Newness

07.05.2024

I am on jury service. You are not allowed to write anything about it or tell people any details.

But there is something happening right now. I won’t go into it. So all of the energy has come flooding back. It took one moment. If you have been reading my diary, you will know me. You will understand. There is a guaranteed way of forgetting about all of your problems.

So I got myself a haircut, got myself a shave and took a shower finally. And then I took a photograph of myself to remember myself in this moment. Hope again. Trying again. Becoming new once again. The armour comes off one more time. If the sword is going to go into my chest again, then I will chance it.

In this photograph, I believe I look handsome and attractive. It doesn’t matter what other people think.

I am going to spend the evening reading. There is so much reading to be done.

I didn’t do exercise in the morning and I skipped breakfast again. I had to do exercise after jury service. But tomorrow is another day to try and get better. Tomorrow, I am going to get up early and do what I need to do. All it took was a change of scene and the stimulation.

My thought about Helen today. I think about her. It is not a secret. Every time I told Helen what I was doing, she wanted to do it herself. A language that I learnt. A university course. Photography. I wonder about what she was saying. Do you know, Girl 3 had all the same hobbies and interests as me? Potential Girl has the same interest as well. And despite having all of these things in common, I am not with any of these women. Despite talking to them all the time and being around them for six months plus in each case. It just goes to show you. It doesn’t matter what you do or who you are. There is always some excuse.

I Have to Get Better

06.05.2024

why do you drink
so much
what do you find
in it
if not the bones
if not the corpse
the corpse of
my grandfather
that died from a stroke
from drinking
why do you smoke so much
what do you find in it
if not the corpse
the corpse of my grandmother
who died from smoking
too much
the only drinking i do
is to look in your eyes
full of intoxication
when i am drunk
it is with those eyes
that smile
that laughter
that pain i feel
when you are so close
to me
and i don’t have you
in my arms
to drink again and again
from your eyes

Something happened today which was disappointing and very upsetting.

I was going to go straight home, but because I was distracted, I forgot a letter I needed for tomorrow in my locker. So I had to go back in. That wasted an hour.

When I got there, it was late. I didn’t feel like going home. I went and sat there in Trafalgar Square by myself for thirty minutes. I was looking at the water and thinking how beautiful it would be to go in that water and never come back out of it, like Virginia Woolf who drowned herself.

I kept on thinking about the film Collateral with Tom Cruise where he asked how long your corpse would be on the metro before someone realised that you were dead, or whether they would do anything even if they knew you were dead.

I keep on thinking that I am getting better, but everything is getting worse. The nausea came back.

There is something wrong. I used to be normal. Things didn’t affect me this much before. And I know what is wrong, but there is no cure and I can’t do anything about it.

So I sat there. And then, I remembered that I would have children at the end of this year. I have waited long enough. I’m not waiting any more. I promised myself those children on the pain of death. And straight away, I got up and got myself dinner. Because to have those children, I need to be at my most fertile. I need to be in tip top shape. I have to give them the best that my body can produce. I can’t starve and mope around wallowing in my own pity for myself and my situation.

I have to get better now.

I have to start getting up in the morning on time. I have to beat the habit of lying there moping about things and then skipping breakfast. I have to make sure I exercise every morning. I have to do my language learning and reading to keep my brain sharp because you have to exercise each part of your body.

Look at me right now. I haven’t shaved in a week. I haven’t had a shower in a week. I am finding it difficult to motivate myself to do anything outside of work. I am becoming undisciplined, the type of person I don’t like.

I have to stop caring about people that don’t love or like me back. It has always been the same problem. They never like you back if you like them or love them. Every one I have been with has asked me out or hung around me first when I wasn’t that interested in them. Every one I have ever been interested in has said no. All four of them.

You have to forgot that they don’t love you. You have to forget about them. You can’t keep on hoping that something is going to happen. With Helen and Girl 2, I have a really dysfunctional relationship with both of them at the moment. I can’t forget that they wouldn’t go out with me. And Girl 2 judges me and criticises me all the time and is obviously still angry at me. What about Helen? Helen is never going to be around and she always hangs around her white men that follow her around all the time anyway. She does not care that I love her. I want to believe that she does. I don’t want to give up.

Do you know the peculiar thing about Helen and Girl 2 which struck me today? I never think about them in bodily terms. I don’t even look at their bodies. That is not natural. I am a man with a high libido. I love women. That proves that things are dysfunctional. Because with Potential Girl, who is not white, I do think of her in bodily terms. Which is natural.

When was the last time I even had a proper conversation with Helen or Girl 2? I haven’t had one with Helen in about five months or so. It is about the same time period with Girl 2. They are both in the past.

