The Dance of Shiva’s Third Eye: A Lower Class Indian Woman Against the English Law of the Middle Classes in Damini(1993)

07.11.2016 (edited 14.05.2024)

Jai Maata Di! (Hail the Mother Goddess!)

Although it was appreciated in India and won a number of awards, the Hindi film Damini (1993) is largely and unfairly unappreciated in the West. It is one of my favourite films. What you see is an answer to the injustice of the middle classes that masquerades as legal truth. and how to base resistance against it. The resistance to the law is in the form of the image, idolatry and photography. The film is not obviously about vision and photography, although for those that see nothing and will try to stop others seeing, it is emphasised that photography is integral to the medium of film.

Damini is about English law, the remnant of British colonisation in India, and its relationship to vision, particularly the vision of a woman of the lower classes. Damini (‘the lightning’) is a lower-class girl that marries into a rich family and makes friends with the house-maid Urmi. Damini’s brother-in-law Ramesh (‘the ruler of Rama’) rapes Urmi, pinning her down below him with the help of his friends and Damini sees him doing so. Damini finally agrees to say what she saw in the court of law, but every attempt is made to exclude her lower class woman’s truth by the middle class which is fully in control of the western-derived legal apparatus, a truth in which the exploitation of the lower classes forms a continuum with the sexual violation of woman and her forced submission to masculine desire. Damini is indeed confined to the mental asylum because of her truth – the lawyer who goes up against her says that she is mad. Here, Damini is indeed driven insane.

Then, in one of the most powerful scenes in world cinema, Damini sees a procession of Durga Maa (‘the Invincible’, Devi Maa, the Mother Goddess, Mata Rani, The Mother Queen, Maa Shaktishaali, The Powerful Mother) in the streets accompanied by the common people through a window in the asylum and regains her memory. The look of the idolater upon the idol, the Mother and the multiple forms of Hinduism behind her, the last true religion of syncretism and one that is not organised around scripture (whatever its other faults), merges with an intense tandava, perhaps one of the most intense dance sequences on film. Damini (‘the lightning’) flashes and her energy is converted in Shiva’s dance, the dance of creation, preservation and dissolution. Shiva is Durga’s consort – her lover. Damini becomes the lightning because it illuminates the world in a flash – like photography and the writing of light.

The dance begins with the eyes and the eyebrows, as can be seen in the video. For it is the opening of Shiva’s third eye, the eye of power. It is a dance of vision. Damini’s bindi, the red mark on her forehead, represents the third eye. The story of Shiva’s third eye is traditionally associated with anger and the renunciation of desire, the renunciation of the desire for the middle class in the movie, it would appear, and the form of power that they represent. The dance is not a solo performance. It is directed at the enemies of the Indian lower class woman. The dance requires mastery of will and body, improvisation and the knowledge of classical forms. The dance is a fight which pre-empts the moves of its opponents, which enlarges and expands the body, which can suit the circumstances and adjust and adapt, which can bedazzle and confuse its opponents. The dance is a carefully constructed martial arts performance, like kata in karate. It is both exhibition and internal consciousness.

Shiva’s third eye is a vision bestowed from integration with the Mother Goddess. For Shiva, like Damini, is the one that loves the goddess – Shiva is Damini’s consort. The love of the Mother Queen and Damini’s bhakti returns her to herself and her vision and gives her the energy to fight for her truth, the truth and vision of woman and the lower classes. It allows her to fight against the legal system of the middle classes and flee the asylum. It gives her the force to say what she saw and destroy the forces of concealment and reorder the world.

The empowered Damini unites with a good lawyer who submitted himself to the desire of woman, his wife, in order to take up his occupation and she is triumphant. The good lawyer returns Damini to her alienated husband, he returns her to her love: he gives her back her desire. In one scene, the good lawyer calls himself a tiger: the tiger is the vehicle of the Mother Goddess, also known as Maa Sherawali, the Mother with or of the Tiger. The good lawyer’s wife, now dead, is only presented to us as photograph, the image. When one looks at the traditional images of Durga, the connection is clear. In an inversion of the picture of the rape that Damini saw, with woman pinned down by men, the Mother is above the tiger, it is her vehicle which she directs (the tiger itself is the national animal of India and Mother India). Above the law, there is the Mother and the law itself must only be the Mother. Thus, the quote by Mahatma Gandhi at the beginning of the movie which is said to have inspired it: “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts”.

