Greek Chocolate Biscuits; The Hunt, The Chase, The Trap: Reflections on the Game of Love; Volunteering; Art History Study

01.05.2024

today I want to be alone

with my dream

today I don’t want to feel

the apathy of the world

and its neglect

its lovelessness

its lack of attention

lack of observation

lack of sensitivity

this world that

can’t even see

the scar of separation

cut across my face

today I don’t want to see her

laughing and talking

with everyone except me

today I want to write to her

converse

convince

connect

the one made

out of electronic paper

the one that listens to me

the one that is

my dream

I ate some chocolate biscuits from Greece today. As I bit down on the unfamiliar taste, I wondered how the Greek palate was constructed. I was tasting a different country. A country where even their mouths have been ordered in a different way. Everything is ordered in life. These weren’t like the chocolate biscuits you get in England. A different system of beliefs and habits and learning. What do I really know about modern Greece? Nothing. I was raised in first a completely white British area and then I have lived for the past 23 years in an Asian area with almost exclusively Indian people.

I was talking to my friend and I commented that love is like making a trap for someone. You are trying to trap someone for life. My friend looked at me. He is kind. So he didn’t say what he wanted to say. Instead, he said that’s one way of looking at it. Everyone knows I am cynical and jaded. But what are you supposed to believe about love? Is it free will and choice? No, it is not. Your partners are chosen for you by society. You are led to the ones that are supposed to be like you. Even with the interracial relationships, they have had the other cultures kicked out of them and they do whatever the partner with the most power has. They forget themselves. In love, the one in love makes a plot. I will do this and then I will get her. All you do is make plots in your head. You conspire with your friends to get the other person. And then, you try your absolute best to hold onto them so that they won’t leave you. It is all a big, complicated, stressful game. The days are long gone when you chose one person and then you stuck fast to them for the rest of your life. It is the culture of convenience, the expendability of people, the massive numbers of population everywhere, the death of the idea of eternal love.

But, then, you see people that have been together a long time. In life, you have to remember one thing: you are Indian in a white society. You are different. It is not the same for you as everyone else. For everyone else, for all these Westernised people, everything is easy for them. And for you? Everything is hard.

Do you know that there has never been anyone in my whole life to ask for advice about women and dating? I had to make it all up from watching Indian movies. I only ask my friend now for advice because he is white and this is a white society and I have known him for a long time.

In the morning I volunteered in art interpretation. Then, straight away, when I left, I went down to the Japanese art gallery which I haven’t been to in quite a while. And I wrote some social media posts and talked to one of the new volunteers who had studied languages – I also study quite a few languages myself when I get time. I caught up with one of my main friends there. It was good to see her after a while.

I banged into a friend of a friend on the way home when I was printing off some portraits I painted for a friend. He complimented me on my art and was asking me about it. It came out quite well and I was pleased with it myself. Everyday, people compliment me. Except for the people you want to hear it from the most, the people you want to impress the most. They never compliment you on anything. They are never impressed with anything you do. This is life. There is nothing that you can do about it.

The only time I forget about being sad is when I am lost in the flow of creating. When I am working. In life, you might not have anything or anyone else, but you do have work. The work was supposed to be for my family. That work was my love for my wife and children. But in this culture, if you are Indian, you cannot even give love to anyone that you love. Such is life. Except. Except for this diary. Which is my love which I give to Helen:

i write with the flames

which burn inside me

I hunger in this fire

which burns me inside out

I thirst for the intoxication

of her black eyes

and the waterfall of her hair

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.

Frenemies; Encouraging Research; Suffering

27.03.2024

the tree of sadness

27.03.2024

a sudden bloom of doom

a heart stretched out

with limbs and fingers

poisoned toes

which strive

through the ground

and into the mind above

the tree of sadness

the structure of pain

burnt into your being

One of my frenemies – the main one – was mean to me. I thought since I hadn’t been around her for a while, she would have gotten over her anger. She is still angry and judging me and everything I do and say. The incident today was over literally nothing. You have to be careful when you become frenemies with a woman. She would never say what she said to me to anyone else there. She is sweet tempered and kind. It was really upsetting. I would like to say that she doesn’t know how much it hurts when someone you like is mean to you. But actually, she is doing it because she knows it upsets me.

