Holiday Day 3: Four Museums, Five Exhibitions

28.04.2024

Me standing next to the poster of Mother India, the film I got my name from. In real life, her co-actor Sunil Dutt saved the actress playing Mother India from a fire which broke out. Her name is Nargis, a flower – why women are flowers for me. They fell in love when she looked after her hero Sunil (her son on-screen) in the hospital.

The purple flower is broken – purple for Athens, my identity at school was Athenian in Athens house… 💜

The Valentine’s card made thinking about Helen this year.

Museums and a charity bookshop aside from copious amounts of art history study, where I managed to make myself well into the assignment (still 3 hours of wake time left since it is only 20.38 as I am writing). Here’s the itinerary:

1.British Museum – Greece, India
2.The Wellcome Collection – Jason and the Adventure of 254, The Cult of Beauty
3.The British Library – Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music
4.The National Portrait Gallery – The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In

I will write about each of the exhibitions in due time – all except for The Cult of Beauty.

What can I say about the cult of beauty? In reality, Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world to me because she was kind to me. It was her behaviour that I was attracted to. She is beautiful. There is no question. But I did not notice her when I first met her. The effect was over time based on her behaviour. It is the same with all the women that I am interested in right now. Over time. That is the essence of beauty in real life – beauty through relationship.

As I was looking at Greek art and Indian art, I was struck by a curious thought. We all know that the ancient Greeks got a new confidence when they defeated the might of the Persians. It shaped the racism that was to come afterwards. I have been shaped similarly. I have been shaped by the Indian Independence movement when we beat the British. Because the quest for me is still freedom. I don’t believe that India has got it yet. Because the nation is not freedom. The Western law is not freedom. Anarchy is freedom. The village is freedom. Self rule in its unmitigated form. Dharma, not law. Freedom is still to be achieved. Freedom is still to be fought for. The war is not over yet. The scholar is still in the war. I am still being shaped by the past victory to consolidate our position. It is not suspicion – it is fact. The prize is still for the taking. Remain The Tiger. Don’t break. Tiger is still alive. Tiger has been alive for six thousand years and will live until the end of time. For freedom from oppression.

I am shaping to the new layout in my room. A new place to think and to dream and to create. I stare at the bookshelf for inspiration. I stare at it with love. It is what I want to become. So many books to read. So many things to learn. Hope springs eternal. Ambition is undefeated. The dream of education.

I saw the Rosetta stone today. I saw it with Helen. We read it together. I still have my memories if nothing else.

I compared the ‘Crouching Venus’ with the ‘Crouching lions’ in the Nereid monument. The woman is defensive, the lion is aggressive. The woman retreats from the gaze, she is hiding. The lion is fierce display. The woman is shame, the lion attack. The woman looks as though she is not moving at all, the lion looks like it is just about to flash like lightning. Which one, though, is the more powerful? That shame will douse any flame from any man. When you see them shrink from you as though you were a wild beast, all you feel inside is dismay. The lion, you would fight with. With the woman, you have to turn away.

I saw Michelangelo’s Pieta in the shop and I really wanted it. I am looking for a sculpture in my room now there is space so that I can be like Freud who collected these curios. My statues of the Hindu gods and goddesses are in the corner we have made for my mother to worship. I won’t get a female nude because of my mother, of course. The naked Kali she tolerates because that is the religion. I will have to find something else that I am interested in.

I got a finial bangle of some Egyptian cats to wear. One of my friends told me to get a bracelet a while back instead of getting my ears pierced. It was expensive, but what do I work for anyway if I am never going to spend the money? I have wanted one like it since I was a kid but never got round to it. I love finial bangles and torques. I was going to get the lion one first – my middle name is ‘Sim’ which means ‘Tiger’ from the Sanskrit word ‘Simha’ like the god ‘Nar-Simha’ (Man-Tiger). The word is the same for ‘Tiger’ and ‘Lion’. However, I got the cat, because the Tiger is a cat too. And I liked the design better and it was more visible than the lion design. The woman serving me helped me to put it on and take it off, although she actually looked like she didn’t want to serve me. That’s kind of what you expect from a lot of these women. The one in the charity bookshop was exactly the same. Why do you work in retail and customer service if you don’t actually want to even talk to someone when they are engaged in a one minute talk with you?