Damini’s justice is self-serving. It has an identity which it declares and serves, the identity of an Indian lower class woman. It is meant to protect a lower class woman that is her friend. Damini’s justice is based in emotion and empathy. She feels the hurt of another. Damini’s justice invokes a different form of power to the middle class men in power, a power that is feminised and derives its source from the mother and the sphere of the maternal. Damini’s justice is resistance: to serve not those in power, but those that are disenfranchised from power. In India, rapes are concealed by men so that the honour of their household is maintained. Thus, the powerful can prey on the weak. Damini’s justice exposes the act of making the less powerful submit to the powerful via gender in Indian society and calls for the public to claw back their honour. It is a film where justice operates in the honour economy and not the property economy of the West, where the white middle classes not only control the legal apparatus, but are also favoured by it as clients because they have more money.

The Gardens; Neasden Temple; The Splendour of India

03.05.2024

the one that climbed your face

to put the fire in your eye

was a conjurer

the one that charted the nape of your neck

to cascade the water

through your hair

was an explorer of the night

the one who shaped the golden earth

to make the skin so lovely

that one

that one was

the goddess

You can either believe in the power of love and keep on writing. You can keep on hoping that Helen will change her mind. Or you can believe in the power of hate and separation. And expect that Helen will never be with you. You can either hope that Helen is free. Or you can despair that she is with the white men that she is always hanging around and that she has become someone else’s. You can either believe that Helen reads this diary, these letters to her. Because she has some feelings for you. Or you can believe that she does not read, does not love you, never thinks about you. What choice would you make? We live in the dream. The dream of love.

Slowly, slowly, the drops of water wear away the stone over time. Her heart is stone. Her eyes are stone. The water is each word wrenched from the heart of The Tiger. Each drop falls on the stone. It seems impossible. This love is impossible. This woman is impossible. Even fate itself is against The Tiger. He never sees Helen. He never talks to her. All there is is this meeting place. The meeting place of minds and hearts. And even here, Helen is silent. Even here, Helen is invisible. What The Tiger has is his memory of her.

And the memory today? While I was eating, I was remembering how Helen told me that the Indian diet is unhealthy and the diet from her country is healthy. Those are the kinds of conversations I was having with Helen. Arguments.

But do you know something about The Tiger? The Tiger fucking loves fighting. He loves the fight. The dance with the words. A warrior loves a warrior.

When you don’t want to live, there is a reason to live. When you don’t want to go on, there is a reason to go on. You have sworn revenge. For injustice. For dishonour. For love. Revenge gives you a meaning and purpose to your life. Revenge gives you the power to go on. You are filled with anger. And for your revenge, the revenge which will change the world and everyone in it, you live the life of The Tiger. The Tiger has come alive for one reason. The eyes of The Tiger have opened for one reason. Once upon a time, The Tiger was not the Tiger. Now, there is only one purpose. The revenge of success. The revenge of transformation.

We live in the world of our enemies. They hold the seats of power. They are demons with human faces. They rule the world with hate. They lie. They live shameful lives. They oppress the people. They seduce with the love of power. They have dishonoured our mother. Yet they live lives of privilege, ease and happiness. This is not a hallucination or a story. This is the world that we are living in. The world that must be transformed so that it becomes habitable again. Sometimes I look at this world and I know why the human race has survived like it has: because of the selfishness and oppression of its people, those that take and do not give but pretend to have a benign face despite it all, despite the absolute corruption of their power. The seduction and propagation of selfish power.

I gave the tour I wrote at the Gardens. I have had to change so many things to take account of the seasonality and the planting and the new places that have opened up. Without passion, you cannot perform. Without passion, you cannot revise and relearn. All I do these days is to learn things, interpret things and share those interpretations with other people. That is what it means to have a voice and to contribute, to change this world of ignorance and apathy through education. I live the life I was expected to live – without any of the rewards.