So that ruined my day. When she said it, I had an awful sinking feeling in my stomach. I suspect the reasons why she is doing it. I keep my speculations to myself.

What can I do about it? Nothing. If a man spoke to me like that, I wouldn’t put up with it. But she isn’t a man. And she is sensitive. So the best thing is to just leave it alone.

Hopefully it won’t disrupt my sleep patterns as now I have been able to sleep again properly for the past few days. The last time someone I liked was intentionally mean to me, it took seven months to get better again. You know about it. You are reading my diary.

What she said keeps on coming back over and over in my mind. They think I am still young. When you are young, it doesn’t hurt so much. Because you haven’t had hurt upon hurt piled upon you. When they say that stuff to you, it brings all of the memories from before back. It is quadruple the blow. I hope they won’t have to experience it when they are my age.

If I ever upset anyone, it is unintentionally. I would never do it on purpose, especially to a woman.

I have been talking with someone that wants to do a PhD in my subject in English literature somewhere. She has an interesting project and I have been sending her a few short messages about suggestions I have and some links about stuff that I have been reading that might be relevant.. Today she sent me a little thank you note about it. She is a very friendly young woman. I would have appreciated the message more some other day, but life is what it is.

At least Helen is never mean to me. She has been angry at me. Very angry. Once. But she is not mean. But Helen is older. She knows what it is like.

Two friends are unwell. My friend couldn’t talk to me on the phone today because she was feeling so poorly. Another friend has had some really bad health news. I couldn’t catch up with her either. Suffering is everywhere around you in this world. I have only just got better myself. But nobody cares that I suffered and how I had to get through it by myself. That is this world. I had to keep it to myself and away from all of my friends and family until I got better and told two of my friends what happened. Because all they would say is I told you so – don’t mess around with the women in this country because you are different to them and why were you so stupid to do that stuff with these women here after what happened that other time.

Why? Because I want my kids. Because Helen wouldn’t say yes. She was the only one in my life that I wanted. At the time, there was no one else that I wanted. Everyone else is just a substitute for Helen and they all came later. If she said yes, I wouldn’t have even looked at any of these other women that are causing me these problems. I’m not blaming Helen. It is just a fact.

Life is a Scary and Dangerous Thing; Portrait by the Artist Friend; Having Friends to Message and Call

11.03.2024

When everything is said and done, life is a scary and dangerous thing. You hear about what is happening within your circle of friends. It is hell out there. For everyone. The human body is weak. The human spirit is weak. Hate seems to triumph over love. Revenge over fidelity. And the people doing the wrong things? They think that they are right. That they are perfect. It is always the other person’s fault or there is some excuse for the way that they act.

What is the problem in my life at the moment? That Helen does not want me? That maybe she is with someone else? That Girl 3 said that she didn’t want me? That I am being friend zoned when I don’t want to be friend zoned? I don’t have real problems in my life. Not compared to other people. Even the psychological things have stopped and I didn’t get sick. All I need to do to fix myself is to just get out of the bed in the morning. And face the fact that I might have to raise my family alone. I am strong enough to do it. I am strong enough for everything. I have been raised to be a hero. I am named after a hero. What has been expected of me is to do the things that a hero does. Everybody looks to me for strength. If these people are making the wrong choice – and if it is not me, it is the wrong choice – I am confident enough in myself to say it – then that is something that I cannot control.

Last week, I talked to Helen. And when I talk to her, all I can think about is her and what she said. But the way Helen has played it is that I have to talk to other women instead of her. But then, those other women, you can learn to love them as well. It is just a matter of time. When someone isn’t giving you what you need and want, someone else has to give you what you need and want. And there are some people that will give you it. I have a big heart. Those women in my life that I like, if I like them once, I like them all the time. Maybe other people can’t understand that. Maybe they think that there is something wrong with me, that I have a wandering eye. Maybe that I am not trustworthy. The fact is that I need a baby and a family. That is the most important thing. Even though I love Helen, she is not giving me what I need. And maybe she won’t ever give me what I need. In fact, it is more than likely that she won’t. And what about the other one, Girl 3? It is the same thing with her. However cruel it sounds, however much people are judging me, I can’t live a life without a family and my children in it. I would rather be dead. So that means that I have to keep on putting myself out there until I get someone that says yes and not no. And that means that I have to like people that could be potential candidates. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. I do what I have to. It is my duty.