Books I’m interested in that I saw:

How to be a Renaissance woman – the role of women in chemistry and botany as they made make up for themselves
Plant Life – laser cuts and flaps in this children’s book

I was watching the dancing hands of an Indian woman as she was talking to her husband or boyfriend on the tube as I got back. It was an energetic dance. I had my headphones in and wouldn’t have understood her language anyway. All you can do is observe as an outsider and speculate on what they are talking about and why her body was moving like that. Next to me, a very beautiful Indian woman was sitting there. She was the most beautiful woman I saw all day. She looked at me as I was getting off, then walked past me as I stood on the escalator. As I passed through the barriers, I saw her walking towards the end of the tunnel. Believe it or not, I started walking fast – it was a race. I wanted to see if I could get past her. Before she finished going up the stairs, amazingly, I managed to get past her. I won the race. How could she beat me? I have the body of an athlete. I can walk as fast as some people can run. Why did I race her? I’m an athlete. I’m competitive. I don’t like anyone beating me. Helen has won. She beat me. But that is something I can’t do anything about. Because in the arena of choice, the women are the queens in this country.

Astounded by how silent London is when you are a lone bachelor around the town. The only people that talk to you are other men – quite a few in the tube today and then one in the shops on the way home as I was carrying flowers. No wonder so many men are desperate for female company. Luckily, I work in the industry that I work in which is full of beautiful women to talk to.

Why don’t I just buy myself a wife from India and the children will come? People have asked me. People tell me to do it all the time. Why not? Because I have principles. Because I am a lover, not a buyer. I am not going to buy someone with my British passport and my superior wealth to them. Despite this culture calling us Indian men misogynistic pigs (when they are misogynistic themselves), I believe in choice. Not arranged marriage with its casteism and its inequality. And because I want someone that I can talk to things about – someone who has had access to art and culture and the frame of reference that I know about and have studied for them to talk to them. I would rather go it alone than compromise on love and my principles. But what do I get for having principles: the treatment I get from women here in this country. You can’t win, whatever you do. Not if you have been raised like an Indian man in a white culture.

Holiday Day 1: Cuxton in Kent

43000 STEPS TODAY – Slightly sore feet.

Because it is my holiday, I managed to wake up early in the morning and just get out of bed after doing my reading of the newspapers in Hindi and Punjabi and after reading some Urdu poetry. I was able to get up and do meditation, chi building exercises as well as weights. I managed to have a full breakfast. I managed to do some reading.

And then my friend turned up in the car to drive us down to Cuxton in Kent.

I contacted five of my friends at work in the morning or replied to their messages. All women – most of my friends are women. That is just how it is nowadays. They were never in my life. I needed them in my life. I have them in my life now.

When we were driving there, I saw Dartford Bridge for the first time in my life. It was an amazing sight

We passed by Rochester castle which looked absolutely beautiful and imposing in the distance.

Arriving in Kent was like arriving in another world, another time. It was so green and relaxed. It was amazing. We parked in a residential area and as we walked out into Kent, I saw the most beautiful wild garden which had masses of bluebells in it. It was the sweetest introduction into the area.

I had brought my little pocket telescope with me and my friend likes bird watching so he was teaching me how to do it. We saw a kestrel, a sparrow hawk, a seagull, blackbirds, a buzzard, etc. We also heard a cuckoo and looked around for it. He has been a teacher and is good at it. But to be a good teacher, the greatest thing is patience – which he has in abundance.

I saw a tree felling site for perhaps the first time in my life and we crossed over an actual railroad crossing which I don’t think I have ever done either.

In Cobham Woods, the most amazing piece of architecture was there, Darnley Mausoleum. This is Grade I listed mausoleum built for the Darnley family in 1786. It was never used.

We went into Cobham church and had our lunch on the bench outside. I had two massive sausage rolls with a San Pelegrino soft drink. The volunteers in the shop started talking to us and one of them was wearing a knitted flower to support someone that didn’t have the money for an expensive medical drug. They were surprised to learn that we weren’t local, these two elderly women.

The church dates back from the 1200s as we found when we looked at the bodies buried inside. It had amazing stained glass windows and was really impressive when you looked at the altar. Everyone knows my personality and how my mind works. I was thinking of having Helen, Girl 3 or Potential girl with me at the altar exchanging vows. I imagined them in their white dresses and holding their hands and kissing them.

There were beautiful flowers, trees and animals everywhere on the walk. We saw a beautiful red fox, we saw a stampede of bulls flinging themselves wildly in the woods, and then lambs too.

I was telling my friend all sorts of things – why I watch children’s films and read children’s books (because they are written by adults and are just as sophisticated as adult’s fiction, because they are exciting and things and adventures happen in them). Asking for advice about Helen and how to get her. Asking for advice about how to talk to women. Asking about his family, about the next day we are planning together this week. Asking him about what he wanted to do in life, what it was like to get a bit older, what language he would like to learn, talking about films and literature and art.