I went to Neasden Temple today and it was the first time I ever went there. It is the most beautiful building that I have ever been inside. I am fortunate to see, fortunate to live, fortunate to be there. Fortunate that I was able to go there from volunteering in the Gardens because it is nearby. I bathed the idol in water twice, once as myself, once as my mother. My mother is Hindu. This is her religion. Inside the inner space, the carvings were astonishing. The hand of a human had created this field of worship. The hand of a human had sculpted the dream to make this place.

And then, radiant with beauty and the gift of worship, I went into the exhibition space to do with Hinduism and India. It was a celebration of our culture and our achievements, which are not given credit in the Eurocentric and hostile West. Mathematical discoveries, medicinal discoveries, astronomical discoveries, insights into the human condition, the way to live, the way to celebrate and protect life on this planet. The way of living and thinking that has been there since the dawn of time and will be there until the dying moments of the human race on earth. The longest continuous way of being in the world. I have been raised in the religions of power to be powerful. That is why I am The Tiger. It is not just a name. It is who I am. The product of thousands of years of continuing, immortal civilisation. The splendour of India.

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.

Shiva’s Ability to Withstand the Flood of Woman’s Power

10.04.2024

Woman in the male imagination is the awesome and sublime power of nature. Uncontrollable, devastating.

The other name for Durga the Mother Goddess, the one with the tiger, is Shakti or ‘power’. Kali, her other face, is unchecked rage and blood lust. The beserker. Total carnage.

Amongst the gods, there is only one that can control and shape the flood of woman’s power. Over and over again in the myths. It is Shiva, the lord of the beasts (pasupati).

In one myth, Shiva is the only one powerful enough to funnel the flow of the river Ganga (Ganges) from heaven as she falls to earth. Devastatingly she floods down with raw energy. Serenely, he takes her force into his untamed head of hair to bring her down to earth.

In another myth, Kali’s dance of blood lust is only brought to an end when Shiva lays down before her so she dances upon him. It is the cosmic dance – the creation of the universe. Shiva’s control that channels the raw power of woman, the flood of her rage and power.

In both myths, there is one striking aspect of Shiva. That he is completely inert and still, passive. This is his power. Where woman floods with elemental force, Shiva sits down quietly to let the flood enter his hair, or he lays down before it. It is with stillness that the flood of woman’s power is channelled to create life – whether through the water or through the creation of all things. In response to total emotion, like Kali’s, in response to being moved, like in emotion, like the movement of the flood of the Ganga, Shiva is meek and unemotional. Unmoving. Unmoved.

Have you ever argued with the woman you love in the heat of her passion? You cannot fight them. Because you cannot hurt them when they are already hurt. It is wrong. It goes against the responsibilities of being a man. It is dishonourable. So you have to become inert. In response to fury, you reply without emotion. In response to provocation, you are still. In the face of accusation, you are silent. Shiva embodies the only way to act: with absolute restraint and self-control. The one you love is attacking you with everything she has got. She wants to kill you. The only one that can hurt you is hurting you. And you? You have to put your head upon the sword that she offers, and offer her your naked throat. You have to become Shiva. It is the only way forward. Psychologically, even if you are losing the argument, but your opponent is getting more and more heated, by becoming cooler and cooler, you win. That is what it means to be Shiva. Absolute stillness. Stillness in war, as personified by Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata, the leader of the hero brothers (Yudhishthira means ‘still in war’).

You can read more of my poetry and my other books including fiction and prose on my personal blog which features the Open Access MEHMI PRESS:

https://lnkd.in/eP2auKX3

Day Off – How Do You Capture a Distinctive Portrait?

09.04.2024

The Cosmic Dance – Kali dances on Shiva as this is the only way to contain her bloodlust and destruction.

What can I say? I love Kali. So every woman I love becomes Kali. And I become Shiva. It is fate. It is the cosmic dance.

……

Easy. Simple. Unimaginative. There is a preconception amongst some of the non photographers that a portrait is nothing much. Not a real exhibition of skill. Especially the selfie.

