Tiger’s Bedroom

27.04.2024

I never used to have a bedroom of my own until I was eighteen. And even then, for years, we had the only computer in the house in my room, so everyone was always there all the time.

Since I have been a teenager, I have always had posters of women in the room. Women are beautiful and they are the most beautiful visions in the world to me. So why would I not want them around me all the time? The first poster was of Jennifer Lopez.

Today, I spent the whole day buying, building and putting the bookcase into my room. There were piles of books everywhere cluttering the whole place up and I am half way through so many of them or have just started.

This is how I have planned my room to look now. I moved the desk from the wall where the bookcase is now. So now I am sitting in front of the window which has the better view and the light.

You can see all the subjects I am interested in and all the languages I am interested in learning when I have the time. You can also see that I am a neat and tidy person. I like to live in beauty. I don’t want any mess around me. There is enough mess in human society and ugliness for you to have to see the same thing when you are at home.

We went down to the IKEA, me and my parents. I marvelled at the taste that you can buy in interior design so cheaply. So many different contexts that I travelled in throughout the day. And it all looked so good. I love interior design. Of course I do. I love all art and culture. I value talent. I’m not like other people that can’t give it its value.

When we’d got the bookcase, I built it together with my father. We did the job in about an hour. He was in charge, of course. I just followed the instructions and helped out without being told what to do most of the time. We were smacking the bookcase with our hands and slapping it about to get the dowel rods in and pushing the pieces together with brute force – that’s how we do stuff. We don’t need tools. We can do the job with our hands because we are tough and strong – although we did use the hammer here and there.

This is the bedroom where everything happens. I do most of my thinking here. I do my writing here at my desk. I make my artwork at my desk. I am always looking at beautiful people and beautiful things. And I just look at the books I own sometimes, thinking how lucky I am that I can be surrounded by art, culture and education.

The room has been planned and arranged by my mother. I didn’t choose the colours or the layout. She gave me the biggest room in the house for me. Women want to arrange their territory. Why would I interfere with that? With things like this, I let the woman have her way. I have lived in the smallest bedroom in the house for about seven years before this bedroom. I have lived in a shared bedroom for most of my life. I can live in any situation. But you can see how I have arranged and the stuff I build up around me. I try to live the life of beauty, art, culture and education.

There is a great feeling of satisfaction when you have arranged your space and the basis of your culture – your reading, writing, art-making and thinking space. Life feels organised for once.

Day Off: The Flow of Research; One Happy Memory; Supporting my Friend, etc.

16.04.2024

Pretty depressing day. Such is life. When you think about your problems.

I spent the whole morning and into the afternoon doing my art history assignment. I just need to write it up now. That is going to be the hardest part because I am losing motivation in doing things and I am distracted nowadays. It has got to the stage where even the important things are pointless now.

But there is one thing about research and contemplating artworks and fitting them into your stories – you are lost in the flow. You forget about everything and everyone else. Because that is when your mind truly focuses on things.

When I was volunteering to teach English to refugees and migrants and give them the extra help that they needed, I used to have conversations with them at the end of the lessons as a group. They used to look forward to that part. It gave them a chance to talk and listen to each other’s stories. One day, I asked them to share a happy memory from their childhood. Do you want to know something peculiar? None of them could share a happy memory. Whether they blotted out any memory of happiness from their childhoods, or they literally couldn’t remember anything, they all came out with sad stories of unhappiness. That’s human nature for you.

But I have many happy memories from my childhood. Reading books and living in the adventures – we went to the library regularly although we didn’t have many books at home. Visiting my grandparents and then sleeping in the bed with my grandfather while he told us stories into the night time. My grandmother who made the most delicious chicken curry when we were visiting and fed us snacks that she made like fried bread and gulab jamun. Sometimes, they would buy us cream cakes. Holding my mother’s scarf while she cooked and talked to me in the kitchen. When my father bought me a top of the line Sony Walkman with a radio in it when he was working abroad because it was the thing I most wanted in the whole world to listen to my music on. Eating ice cream on the beach with my family. Going to the shops with my parents for the groceries. Going to school and being around my friends. It is an endless list. I had a very happy childhood.

Afterwards, I went to visit my friend. She has suffered a lot. But for me, she is always positive. I gave her a bouquet of white roses. I always bring her flowers when I visit her at home. I kept my little troubles to myself because she has big ones in her life and in her family at the moment. It was my job to listen so that she could unload and feel a little better and to say things to support her. I have started saying goodbye to her about ten minutes before I have to leave because she never wants me to go and will start talking about other things.

Next, I went down to the shops at the big mall in Stratford. It is a depressing place. The sales assistants don’t interact with you in any way when you are buying anything, the ‘book shop’ didn’t have any non-fiction books in it and the smallest range of books I have ever seen in a book shop, everything and everyone looks so cheap and mean. And that area is more up market than the area that I actually live in. That’s what it is like to live in a type of ghetto. I went to the Marks and Spencer’s clothing store and bought myself some nice white T-shirts because summer is coming up. I have never actually bought a white T-shirt that costs more than five pounds in my entire life. As a result, they look cheap. But, in summer, white is one of my favourite colours. So, for the first time in my life, I have spent twenty pounds on a nice, white T-shirt that I actually like and looks good on me. I bought two of them. After all, in my life, there is just me to spend that money on. No family of my own. Where else is it going to be spent? Was it a case of retail therapy? Women are going to look at my muscles in those T-shirts in the summer. I am still ripped. I’ve attracted women with my body before. If you have to get superficial, you have to get superficial.

Motivation is so low that I can’t be bothered scraping off the beard off my face. I don’t like beards. They are not a good look and they add age onto your face.

Now that the diary is over, I have to do some remote overtime for work. Just work. Nothing else. For nothing.

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.