We talked to an old lady in the woods in front of her house for a while, learning about the politics and the forest management in the place. She had a wonderful garden which she had lovingly tended. All the gardens there were wonderful, immaculate.

We had conversations in the cafe while I ate a chocolate brownie, outside another church which was closed to the public and then in the pub where I had a lime and tonic. My chair vibrated wonderfully in the pub for some reason – we couldn’t figure out why it did.

For dinner, we ate out at this wonderful Thai restaurant – a massive amount of food. Spring rolls with chicken satays and peanut sauce and Tom Yung soup. Then seafood grill, beef curry, noodles, yellow curry and steamed rice. It was amazing. Some of the best Thai food we have ever tasted in our life. The women there that served us were super friendly. It was a really well decorated restaurant as well, and we ate our food next to the Koi pond with the Ganesha statue.

Next Rochester town centre with all of the young women going out for the night and laughing and joking, and then Rochester Cathedral and Rochester castle seen from outside in the moonlight. Full of food and happiness with the day.

The white rose which represents my love for Helen is prospering.

Easter Sunday Holiday

31.03.2024

The Pink Roses: Innocent love. Love beginning to deepen into red. The youth of the feeling. The virginity of emotion. Fresh always. No matter how many times you have fallen before.

The White Rosebud: I thought my love for her was dying. I thought I had to kill my love. It comes to life again. Nothing is ever over in life while the air gives you breath. Look how majestically the bud sails up into the moon…

The Daffodils: Spring awakes, the mind shakes/eternally the heart breaks/what nature makes/she unmakes/I smell the daffodils and the scent of the new/I smell the daffodils and begin to heal and laugh anew.

I took this day as a complete rest day. I had applied for my normal shift on a Sunday and I didn’t get it. So I made do with what I had.

In the morning, I met up with my friend in the park. I deliberately told him we would meet up early so I wouldn’t have an excuse to lie in bed and not do anything. We got massively muddy. We see each other basically every week. He is even going to go on the first two days of my holiday with me and drive me down somewhere. He wanted to come with me on the rest of the holiday too, the other four days, but he couldn’t. Whenever I meet up with him, I lose all my stress. Because even though we argue over everything – including Helen and my approach to her and what I write in my blog – he makes me feel relaxed and we can talk forever about things. One day recently we talked together for about thirteen hours non-stop – one of my last holidays. So after that, I was completely stress free, despite everything that has been happening.

My friend’s advice to me about Helen? They all say the same thing. Leave her alone, she doesn’t deserve you. And if you can’t do that, my friend added, make her jealous by talking about other women and then write about the lifestyle that you live – the lifestyle of a king when you can do whatever you want, when you eat the best foods in the world, when you can have whatever you want whenever you want it, etc.

Why talk about other women with Helen like I do here? What’s the logic behind it? There isn’t any logic. The logic is because if she is interested, she has drawn it out all this time despite knowing that I am fairly attractive and that I am going to be talking to other women because they are going to be interested in me. And she hasn’t done anything about it. So she must not really care that much about me. Or maybe she thinks that no one is interested in me. She is wrong. I only talk about the women that I am interested in here. Do you know, that almost every week, some Indian woman likes me or sends me a message on the Indian dating app? Top women with really high status jobs. The only thing is, I am not attracted to them. This week, a very physically attractive Indian woman liked my profile and we matched. Do you know what the problem is with her? She is two years older than me so that would create difficulties with any potential babies. Other women on the dating apps have liked my profile and some of them have messaged me. And they haven’t been right so I haven’t responded. Helen has this thought in her head that I am desperate and I will go out with anyone. Other women in real life have thrown themselves at me. I don’t go on about it because I’m not going to sit around notching up all the attention I get. I mean, five women in one day a couple of weeks ago came up to me on the street to tell me they liked my clothes and one of them asked me to kiss her. Do you think that happens to other men? It doesn’t.

Well, that’s Suneel as seen through the eyes of Helen. Who, despite what she acts like, reads this diary every night. To see what I am thinking. Most probably.

So, what was today’s menu?

BREAKFAST (usually always the same unless I can’t wake up): orange blossom honey, canadian maple syrup, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashew nuts, almonds, brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried goji berries, raisins, lemon peel, oat biscuit with yoghurt and strawberry, a banana, dried apricots, dates, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, yoghurt with chia seeds, flax seeds and lemon and lime marmalade, green tea.