Yet the way that you pose and the way that you present yourself to convey your identity is a skill. Whether you want to look appealing or hostile, whatever emotional bond you want to create with the viewer through the craft.

Today, I took it to the basic level. I held the camera at arm’s length in front of me and pushed the button. The magic of technology.

How did I convey my identity?

First off, I posed in front of the bookshelf which is my library. So that indicates that I am a reader.

Then, it was time for the framing. I chose to cut off bits of my face. To add the mystery. It is a technique taken from Japanese art too – I volunteer at a Japanese art gallery. Japanese art itself is influenced by India and Buddhism. So there is that happening there.

Lighting is positioned to catch in the eyes which have been described as my best feature by others, not just women. These eyes are the eyes of my grandfather. It is the family connection. Eyes themselves are described as the ‘windows into the soul’.

The face is filled with light to alleviate the appearance of wrinkles – I am standing next to the window. Light creates a flattering portrait.

In one portrait, I look into the camera. Intimacy. A direct and confrontational challenge. We stare into each other’s eyes. The aggression. The other two images, I look away. The creation of distance. The air of introspection. The books in the background add to that idea of the introvert.

No props. The face fills the frame. There is no distraction. The complete focus is on me. Therefore, the images become intense and illustrate my intensity.

All considered decisions. Yet, the portrait itself is regarded not only as a vulgar, but also narcissistic form. Even though we always present ourselves in our best light to other people. At least in public.

……

Called my friend in the morning who is recovering from the operation for support. She is still suffering. When I call her, she doesn’t want me to go. I said bye about four times. That is what love is.

Contacted my mentor who is recovering from cancer to hope his operation goes well.

Leg is fucked. But the doctor got in touch so I called back because I missed the call as I was talking to my friend. No appointment. But they will call again tomorrow to try and sort one out. How fucked is the leg? Painful. Swollen. But I still ran on it to get to the bus and I caught it. So how fucked is it actually? If you believe in your body and you have mental strength, you are invincible. The Tiger is capable of smiling whatever happens. And helping others despite anything. I have been raised to be a hero and a warrior. There is a saying in India: Men don’t feel pain.

Writing about the Japanese art for the Japanese art gallery in the morning. Then, wrote an article about Indian film songs for the new volunteering space. Then I wrote some new tour excerpts for some other plants for the Gardens. So all the volunteering stuff is done. About four hours invested into art, education and culture and to save the world by inspiring people about plants, climate change and the environment.

Bought some books on history and the V & A and its history at the charity bookshops in the local area. That was one hour gone – that’s why I had to run for the bus.

Bought some lilies for myself and my mother – I walked down. Another forty five minutes. As I walked, I admired the gardens in the local area. It is the time of growth.

I took the photographs, made the artwork. But what would the day be without a poem about Helen? Here it is. For her. Even if she is not reading.

she is always late

she hangs around the people

that are always late

time is not something she really thinks about

or they think about

because they are young

and their dismissal of time

is a part of them

and I who watch the clock always

feeling time’s hot fangs and breath behind me

I who waited patiently forever for her

for nothing

I for whom time is slowly running out

to do the things that must be done

I who does not have any time with her

I wonder at her dismissal of time

Pain; Giving My Tours; Meet up with Friend; Chocolate Orgy at the Chocolatier; Innocence

My friend liked this photo because he said I looked really happy in it.

03.04.2024

I got a deep paper cut on the index finger of my left hand yesterday. It has been stinging the whole time. The paper – quite thick – sliced so much into me. The pain was terrible. But the thing about pain is that it makes you feel alive. So I have kept the cut open to the elements without a plaster. It looks like a surgical cut, so clean and crisp. For such a small injury, it occupies a big place in the mind and the senses. That’s why Indian people call love a wound. Because it hurts all over with the exquisite pain of life.

This is the second incident of pain this week. I was standing around and suddenly something collapsed in my back. It lasted two days, two days of pain. So it is the season of pain. Meaningless pain and meaningless suffering.

But the back has healed now. The body will just recover from anything that you throw at it – almost anything.