I am writing this all down rationally. Not through feeling. In actual facts. Obviously, your mind in this area does not work rationally. Even while I am writing, I still want to be with them.

What is happening in my life at the moment? Last week some drunk woman messaged me on Tinder. She must have seen my like about a week before she got drunk and wrote to me. She is white. That is the only message I have had from a white woman after being on Tinder for five months. And because she wrote to me when she was drunk, I am not going to write back to her. Because I can put up with Helen, Girl 2 and Potential Girl drinking even though I don’t like it because I know them and I care about them. But I am not putting up with it in a stranger that I don’t even know. Today, some Afro-Carribbean woman matched with me. She is very beautiful, but, like most of these women nowadays, she is taller than me. So, again, I have another Helen – taller than me and the same age. Is she even real though? That’s the question with this dating app.

There is a quote in John Wick 4. It goes something like:

Those who cling to life cling to death

Those who cling to death cling to life

The more and more I keep on thinking about that quote, the more and more I keep on thinking that it is true. I want to cling to death. And that is why I live. And those that cling to life? What do they really know about living, if they have not been raped by death?

It is said in a Hindi song in the film Guide: Today once again I have the desire to live/Today once again I have the intention of dying.

Is this what I wanted?

04.05.2024

wheeled flower

revolves

in a different sphere

wheeled flower

loves another man

befriends another

wheeled flower

flees from my life

leaving behind

the faintest scent

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

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

What I wanted was very different with Helen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Suicide Tree

02.05.2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sense of Injustice; Giving my Tour to Schoolkids; What Happens to You When a Woman Says No

24.04.2024

You are wondering. Yes, I thought about Girl 3. Yes, I was sad today. Yes, I thought about Helen. Yes, I was sad about her too. Yes, I thought about Potential Girl. And then, I also thought about the new interest in my life. If you are reading, I think about you. In your mind, you are free. You can think what you want. Nobody can take that away from you. And no one can take love away from you.

What happens to me when a woman says no to me when I ask her out? I stop talking to them. I avoid them. Why would you want to be around them after that? They don’t value you. Even when you try to force yourself to talk to them, you can’t any more. They obviously didn’t care that much about talking to you. They weren’t connected to you when you thought that they were connected to you. You don’t want to bother them with your presence when they are not even interested in you. And? You are disappointed in them and angry with them. Because you thought they liked you. But they didn’t. They don’t see you as a man. Anyone can say anything they want about it. Everyone says to me that you are wrong for not talking to them. People can say what they like. Where is the motivation to talk to them after that? They have just stuck a dagger in your chest. They hurt you. A lot. You have suffered. And then, these people want you to joke around with them and act as if nothing has happened, that you don’t care? This is this culture. A culture of lies and pretences. Where you are not even allowed to mourn in peace without someone destroying your mental composure by being right in front of you and you are never allowed to even touch them or be connected with them in any way.

I read a psychology article recently which argued that if you hold onto a sense of injustice, that it destroys your mental health. Look at the bullshit of this society. You have to hold on to the sense of injustice. Otherwise there would be no justice in this world. There would be no change, no revolution. Look at the sciences and the thinking of this so-called civilised society. They want to keep us down. They want us to spit out our anger. We won’t. It is what we are. Do you think Gandhi let them fuck him over with their injustice? Do you think he forgot about it? That is why there is an India that is not lorded over by the British. He didn’t think about his ‘mental health’ that this article is talking about. He didn’t care about himself. He cared about us. The people. For the people, your life is nothing. Your pain is nothing. Your blood is nothing. Everything is for freedom and justice and truth. And if you can’t sacrifice everything, then you are not a man and you are definitely not The Tiger. And we are The Tiger. That is what Punjabi men are known for. So we hold on to injustice. We hold on to our humiliation and the dishonouring of our mother. This is not Western ‘knowledge’, it is Indian duty. Jai Maa Kaali! Inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab sada zindabaad! Hail the Dark Mother Goddess! Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution Live Forever!

20 schoolchildren. That’s how many I had for my tours that I have written about women, fairness and art history. The first group was amazing. They had this woman teacher that could read my mind. She was fantastically clever. Everything that I was saying, she got straight away because she told me that she has also been trying to shape the children according to feminism. So we worked together as a team shaping the minds of the children. If you want a teacher, that is the kind of teacher that you want in life. Someone that cares about justice and has social commitment. She was so pleased with my tour that she brought me over another group of schoolchildren so that I could deliver the tour to them! That was the proudest and happiest moment of my tours there in that context. And I hope that the seeds have been planted for the future.