LUNCH: Marks and Spencer’s Pigs in Blankets with Heinz Baked Beans.

TEA: A plain chocolate and vanilla Magnum.

DINNER: Marks and Spencer’s sweet and sour chicken with rice, Mark’s and Spencer’s Thai Panang curry, Marks and Spencer’s White Chocolate, Strawberry and Raspberry Mousse.

While I got everything on reduced for lunch and dinner, we are talking about twenty five pounds worth of food there from lunch onwards. Breakfast probably adds another fiver onto it. So, like I said, I live and eat like a king. I just don’t go on about it, because why boast when other people that are reading are likely struggling? That’s not nice.

On the way home, I bought some lovely daffodils which you can see in the photo – it was the one store that was open.

I spent a lot of time watching videos, but because I am what I am, I spent a few hours writing social media posts for the Japanese art gallery I am at. I also applied for the same thing as a volunteer at another website because I was interested in the subject matter. So I think I wrote quite a good post and sent it off as a specimen of my work.

I had a leisurely shave and a shower for once. Water makes me feel good. It’s why I enjoy swimming so much – or did when I had the time. When we are babies, we swim in our mother’s stomach. That’s why I love the water so much. It soothes me, it makes me feel relaxed and good about myself. It is comfort – a mother’s comfort. Water is woman. It is the same feeling of being loved. Love all over your body.

I watched a reel by Mia Khalifa on Instagram saying that men are easy and she has gotten every man that she has ever wanted because men are ‘cheap and easy’. Whereas she has turned down lots of men. So she isn’t. Maybe that’s how they think of themselves, these young women. It’s a triumph to hurt someone and turn them down because it makes them feel valued about themselves. And us men? We are nothing and not even worth having. It’s weird how gender dynamics work in this society. If I said that women were worthless and not worth having, I would be an incel, a misogynist. But because she is a woman, she can say what she likes and it is shared on public platforms and recommended on my feed.

Do you know what love is? When Matthew Perry (Chandler in Friends) found out that Julia Roberts had said she would only make a guest appearance on the show if he was in the scene, he sent her some red roses. And then they started faxing each other every day. That’s how they fell in love. That’s what love is. Love is commitment and communication.

Do you know what love is? After Napoleon Bonaparte became the man that he was – after he had been a poor immigrant with nothing – he met a woman that had rejected him when he was nothing and nobody. And he asked her why she had rejected him. That’s what love is. You don’t forget. Whatever happens.

But you know those stories? They don’t mean anything in this contemporary context. Do you know what love is now? Love is swiping on a dating app and meeting some stranger. Because the people around you keep you in constant reservation in case someone else better comes along. Because you are Indian.

Do you know what happened to Matthew Perry? He couldn’t believe that he was with Julia Roberts. He couldn’t believe that he could keep her. He was insecure. So he broke up with her in two months. And at the end of his life, he died alone. Even though he was starved of love. That is also what love is. It comes to weak men that can’t handle it.

Do you know what happened to Napoleon? When he became the man of the moment, he cheated on his wife and discarded her. That is also what love is. It comes to weak men that can’t handle it.

Love is not perfect. In love, you have your moments. The good ones and the bad ones. My friend who has had a wife for so long said that to me. Don’t assume that you are going to live in happily ever after even if you do find someone. You have to be able to work at it and commit. You can’t let your insecurities get the better of you.

I look at love and all of the barriers to it: gender differences, cultural differences, the way women have been indoctrinated in this society, what I have been brought up to believe women are like from movies and films and songs, the fear of these people, the inability to talk, rampant racism in society. Without the illusion that there is going to be a happy ending, without the need for a family, why would anyone want to be in love with anyone here?

But with love, there is nothing you can do about it. When you love someone, you just do it. It might be impractical, inconvenient, irrational, even wrong. You can watch how differently they treated everyone else to you and downgraded you. They can be unfair to you. But you still love them anyway.

The Festival of Colours

25.03.2024

My holidays are at the end of April. I have decided to give up on Scotland for the time being and go to Italy on holiday with family. I have said that when we get there, they can do what they want and then I will do what I want and we can just meet up at night time and in the mornings. The first two days of my holiday I will just spend with my friend in a driveable distance in the countryside and nature.

I was going to just go somewhere by myself but the thought of being a foreign country all by myself all day doesn’t particularly appeal to me.

Social Media stats:

300+ impressions on each LinkedIn Post
13 impressions on each Instagram Posts

I should actually just delete my Instagram account. It is useless.