I was giving out the tours which I wrote today. One woman told me that it is the first feminist art tour that she had ever been on in her life. Why have I written this tour? Where I write about feminism sometimes, I criticise what it says. Because I honestly don’t agree with the perspectives taken. But I am not a woman. Of course, I would see things differently. We have been raised to worship the mother goddess, amongst my other religions. We see the mother as the source of power and life, the source of legitimacy and justice. That is our ‘feminism’, to use the Western word. However, in this Western feminism, the idea that women are ideally mothers is wrong. In Western feminism, what ‘choice’ means is that you should work as a wage slave. It is a capitalistic feminism, not like ours which is for the poor. Where the most important thing is not work, but family. But this is what feminism is: it is about real choice. So you have to be able to give women choice and you have to respect those choices and support those choices. And not judge someone as inferior because they are women and not men. So that is how I am a feminist: because I support choice, even when I don’t agree with those choices. Because our people have been judged as inferior. We are the same as the women have historically been. We are women. But where is our choice and the respect for it?

Another friend is leaving from my life. She understood me because although she is from a different generation, she is still Indian.

I met up with my friend after work. He is off on holiday for a bit. We went down to the pub first and then we went down to the chocolatier’s. I don’t write what we talk about here. Because those conversations are honest – too honest for the people that might be reading here. Men’s conversations. I had a chocolate orgy over there – brownies with vanilla ice cream. There was a massive portion.

People think that if you go after a woman that is younger than you, that you are using your experience to an unjust advantage. In fact, these women have more experience than me and have had more relationships than I have had. It’s just a fact. So anyone that thinks that I am putting anything over any of these younger women is wrong. They are putting something over me with the way that they are treating me. Because the innocent one is me. I have been with a few, just a few. From the times before this new generation of people that are the only people that I know now. So anyone that is judging me is wrong about it. So Helen, Girl 3 and Potential Girl are the ones that are using their experience on me. Not the other way around. It is not the case that they are younger and therefore more inexperienced.

Today’s questions – with no definite answers:

Why are some people introverts and some people are extroverts? Nobody knows. I said that it is the context that determines how you act, not some kind of innate personality trait.

Why do so many women say they are introverts (they all talk to you when I start talking to them, so I don’t think that is correct)? If they are introverts, is this socialisation and gendering? Or nature?

Why are so many obsessed with cleanliness? Is this socialisation? Or nature?

I managed to get up early in the morning today. And I managed to do some extra work in the morning. So, I am back on track. I just have to keep it up. Everything in life is just habit. When I wasn’t feeling well, I woke up late, as late as I could. I developed an unhealthy habit. Now, I just have to develop a healthy habit.

The Three Women; The Nightmare of God; Time Runs Out; Love Runs Out; A Good Day at Work; A Thank You Note; The Rejection of Difference and Repression

18.03.2024

There is a moment when the shine comes off reality. Some people hide from the ugliness of the nuts, bolts and the naked mechanisms. They deny, flee. But then, what about those that lock their eyes on the terrible truths and try to change the fabric of things in this world? Are they heroes or monsters?

When I finish a piece of art, I am always proud of my handiwork. It is a piece of me. So I was pleased with this one. And when I do the work, because it is digital art, I always post it straight away to share it with the world. I make it for the world as a gift. I work quickly. I think of my art as calligraphy – skills learnt to convey expression in a moment, years of refinement to produce spontaneity. The influence is from Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, the beautiful writing.

I was wondering if Helen really wasn’t well or if I had just read that into the situation. She didn’t look well to me and then there are other memories involved. Me and Helen are almost strangers to each other now. We haven’t talked for a very long time because we are never together any more. She knows about me because I want to believe that she reads this diary every night. What do I know about her? What I know of her is based on her behaviour rather than what she has told me. Her behaviour is distinguished by kindness and care. That is her personality. That is the personality of all the women that I am interested in. It is has become the most important thing.