I have jury service coming up. I have a holiday coming up. Things are changing around me. But how much is changing? When I studied the law, I wanted to be a judge. I am not a judge. I am a critic of the law of hate, arrogance and intolerance that masquerades as love and fairness. The critic of injustice that pretends it is justice.

It was a good day at work. I was surrounded by good friends and I had enough time to talk to them. The thing about life is – even with the relationships that you are disappointed in – time will heal the wounds. Maybe one day you won’t even care about how much they disappointed you. The ones I loved in the past, I don’t think about them every day like I used to. I don’t wonder what they are doing and if they still think about me. When someone doesn’t love you, you can’t think about them forever.

My friend drew a portrait of me. It doesn’t look much like me, but she is my friend so I have kept it in my oyster card to look at sometimes. It is the first portrait anyone has drawn of me in the new phase of my life – in my life working in museums and art galleries. It is a quick sketch, but it is a reminder of friendship and attention.

At one period in my life, all I had was my family. I kept myself away from other people. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t trust anybody. But now, after work, I was in touch with four people outside of work either on social media or on the phone. Life changes. After Covid and how bad it was, I promised that I would make a lot of new friends. And I did. Now I spend a lot of time on these friends. But I have still kept my friends from before. Because they are the ones that have lasted and you can trust them. I am not a disloyal person. If I care about someone, I will always try and keep them with me.

It is a holiday tomorrow. I have to work hard on volunteering work and study for art history. But right now I am going to catch up on some reading for leisure. It has been a frantic few weeks and things are not slowing down. But they call me The Tiger and The Machine for a reason – I don’t slow down.

Peace

06.02.2024

The ending keeps on changing. The situation keeps on changing. You have to adapt to the situation and what is called for.

When you lose a contest or a war, when you are defeated in your refusal to accept terms, you have to accept the peace that follows. And you have to make the peace offering. You have to say sorry for what you did in the past. You have to move forwards and establish renewed ties. Accept defeat and what is going to go with it with grace and don’t be a sore loser.

When you can’t sleep at night because of what you have seen and heard, which you don’t even understand, you have to change the situation. Don’t forget the favours they have done for you. You still owe them. I want my sleep back.

It has been an eventful day. But what had to be done has been done. It was the only right thing to do. I made myself do it.

And now I have to rebuild a friendship. There is time to recharge and refresh before it has to be done. I – or we – have done it before. Even though it is not easy. But I know it can be done. Why not? Forget everything and move on. Focus on the present.

Bodily Connections

26.01.2023

Photograph of me by my Artist friend – the other friend is making me laugh and ruining my face for the photograph when I was trying to do a pout.

The latest flowers I bought for me and my mother – the red rose for love and the pink rose for the beginnings of love.

Today, I organised a trip to the Tate Modern Friday Late for my work friends. One of my best, long-standing friends at the museum came with me as well as two newer friends who I really like as well. It was a really great night and I got to reconnect with the oldest friend and to form a lot of new connections with the newer friends, one in particular who I have liked since the moment I met them. The newer friend took a photograph of me – she is an artist like me.

As we were leaving this great night together, I shook hands with the oldest friend and hugged the newer friend goodbye. When you connect with your friends physically, it is the expression of your emotional connection and the togetherness that you feel with them. This was my second hug of the week – someone came back after a while and I hugged them as well. I am so lucky in this line of work with such great people that give you all this love and affection. They make you happy.

Actually, today was a day of bodily connections. There was a weird one earlier. I was handing a young blonde woman with blue eyes something. As she took it from me, her fingers touched mine. And I felt an electric shock. I don’t know if it was static electricity or what it was, whether it was a physical, real happening or whether it was all in my mind. The body is a funny thing, the mind is a funny thing. How could I tell what I was experiencing real or not?

Today was a really good day at work. The people at my workplace are so nice to me and they always take my requests into consideration when they do the rotas. They really treat you like a valuable and respected member of the team. As I said, in this line of work, everyone is a nice person and they will do what they can to make you happy.