It is the festival of colours today. Time to repair relationships and begin anew. And in fact, because I was around certain people for a while (why cover it up, Girl 3 and potential girl), I don’t feel that bad. Because even if nothing is going to happen with them, you can date them in your mind. I get on well with them. I like them. Just being around them, talking to them and looking at them makes you forget about your problems.

All my friends want me to give up on Helen. I have tried to give up on her three times. Twice by not talking to her. Once by going with someone else. Helen herself has never given me any encouragement. She has said no twice. Yet look at how stubborn and senseless the human heart is. Even now, as I am writing these facts down, I am thinking about being with Helen. I am waiting for her to change her mind.

If it is this hard to just take the first little baby steps, how hard would everything else be with her? But then, you make the excuses to yourself. She has some kind of situation. There is the thing I heard about her from someone that slipped out, whether I heard it or understood it properly or not, whether or not it is just a misunderstanding on my part or a false memory.

But maybe this is a false problem. Because she has to make all the moves now. So if she doesn’t, I can’t do anything. Those are the rules. I have already asked one more time than I am allowed to. So I just have to be around her, thinking about her and not being able to do anything. Otherwise, I would not only feel like I was bothering her, I would probably be bothering her.

Because Helen is like she is, because the situation is what it is, I am having to talk to other women. That I am not even interested in.

What am I doing to change my fate? I need to meet some new women somewhere that I am actually interested in. It is not working on the dating app. They like my profile. They even reply to my messages. But then, nothing happens. And what are they saying that is so interesting? All they are is pretty faces. It is boring and not satisfying. I have more intimate and satisfying conversations with the women I already know.

The only place I can think of is the dance studio. Someone told me not to go there and don’t use it for that. What does he know anyway? There is bound to be someone single there that I could be interested in. I really should go to the slow dancing with someone. Those celebrity women went out with the male dancers in Strictly Come Dancing even though they literally have nothing in common with each other. Because all love is is being around someone all the time on a shared project and that’s how you fall in love. Just create the intimate moments. I will be holding a woman around the waist. I will be holding her hands. We will be moving together in beautiful music, looking at each other. I am still good looking and I know how to talk to people. It is not rocket science.

I will have to think about it. Helen is extremely unlikely. Girl 3 is extremely unlikely. Potential girl is extremely unlikely. And I don’t want to ask potential girl out because if I do and she says no, I’m not going to want to talk to her again. And I’m looking at the lifestyles of these women that weren’t raised like me and I know it would be very difficult with them. But when you love someone, you make allowances for them and you compromise. If they let you – that’s the issue.

The problem for me and everyone else is that I have been raised like an Indian woman in a village. No staying out all night. No drinking. No pubs and clubs. No hanging around anywhere where there might be any women. I have been raised to stay at home and look after my family. To do things with the family. To think about the family first. And now, when it comes to having my own family, all that is creating is problems. When you become institutionalised, you can’t just get up and leave. It is who you are.

If the Indian women in this country could just have been attractive enough for me and didn’t have such arbitrary demands on me as a man, if there were more of us in this country that actually had arranged marriages so that you could actually have an actual choice with these women, I wouldn’t have any of these problems. But what can you do? You are stuck in the box that you are in.

So I can either do nothing. Or go to the dance studio. Unless I get a better idea from someone else. I will have to ask one of my friends at work what to do, some women that are just friends. Maybe they will be able to point me in the right direction.

Face Troubles Again; The Heroine: The Story of the Mother’s Day Flowers; Holidays Booked and Travelling; Forcing Myself

10.03.2024

Face recognition troubles are increasing. Because she was wearing different clothes, I didn’t recognise the person from that context on the tube yesterday. I thought it was her. Then I thought maybe it just looks like her and then I ignored her. Because it is weird to say hi to someone on the tube if it isn’t that person. It sounds like a chat up line. That was the minor one – because I kind of recognised her, or at least I thought it kind of looked like her before I changed my mind. The major one was today. I spent the entire morning talking to that person, someone I’ve never met before. And then, later, because she was wearing a hat instead of wearing her hair down, I didn’t recognise her any more. I thought it was someone else that was there. I only found out because I asked her if she had been at the other place where the flowers came from because I hadn’t seen her there.

You know, when I was a kid, I thought it was really stupid that no one could recognise Superman as Clark Kent in the comic books because he just wore glasses. Now it turns out that I’m even worse than that. All they have to do is change their clothes or cover their hair. Then I can’t recognise a woman any more, even like today when it was literally just five minutes after I finished talking to her.