The holiday is on. Two days with my friend, then about four days by myself. It is going to be amazing. Friday is just coming. I am excited.

Cutting the Horns off the Bull

18.04.2024

Thought of the Day: Can you ever escape from the clutches of sexual repression?

Picasso used to paint male sexuality as a raging and charging bull. There was a Western equation of genius with rampant male sexuality, so it was in accordance with Picasso’s profession.

But if you have a rampant male sexuality, which is on the attack all the time, you encounter a world of sexual repression. Society cuts off the horns of the bull. And imagine if you came from a society of sex segregation and sexual repression into a ‘modern’ world that you thought was post-Freudian and free from it? Reality is shocking.

What are the politics and power of sexual repression?

My Diary

I am trapped in Greenwich Palace as Henry VIII. When you are in a place haunted by the dead, sometimes they take over your body and haunt your mind. What he needed, I need. An heir to pass on everything to. What happened to him is happening to me. Six wives. I am collecting women. If they cannot give me a child, I will have to collect more. Up until a certain point. Then I will have to accept defeat. But I cannot give up on having a child. I will have to get a surrogate baby. I have sworn on my head that I will have these children. If I don’t get them, I will have to die. That is resolution. I made that oath so I couldn’t back out of it. There is no way out now.

Then, what I will have to do is something horrible. I will have to raise the children without a mother. I am going to take away their mother from them. Comfort, happiness, security and love. That is fate. Such is life. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma’s mother who was the River Ganges did not raise him. And he lived a live of absolute suffering. What can you do about things? You want to give your children everything in the world. And you can’t even give them something that almost every child in human history has had. And this is the world that the people who deny you love want you to love.

I am going to have to become the mother and the father.

The question is, when is the final decision going to be made? The heart shrinks from making it. But, one day, it will have to be done. If I am going to be by myself, I need to have enough energy and life to see it through until the end, until they are finished as people with their education and can stand up on their own two feet. So, I have said by my next birthday towards the end of this year. Time is passing away quickly. Nothing is happening. Soon it will be time.

And then, I will never try to approach another woman. Because I will have my children to look after.

If Helen wanted me, she would have done something by now. She is always meeting up with the people she wants to be around. It would have been organised. It is the same thing with Girl 2. I am dreaming when I think about them. Potential Girl is a difficulty. So you have to accept that there is nothing and you are just wishing for something to happen.

When you come from a sex segregation society without any women in your life, you hope that one day you can come out of that kind of society and you can live in a normal life. Fate is a joker.

But the belief is blood is a powerful thing, the belief in dynasty as destiny. I only count myself as a failure if I don’t have my own children. I have seen the racism of the women in this country and how they treat you if you are nice to them and honest. Any excuse to not have you because you are different. If this is what it is, how can you see yourself as a failure? I’m not going to become mean and dishonest. It is the world’s biggest douche bag that said everything is fair in love and war. I still have my pride and my integrity. I am still The Tiger. And Tiger can raise some cubs. By himself. Resolution. In some ways, it is better. They will be my children and do what I want. No one will interfere with my plan for them. My army will be pure.

The Three Dance in the Water

17.04.2024

the three dance in the water

around me

as it boils

the three dance in the water

around me

as it freezes

one clutches at the other

one whispers in the water

one she scatters liquid light

in their forms the foamy sun rises

with Aphrodite’s glamour

I the eye

I watch the water

and the water’s dance

and in it

I see the smile of Aphrodite

gliding towards me

like the dagger true

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

in the love of the world

in the desert of the world

there is an oasis

the water is cool and fragrant

the water is the kiss of a mother

it takes the thirst of the desert

and by it

grows one lone tree

which casts a shade

which cools the water

which touches the heavens

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

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

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

phenka humne phool

i cast a flower

Uskein taraf

towards her

Us mein dil tha humara

within it was my heart

phenka humne phool

i cast a flower

jis mein chehra tha uska

within it was her face

phool ne kata humein

the flower cut me

koi shikayat nahein

there is no complaint

phenka humne phool

i cast a flower

uskein taraf

towards her

usmein jaan thi humare

within it was my life

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

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

14.04.2024 – Diary Entry – Conversations in the Day

What does the Tiger think about? These are the conversations I had with friends at work and outside of work today:

Beauty and Escape

I saw her this week. And I was in one of the most beautiful places in the world to me this week. When you see someone beautiful and you are in a place of beauty, you lose all your cares. And imagine speaking to this beautiful woman, looking at her, listening to her, loving her… For a moment, she is with you. You walk on the clouds and the sun shines in your heart.