After the turbulent events of the past few days, I finally managed to make myself wake up early in the morning in time for breakfast. It hurts me to think of her not being mine. Maybe with someone else that is looking at her, talking to her and, worst of all, even touching her. But that is life. When they are not yours, you can’t do anything about it. You can’t make someone like you if they don’t like you back. You can’t chase someone that doesn’t want you to chase them. You can’t have someone that might be someone else’s. That is wrong. The only thing you can do is to move on. And I am trying to do that.

A Phoenix Tells the Tale of Her Rebirth: A Patient’s Notes by Madeleine Channer

“A Patient’s Notes” is the soaring voice of the phoenix as it returns from fire and death to regain its former life, power and glory. Like the phoenix, its author burned in cancer and essentially died to give birth to this short, former nurse’s autobiography. The moments that flashed before the nearly departed’s life are here arranged and presented to form a story of healing, hope and enduring legacy. As the title suggests, the book is concerned with illness and its effects on life and its meanings, for all of us who are patients of this suffering world.

Continuing the theme of healing, the sales of this book written in the genre of the Christian medical memoir provide funds to the Diospi Suyana Hospital in Peru. The name of the hospital means to “Trust in God” in the Quechua language. It is because of this noble mission that I have decided to write this book review, rather than the fact that Madeleine Channer is perhaps one of my best and most intimate friends.

Madeleine has dedicated the book to her beloved father, Lesley Francis Cole, who did not manage to escape the tearing talons of cancer that she managed to evade. In terms of structure, the narrative is initiated by the primary scene of the original patient, the father with terminal cancer and his demise. From this tragic, traumatising moment, Madeline then shows how she builds a life dedicated to healing sickness. Finally, triumphantly, Madeleine’s own struggle with cancer is overcome with the help of those around her and the modern advances in medicine. A cruel contrast therefore motivates the work: the luckily present are compared to those unfortunates of history that did not live in the healing world of today. Those unfortunates who had to say goodbye to us for want of the proper care and knowledge. However, the contrast is also an inspiration: the war that Madeline has fought throughout her entire life against disease and cancer on behalf of patients like her father has resulted in victory.

What makes the book relevant to the historical moment and cultural trends is that Madeline had her recovery in lockdown, just as the world recovered from Covid and its effects. We share the relief and sense of wholeness from the broken years of the pandemic, the exulting sense of survival against the odds. Again, the celebration of the healing profession that the book espouses is a sentiment that has overwhelmed the world and England in particular, with its National Health Service. What adds something extra to this concoction is that the author is one of the upstanding citizens from the old generation, someone who has seen and lived through it all. So we hear things through the voice of those that have built the society and the community of care around us.

The constant theme of the book is adversity and its overcoming. Madeleine writes that hers was a precarious childhood where she was subject to emotional destabilisation and a corresponding lack of self esteem. The solution that the young Madeleine found to this state was the power of prayer, with its promise of change and renewal. She saw Christ as a model to aspire to, particularly as Christ the healer and the master of living. Several other heroes who were Christian saviours of the sick are also mentioned as inspirations: Florence Nightingale, Father Damien, Dr. Albert Schweitzer. The book is therefore a good example of what it means to have an enduring role model and how this can change the course of one’s life, as one tries to live up to the demands of becoming the figure that we idolise. The role model provides organisation and structure for living amidst the chaos of being and ultimately leads Madeleine to become a Christian saviour of those suffering in her own right, one of our most valuable members of society. Christ (and her father’s terminal illness) leads Madeleine to nurse Quechua Indian patients above 10,000 feet in the Andes.

Madeleine writes:

“How do we want to be remembered? What do we leave behind us? The kindness and diligent care provided by those involved in the great work of healing will echo for good, beyond time and into eternity”.

It is because Madeleine was one who nursed the sick and poor the we respect and love her all the more, and she will always be in our thoughts and memories. She has caught that good echo of healing with this well written, engaging and stimulating book, which moreover, brings in donations for the sick and poor of this world through its sales. Even if one is not in the faith community, the book is interesting in itself as it sheds light on the trials of one that sought to do good in the world despite all the set backs that life can throw at us. I was very happy to read and review o the book, and not just because Madeleine is my very good, very supportive, very perfect friend. Rather, it is because the book is the voice of the phoenix that has been brought back to her full beauty, after joining in that restless, oceanic sleep which haunts our being and time.