They gave out Mother’s Day flowers to some women in that context today. Someone joked that I had given them to someone. Actually, I helped to transport those flowers. I took someone up in the lift that was carrying them. As we were talking, I asked him about the lady with the crutch that refused to go in the lift to go up. What was the reason behind it? Was she scared of being in the lift? The man told me that she wanted to prove that she could do it and she wanted to get the exercise from doing it. She is a very resilient woman. I have watched her struggling up all those stairs with the crutch. He said it was silly. I told him that it wasn’t. I told him that I admired that woman. I have admired her since I have seen her doing it. You have heroes and heroines in every nook and cranny in this life.

She is like my grandmother. My grandmother would walk everywhere to save two pence on shopping on a product. Even though she had bad knees. Because that money she saved would be for her sons when she left them it. Because she had come from poverty. Because she had to leave everything behind in the Partition. The poor and the oppressed have a superhuman strength. That generation. That generation that raised me. While we were in the lift, that person told me that their mother had died forty years ago. I told him that was sad, that I was born around that time ago and that you never really lose someone. You think about them every day. So that’s how those flowers came to those women. Through that journey I took and through that conversation.

My holidays have been booked for the end of April. I have asked my friend if he is free and am waiting to find out. I am going to go to Scotland and the Hebrides – either with him or by myself. It is going to be an exploration of the natural world with some time in Edinburgh. Someone asked me if I ever go on holiday today. Because I haven’t taken a holiday from work for about two years really. The reason I haven’t gone anywhere is because I have been waiting for someone special to go with me. For a long time. I have them all saved up: Athens, Rome, Florence, China, Japan.

Actually, I have probably been to as many places as other people. I used to go camping in Wales every summer with my brother and his friends. I have been hiking in the mountains in Nepal. I have been hiking in Iceland. I have been to Washington D.C. on a business trip with my brother for the museum and the botanical gardens and the bonsai garden. I have been to Spain and France with my family. I went to India in the village as a child. I have been to Abu Dhabi and Dubai several times with my family. I have been to some of the swankiest hotels and restaurants in the whole world. How many other places do you need to go to? I don’t like travelling that much. You never meet anyone there. Other people aren’t interested in doing the things that I want to do. It is very expensive and I keep on thinking the money would be better spent elsewhere on something productive and useful.

The best holiday experience I have ever had was when we were in Nepal. I was the only one that could speak Hindi in the group which they speak out there. One guy got sick because he ate the meat there which the rest of us avoided. As a result, we had to change our plans while he got better in the hostel we were staying at. Back then, I can’t remember my age, but I believe it was early thirties. They had a young woman there in the hostel that was a university student. The older women trusted me and the others for some reason, and they sent her with us by herself to explore the local area. The only one that she could speak to was me. So I spent the whole day with this young woman Bobita talking to her about her life and her plans for the future. She guided us around. She took special care of me. When I got leeches on me, she took them off my leg, ignoring all the other men. That was the most beautiful holiday experience – because I had the companionship of a nice woman and learnt about her culture. When we got back, the older women – her relatives – told me to take her back home with me and marry her. And she would have done if I had asked her – because she comes from the same culture as me, since Indian and Nepalese culture are the same. When we left the hostel, she was sad and she gave us her contact details so we didn’t lose touch. But she was nice but not my type. So I didn’t contact her ever again – I’m not stupid. She would have thought it was something else and I might be a lot of things, but I would never hurt an innocent woman on purpose.

Anyway, I am putting up some of my holiday diaries up on my ‘About’ Page here if anyone wants to read them. As one document ‘Holiday Diaries’.

I forced myself to do the right thing given the situation and the feelings of someone else. What I wanted to do was to take them out of my life completely. Because every time I look at them, I remember what happened. The disappointment. If it was anyone else… But it is not someone else. It is that person. With Girl 1 and Girl 3 – who it was more understandable that she said no so it was easier to force myself to talk to her and be friendly with her – I haven’t forgotten the past. It is not the same any more. Even now, I make sure that there are topics that I won’t ask them about because I don’t want to know who they have or are going to choose over me and I don’t want to think about them and their lives all the time. But this is life. You hide your sadness. Because no one will ever share your sadness with you.

Saturday Rest; Psychological Problems; No March Holiday; Breakdown Everywhere

02.03.2024

Helped two people after work today. So many people in life now. Lots of people reading my blog today. I always wonder why. Why on a Saturday?