My view on transsexuals.

India has had transsexuals in the village for thousands of years. I have met them. We have no problem with them. There is no issue. They live their own lives. What is the Western preoccupation with the issue of transsexuals? And why can’t they just let them do what they want? My philosophy in life is very simple. Live and let live. I don’t have a problem with someone changing their sex. It is their life. How is it going to affect me personally? They only way it would affect me personally is for my love life. And for that reason, I would never date a transsexual woman. Because I want a biological baby of my own and they would not be able to give me that. So that is my position on things. Acceptance, but with a limit. Because for the way I have been raised, a woman is a mother. Western feminism might not like that. So what? I am Indian. We worship the mother goddess. We worship Mother India, who is modelled on the mother goddess. The women we love, we see them as the mother goddess. That is our ideal of femininity.

Is the only way the Western way?

Even in the little villages in other countries, the little children wear western clothes, watch western films and listen to western music. So, you might think that there is only one way – the Western way. But India is not dead in us yet. I watch Indian films. I listen to Indian music. My grandparents and my mother managed to preserve our culture for me by keeping me to the old, old ways. The six thousand years of history are in me to pass on. There is a torch that is passed from generation to generation. Some cannot carry it – they are too weak. They corrupt themselves with egotism, selfishness and greed which is what many in this generation of people celebrate in the West, with its inhumanity and injustice. The Western way is not the only way. There is still the way of the warrior, the way of the Tiger.

Is there a Judas in everyone?

Betrayal is the worst thing. And yet, most people will betray you. Usually for money. So, yes, there is a Judas in everyone.

Tempted by the devil.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to be selfish, a douche bag, to only think of yourself and just grasp at whatever you can get without any morality? Of course it would be easier. But it wouldn’t be right. How would you be able to live with yourself after that?

But when you try to be nice, people think you are weak. They try to walk all over you. The women won’t love you if you are nice. You finish last. In ‘The Way I Met Your Mother’ which I watched, Barney is the guy that lives like a selfish, douche bag, just mindlessly fornicating. His back story is that he used to be nice and worked in charities to help people. But then, he realised what you get when you do that – the ones you love break your heart. They can’t love you. Do you know who is Barney? Me. I used to volunteer all the time and try to help everyone around me. But you know what? Even though I know I don’t get anything out of it – and the women won’t love you – I am not going to change into the bad Barney. Because even though I have done some wrong things in life, at least I can still look in the mirror and not see someone that I despise. I can’t give up on my social commitments. It is who I am. And I am not going to let anyone take that away from me. Even if it means no love.

Choice does make you strong.

Because I am in a career which I have chosen, because I have committed myself to the fight in education for us, the community of the oppressed, because I have committed to save the world from itself, I am strong. I feel powerful. You know where this energy comes from? From my belief. In myself and the power of us as a people. Because I have chosen my own fate. Despite everyone else and what they wanted me to do. I am not the sheep that follows. I am the Tiger that has the followers.

Suffering amongst my friends and family.

Everyone is suffering. Everyone is hurting. So much needless pain. But without pain, there is no understanding and there is no empathy and altruism. I suffer. Other suffer. We suffer together. You look at the people in every day life. Each of them suffer so much. But they still put on their brave faces and walk out in the public, hiding their hurt. The young people with their mental health problems. The older ones suffering from depression and the suffering of the heart.

The religions of the Tiger.

We worship the mother goddess. We worship the Sikh gurus and Guru Ravidas who fought against oppression and for the rights of us, the lower castes. The mother goddess rides on the tiger. So when I call myself Tiger because that is my name of power, it is not arrogance. It is because our mother rides on top of it. She is the powerful one. Her name is power. I am the vehicle. She is the source. In the Sikh religion, the men call ourselves Singh or ‘Tiger’. To fight for justice. I come from the religions of power, the religions of the Tiger. The Tiger is our ideal. And I am The Tiger. Whether or not you literally believe in the religions is irrelevant – you are judged by whether you act according to the religion and Dharma – the ways of our laws which are fitted for each individual.

Why is no one happy in this culture?

When it is supposed to be an ‘advanced civilisation’ which satisfies the pursuit of happiness? Because most people don’t have a sense of self fulfilment from a mission and a destiny. There is only one unhappiness in my life. The lack of love. And that is because I am an Indian in a white society. However much anyone denies it.

Arguing independence with a young woman.

Apparently, cleaning and cooking are what freedom means to this young woman. Ridiculous. What freedom actually means is having the space for thought and doing literally whatever you want whenever you feel like it. And that is what I have. I am a god and have the freedom of a god, just like my name ‘Suneel’ says.

