They were so pleased with my tour that they kept on thanking me afterwards and they wrote some really lovely words on the feedback form. But what I think made them the happiest, although they wouldn’t say it, was that I told them that I was Indian as well and I talked about one of the posters which features Indian women.

I went to a friend’s birthday drinks. I told him yesterday that I would go but because I was upset yesterday I felt tired today. So I had to make myself go. Life is passing me by. I can feel it. Nothing is happening. No one loves me. I can’t meet someone that I like that likes me back.

But you know what, these people are my friends. I get on with them so well, especially the one whose birthday it was and another person there. I forgot about how tired I was around them. We learnt more about each other and we had a good time. I left the earliest though because there is a certain point in any of that kind of social gathering that I start missing the woman that is not there with me. You feel the ache of emptiness. You are going to have to walk home alone. You are going to have to sleep in your bed alone. There is no one there that you can call your special own. So I got up and left. And I rushed off so fast to get away from everyone that I left some stuff there.

The Tiger hunts alone. The world has denied Tiger the one thing that he wanted the most in his life. Love. So, Tiger is hungry and wounded. But without hunger, there is no Tiger. Without the wound, there is no aspiration to a cure. This is the fate of Tiger.

It was my friend’s birthday. It was an occasion. One of my best friends in museums and art galleries. So I treated myself with burgers at Burger King for a change after the drinks. They are the best. They are the ones that I have enjoyed the most since I was a kid. And, since it has been so long since I have eaten them, they were breathtakingly good. I really enjoyed myself. When you are sad and you don’t have a woman in your life, food is a substitute for a lot. You can’t hold her hand. But you can eat food. You can’t kiss her. But you can eat food. You can’t talk to her in your bed. But you can eat food. You can’t learn about her in an intimate setting with candlelight and music. But you can eat food. You can’t stroke her hair. But you can eat food. You can’t run your fingers down her arm and tickle her. But you can eat food. Food is something you will always have in this country, unless there is a major disaster. And it comforts you. Thank mother nature for chocolate and junk food.

Today’s highlight was the birthday party obviously. But also sharing some of my fancy chocolate biscuits I keep in my cupboard with some of the other friends I have in the museum. Even better than eating it yourself is to make someone happy with it for a moment. Sharing things. Sharing happiness.

In the night, I think of Helen. She is the one I have pillow talk with in this diary. Like a couple that talks about their day in the night in the bedroom. It was a busy day. Sometimes, you don’t think of her much the whole day. You feel like you are finally beginning to escape from her hold on you. But when the night comes and you are alone, that is when you miss her the most. Just looking at her once in the day makes your whole day, even if you think about how she has disappointed you. And when you don’t see her, your day isn’t really complete. But then, at night, you keep on remembering how she looked while she was talking to you. You replay the conversations in your head. The first one where I actually noticed her, when she was talking about the potential outbreak of a war in her country. Asking her about the watch that she wore which made me think that she was so stylish. Her reaction when I asked her how busy she was when she didn’t even have a boyfriend and didn’t live with her family. When she told me about an issue she was having with a sibling, which was the first time I thought that she trusts me with her personal stuff. The beautiful scene with the notebook when she jumped up and down for joy and clasped that book to her chest. When she ambushed me and her eyes burned with brown fire. When she was angry at me. When she talked to me in a different place and what she was wearing, those beautiful clothes. What is your life without your memories? Even if you think of them sadly?

I have forgiven my frenemy for how she treated me. I always forgive her. It is not her fault. She is sensitive and she is also young. She doesn’t know the problems I have had and I can’t write it here. She doesn’t know what she is doing. I’m just going to leave it and not say anything. Whatever she does, I think of her as my friend and I like her. Even more than a friend. As everyone says to me, I am soft when it comes to women. Too soft.