If the one after Helen had just gone out with me when I asked her a few months ago (Girl 3), probably all my problems would have been over by now. Because I would have been concentrating on her. Your life is conditioned by rejection. Rejection is the biggest thing in life. If Helen (Girl 1) hadn’t rejected me, I wouldn’t have even looked at Girl 2 and she wouldn’t have done what she did and ultimately rejected me either. And then, I could have had some psychological normality and all this weird stuff wouldn’t be happening right now. But you can’t predict what will happen in life. Sometimes, when you take a risk, you don’t get a big cost. Sometimes, you do get a big cost. Right now, Helen and Girl 3 are frenemies with me. So? I had to ask. I would rather know and not sneak around hiding the fact that I wanted to go out with them. Even if it ruins things. I don’t need more women friends. I have enough already. What I need is not a friend. And I am allowed to ask. There is no law against it. It is in the rules. If you ask someone after six months of knowing them because you have developed feelings for them, no one should judge you on it (even though they do – so what? People judge you in this society for the colour of your skin. If they are going to judge you for being a healthy, red-blooded man with natural instincts, then they are wrong).

I just went straight from work to home on this Saturday. At home, you don’t have to be surrounded by people all the time and you can finally be all alone – your true state in life. The honest state. I wanted to get home as early as possible. The train was delayed by fifteen minutes because of issues with the doors while in service so I lost that time. When I popped into the store on the way home to get something, I made it to the self-service to do everything quickly and not have to put up with the bad service you get there. The self-service malfunctioned. By that time, someone else had got in front of me. I lost three minutes there of my time. When I got home, there were problems getting the food ready. Another ten minutes lost there. Western society boasts about its industrialisation and technological prowess. Yet, nothing ever works to a satisfactory level. As with its myth of ‘independence’, the technological superiority myth is also bullshit. Who believes it? Just the western people when they are being racist to other countries, cultures and people (i.e. all the time).

All these psychological problems I’m having at the moment are fucking ridiculous. The unconscious is a fucking clown and drama queen. It won’t stop mirroring her and accept the reality principle. It wants to be a patient and a basket case. I’m not going to let it win. At the moment, mood is down and libido is low. Other people on the tube and street were getting on my last nerves. Have you ever read the chapter of Anna Karenina by Tolstoy when her love affair is over? That is the feeling. There is no viewer for the symptoms that knows what is happening. It is like the unconscious mind just wants to have bad jokes at the expense of the body. Why is this happening now? When stuff like this didn’t happen to me before? What has gone wrong? It is the illness from before. You don’t recover. You just have to stop everything getting worse so that you can keep on performing. Because of the similar situation – rejection, over and over again. Because I can go into work and perform, in everyone’s eyes I am fine. That is what you are judged on in this society in terms of health.

The holiday for the end of March was all booked off in the diary. I can’t get away somewhere like I was planning to. I’m going to have to book some for April instead if I can get that. I will have to check on Monday. Where should I go to? Athens? Rome? Scotland? Ireland? Versailles? I have never been to any of those places that are fairly nearby. Or should I book any holiday at all? I can just go to places in London on my days off. There are plenty of places that I haven’t been to. I can start up my photography hobby again and lug my laptop around with me so that I can sit in cafés with the internet and do research and writing. I don’t expect I will meet anyone. Nothing interesting will happen. It will just be sight seeing and some new locales. Do I really want to go? Just to get a bit of a change? Or do I want to sit around on my computer and with my books at my desk learning stuff? Non-work related stuff? Maybe I should take some weeks off later in the year and do the really big holidays that I was saving for when I met someone – the really expensive ones: China and Japan. Just do it by myself.

A Rare Chill

25.11.2023

After quite a while, I had a whole morning and afternoon off (late shift booked for the night). As a result, I was in the rare position of having a day off. A rare chill.

Something happened yesterday. Something very unexpected. Something very promising. Not for the diary though. Before, I wrote the diary as a letter. Now, it is just a diary. The writing has changed. Now, I am not going to write about certain topics – because I don’t have to any more – they are no longer the only means of connection.

In the morning, I finally managed to get out of bed early and to do my normal exercise routine after meditation and chi building exercises. Unfortunately, as I finished on the exercise bike, just one minute before I was going to stop pedalling, the pedal came off. It took me about thirty minutes to fix it because the screw was just not going into the nut. However, although it wasted thirty minutes of my day – and time is precious – I felt quite satisfied that I knew how to fix things like that. I have done DIY throughout my life. I don’t like it. I’m not good at it. But I can still do it. That is something. If it is ever needed.

I had a full breakfast after quite a few days and then I spent the morning catching up with all of my friends. I had a conversation through WhatsApp with four people and then I started going through all of my planning and organisational tasks for my diary. I sorted out a group expedition to Christmas at Kew with one of my closest friends and his wife and son too. I was quite pleased with that because I thought no one was going to come on the tickets that I had booked and I would have had to offer it up at work when I know that people are busy and are not going to come probably.