The Protestant Revolution in thought and individualism.

Being able to read and interpret the words is the foundation of everything. Despite everything else, that is the one revolution in the world of the individualistic west that I support. It might be an exercise in individualism, but the only real individuals are The Tiger. Everyone else is faking it. Because only I have truly independent and original thought. It has been acknowledged by everyone that has read my academic work and is in the profession. I am the one that is wildly original. Because I am The Tiger.

High Pain Threshold

08.04.2024

beauty hides her face in the flowers

beauty hides her voice in the flowers

her lips are the scent of the blooms

her eye is lost in the petals

the sun is upon her skin

the sun is her lover

she whispers the pollen

she lures the birds

fragrant is the way

decked with the concealing flowers

soft is the poison

that steals upon the senses

beauty hides her face in the flowers

the sun loves the beauty in the flowers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If freedom is a crime

Then the punishment is accepted

Now what will happen

Will be the will of God

(The Thugs of Hindoostan)

By heart we are soldiers

By mind we are the devil

We are India

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

Birthday Meal; Being a Stranger

07.04.2024

god drowns in the water
he puts out his hand
the element is endless
he fights for escape
god drowns in the water
light flushing into the depths
boils the heart in the water
asking for caress
god drowns in the water
he puts out his hand
to feel the smooth palm
and to clutch at the fingers
to join with the woman
that is out of his grasp
love drowns in the water
he puts out his hand

07.04.2024

Ironically, given the situation, this perfect white rose has grown where I thought this rose bush – which symbolised my love for Helen – was dead.

Sitting at the diary after a birthday meal. This diary is the only place I talk about my personal life and my most private thoughts and feelings. Over time, because I don’t share the links, the readership has dwindled. People come out of our lives. People move on. The people you were once close with, you are no longer close with.

There is one person that reads every night. Is it Helen? You never know in this life. Maybe it is not even her. So all this time writing and reflecting, trying to communicate with her, it might all be useless. Who knows in life what impact our words and thoughts will have on someone.

Helen and I are strangers to each other. She called me a stranger. She wanted me to be a stranger to her. And I am. She did not even recognise my voice. Even people that I have known for a few months have told me that my voice is unmistakable. That is Helen for you. It just confirms the situation in life – she is never where I am. We never talk with each other. The only thing left is my memory of the past. There is no present and no future.

One of the roughest weeks this week. Constant pain everywhere. Motivation is at a record low. Things are happening that I don’t want to be happening. The allure of the new and a change is becoming greater and greater. It is the two year mark in this museums and art gallery occupation. This is the time that is the worst for restlessness.

Looking back and counting the true friendships I have made, the people you can trust and you get on the best with. There are some. But what about the special friendship? Every woman I meet that I get on with is much younger than me. I am not completely stupid. I know that they prefer people their same age or just a little older. I am out of the running even before I begin. Added to the cultural differences.

But where is there to go aside from where I am now? What is there to be done?

What does it feel like to be a stranger with the person in life that you most didn’t want to be a stranger with? You feel the separation. The body moves through space. The space that I am moving in is relentless. Endless. Heavy. Choking. The desire for connection, the hunger for joining mentally and physically. It unfolds in space without satisfaction. Complete frustration. Complete loneliness. Separation from life itself.

Disappointing news today. What was there to expect? Everything is breaking all around me.

People have eaten up my time. The trains are always late or there is always an issue. So the commute time has increased. There are other issues. People just eating my time. Depriving me of my time. When I don’t have time. They have nothing to do. I have everything to do.

Do you know what compensation is? There is no one special in my life (I cannot say Helen, even though I love her. She is not with me). So the only thing to do is work. All of the pent up energy from the massive libido and power and energy of The Tiger is going into work. What else is there? A few meetings with friends. And the rest is just work. Complete sublimation. The desire to be considered valuable in at least one area in life, if you are not going to get it in personal life.

I was talking to a little girl with her father at work. As always, they are the best conversations, even if they last for less than a minute. Because these little children are unfeigned. Honest. They don’t hide anything. You know where you are. You see the world through their innocent eyes. You understand them. They are not boring and disappointing like adults.

The whole day just talking to people. And then you go home and talk to more people. And then, finally, you can sit at your diary and talk to yourself. Finally, you can stop pretending. You can suck at the sourness of the lemon. But what about Helen? She spends all day talking to those other people. Even in her breaks you see her talking with her other people. And then? In the night? She comes and reads this diary when I am talking to her. Why? There is no meaning to it. But it happens. If it is her. Perhaps it is not her. And if I found out it was not her, I would stop writing this diary.