Habit; Congratulations; Making Someone’s Day; Another Friend Goes; Cambridge University

24.03.2024

we-look-for-life Download

Habit is something. I made myself draw every night for years and years. So it has become a habit late at night. Now, six months into this diary and I have to write every night. Because I have gotten used to talking to Helen. Who else do I have in my life? And with her, what I have are my memories. She moves in her own world. I move in my own world. There is only memory:

two sparrows shared a meal of song
and then they parted
two crows jostled feathers
and then they went their own way
whether there will ever be
a reunion of what is scattered
a gathering of wings
is written on the sea
in the light of the moon in the clouds

I watched someone give an apology to a group of people today. I was wondering to myself whether anyone has ever said sorry to me in my life for the trash way they have treated me. I don’t think so.

I had a few successes over the past few weeks. People might think that I brag about things, but I am not going to mention this stuff. Let’s just say I was recognised. But do you think anyone congratulates me for anything? In the culture I have been raised in, you don’t get praise for your successes. Only criticism for your failures. Because your ego has to be kept in check. Even when I got the best results in sixth form, they didn’t celebrate it. Or for my PhD or the publication of my book or for my first class honours degree. The only person that congratulates me is me.

A lady at work told me that I had made her day because I remembered her and asked about her day. I thought to myself that it was quite sad if that was true. Because she had her family around her, she was out for a day, why would it make any difference to her if I remembered her or not and asked her something? It is funny the way that women’s minds work and what they say.

Another friend has left. So things will be worse than when she was around. I don’t like people going out of my life. People might think I’m cruel or unfeeling because I have taken some risks with two friendships over the past year and I have written that it makes no difference to me if they stop talking to me because they can’t let me be something more. Everyone in my life is subordinate to my future children now. They are the most important thing. And I don’t really want to talk to someone that can’t see me as a man. That is me being honest. I make myself do it. I don’t accept anyone devaluing me. They are wrong. Why should I accept the basis of their devaluation? They are doing it to me because I am Indian. They can say what they want about it. I know that if I was exactly the same and I wasn’t Indian, they wouldn’t treat me like that. I know. I don’t care how much people deny it.

The biggest disappointment in my life was not getting into Cambridge University when I was eighteen. I passed the interviews. I had two of them. I had all the requirements. I got all the grades. I got the best results in my sixth form. And they still wouldn’t let me into the university. They put me on the reserve list and then none of the colleges chose me. That’s this country. You can do everything that is required. But because you are Indian, they still won’t take you. My white friends got in. And then, it is the same with the women in this country. You either have to be white or act white to be with them. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what you have, what you are, they still won’t love you. But I am not going to stop being Indian for any one. Because no one in this country accepts you as a British person. They recognise you as an Indian person and they will never accept you in this society. Because, like with Cambridge, when it is the important things, they just won’t let you have them. Positions, status, love, respect, a proper say, acknowledgement, a serious attempt to listen. It’s no good saying that a few people aren’t like that. No one can tell me that my experiences don’t exist. You can try and deny and try to make me out to be a liar. But that just shows what I am talking about – they won’t ever accept our perspective and our reality.

There is just one hour left of the waking day. Can I make myself read again? There is so much to do and learn. There is so much to achieve still. Life burns within these eyes and this heart. When I do force myself out of bed for work, I do things. Everyone knows it. I am trusted. People come to me for advice. They look at me as a role model. The challenge now is to get back up and fight in my own time. Motivation is flagging. What is the point of doing anything? But what about the unspoken promises I made to my community? They are looking for a hero. They are looking for success. They prayed for The Tiger to come into this world. Tiger has come into this world. I am known for performing. No matter what happens. The only break was when I was sick. I am not sick. So there is no excuse. It is time to man up again. It is time to be the Tiger once again. They expect. To be us, the superhuman is demanded. And we believe that we are superhuman. We become superhuman. You either have to be more of a man otherwise you become something less. There is one rule in this community of tigers and honour – hold your head up high for the community. As soon as you bow your head you have to live a life of shame and dishonour. You become what they want you to become so they can look down upon you and your people forever, rape your women, exploit your brothers, disrespect your children and the future, take everything from you so you have nothing.

So, to tomorrow. Every night, we say to ourselves, to tomorrow. Remember, you have promised. You are the Tiger. The outcome of the prayer. The people’s champion. Inquilab zindabaad! Inquilab saada zindabaad! Jai Maa Kaali! Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution Live Forever! Hail to the Dark Mother Goddess!