My mother made me a full English breakfast – something I haven’t eaten in maybe half a decade. Sausages, baked beans and a mushroom, pepper, onion and tomato omelette. This was my second breakfast – I didn’t get four breakfasts like a hobbit, but still. A beautiful meal.

I finally managed to return the whole massive pile of 19 books I had taken out from the library. I have been so busy that I haven’t managed to dip into any of them. They were just lying there in my room, colonising all of the space. I really need to stop packing so many things into my days (but then, money is important for the project I’m working on). It was a massive logistical effort to get those books to the library – they were exceptionally heavy. However, as with all things, you can do whatever you put your mind to. I got to have a conversation with one of my library friends at the library as a reward.

Afterwards, I went down to one of the local high streets in my area and browsed the charity book shops. I managed to get a few books that I wanted, like ‘The Times History of the World’ and ‘The Private Life of Plants’. The latter one was an incredibly lucky purchase. I bargained the World History down by a pound. As I told the assistant, Indians bargain. It is our culture. I had bargained it down a bit more because it didn’t have a price, but then the lady said that the charity shop needed to reach certain targets. So I just gave them more money than they had offered me as a price. I am a reasonable person at the end of the day, not a selfish person that doesn’t listen and won’t bend.

When I got home, I spent time in the garden admiring the newly planted flowers and sipping a glass of Appletiser (100% apple juice, fizzy), which I had never drank in my life before. It was quite good. The sun was out. It was one of the first times I’ve actually had leisure to be in the garden. I went inside and I put my statues of the mother goddess Kali and Shiva in the prayer cabinet, alongside with my pictures of the mother goddess of wisdom and learning and of the one with the tiger – Durga the Invincible. All my three Indian religions I have been raised in are there on the cabinet now. And – the meaning of my life – Kali the Dark Mother, the destroyer of sin, the furious, the ferocious, the unstoppable, whose blood lust is unquenchable, the supreme warrior woman.

I finally cashed in the awards I have won and got myself a commemorative pen to celebrate my successes and achievements. I’m really excited about receiving the delivery in the post. The pen is palladium-coated and will look supremely beautiful. Just to hold it in my hands and to remember all of the unpaid work I put in to get that pen because I care and love my job will be a wonderful experience.

For late lunch, my mother is going to make me my favourite Indian food. And now, I am going to watch some Hindi music videos. It has been a perfect day, with perfect weather. I feel connected to all my friends. I feel like I have achieved all of the things I have really been putting off.

UPDATE: 00.28 AM 26.11.2023

KIND ACTS TODAY (outside of work):

Lugged someone’s heavy suitcase for them up a flight of stairs at Liverpool Street and then down again.
Bought someone a present.
In the morning, I helped someone older that I know slightly with their research in a museum I am at by getting in touch with someone at the place they are interested in because I knew them.

I help everyone that I can even though people rarely help me, if at all. Actually, recently I was thinking about helping someone with something major. But you cannot help some people. And sometimes, you have to wonder how much time, effort and thinking you should invest in some people when you are not getting any kind of return.

The musicians at the event were Gina Birch and ‘This is the Kit’. The latter were literally amazing. It was one of the best performances I have ever been to. I worked with a nice guy too. He had been unlucky in love and was alone. It is difficult. He had a sad history behind him. No one looks at the history behind the unlucky ones. There is a reason it is so tough for them. That is the fairness of love.

I enjoyed a Marks and Spencer’s chocolate after quite a while before the shift started. A whole two pounds on a chocolate bar is a lot. But then, sometimes it is good to pamper yourself. After all, I have seen how the people around me just splash out money all the time on themselves because they have not been brought up in the culture of self denial and saving. I also managed to check out a cinematic experience at the venue, three of them in fact. Then, I read a book in the lounge about the black experience. The only people that can understand us and how the majority population treat us is the minority population in any country around the world.

Somehow, a pen has got caught in my favourite jacket. I have checked it several times – there are no holes. Every time I sense it, I feel uncomfortable. The solution is to undo the threads around the lining, but I am not going to do that. The pen is a little message that although I thought this was my lucky jacket and I was going to win in it, there is always a difficulty in these plans somewhere. Because people make those difficulties. Anyway, there is a fresh start. There is always hope, however much time, effort and thinking you invest and don’t get anything out of, there is always tomorrow. As Indians say, as long as you try, you cannot lose.