It has been playing on my mind that Helen doesn’t seem well. Am I contributing to that with this diary? Why does she read it? The fact is that Helen suffers, with or without this diary. And then, when I saw her it was after a day in the weekend. Perhaps that is why. But feeling unwell also goes with stress. But all this could be a misunderstanding. Perhaps Helen is not unwell at all. Sometimes, I see her face and it changes from how I remember it. How do I remember it? The flashing brown eyes when she ambushed me – because usually her eyes are dark and black. They changed colour. The time when she changed her hair and I couldn’t recognise her when I looked into her face. The serious look when she is talking about something which she thinks is important, the intensity of her. The frown that goes down sometimes when you say something. The smile, like the smile of the Mona Lisa.

When people around you are unwell – possibly Helen and then my other friends – you wonder if there was a god, does he get nightmares about the way that he makes people suffer on this planet? How does he live with the guilt of what he causes to happen if he were real? Because it is not just them that suffer. It is the people around them that care about them that suffer as well.

In this low period, time has run out. It seems impossible to get anything done before and after work. Life is rushing along. There are so many unfinished things. Because the motivation for everything is going. There is no excitement or goal to work towards. What is the point of everything? When you are never going to get love out of it? That has always been the motivating force for everything.

Today’s workday was amazing. Even though I can’t control anything in my love life or my personal life – because you can’t control the behaviour and choices of other people – I can control what happens at work. Because when I do things, I am dominant and people follow me, whether or not they give me the formal recognition for it. So today, I gave tours in the art gallery which I wrote, including to one of the curators, my favourite. She loved the tour and gave such good feedback. She told me that I had made her see things in these familiar posters which she had never seen before. I don’t go on about it all the time, but I am very clever. And people recognise that when I talk about things. I went to a meeting to improve experiences for visitors within the museum and I think I made what was quite a good suggestion. I also helped a colleague with a problem that she was having. People often come to me for advice there. Because all the people that are close to me know that I make an effort for them and that I will always help them because they are like my family to me. I did some things for some of the people there that I will not mention here but which made me feel good about myself.

But when I got home, no matter how good the day is at work, I have to return to the situation. My personal situation. Your job can’t love you back. You can get satisfaction from it. But you don’t get the most important feeling: the feeling of being loved. Only a woman can give you that love and your children. That’s what these career women in London don’t understand. If you leave your job, you will be replaced within a week. Life will go on. People won’t even miss you that much after a while. But in a family, you are irreplaceable. You rule over everyone’s hearts. But such is the world that people have chosen a career and money over what is most important: love.

Someone sent me a thank you note for something I sent them. It was nice and unexpected. I like looking back at these notes and thinking about how you might have improved someone’s day just a little with what you did for them.

Lately, I have started thinking I should end this diary. This diary was the expression of love and an invitation for love. But where is the love? But now, it has become a habit. What can I write to Helen now? A love poem? She knows I am thinking about her. Should I complain that she does not love me? What else have I been doing? The speculations about Helen, I keep to myself. The jealousies I keep to myself. The darkest thoughts, I keep to myself. If I told the reader some of the darkest moments and the thoughts, the intensity, they would be shocked.

My hope for the future is that someone doesn’t have to live through what I have had to live just because they have been raised differently and from another culture. But the reality is that things have actually got worse over time and not better. Things will always be like this in this country. Because it is hate that rules and not love. And these women, they are nice people for the most part. But the way that they are and how they treat you is just as bad as everyone else because they can’t accept or love difference. And they don’t even realise that this is what it is. And on top of that, they are repressed. Repression is even worse now than it was in the past. And I feel it is linked to the rejection of difference. I know it. I can feel it. I always follow my intuitions.

Watching the Maori War Cry Against a Racist Government: The Female Warrior Goddess

14.01.2024

THE VIDEO

The video has gone viral. New Zealand’s youngest MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke performed the Maori war cry in parliament as a protest against the government’s racist policies designed to eliminate Maori culture and rights.

The 21 year old has vowed to protect Māori rights and culture.

The war cry is a response to New Zealand’s new prime minister, Christopher Luxon. He said that he would review or repeal a dozen policies relating to the Maori population when he was elected.

“We’ve got a right in a democracy to protest, and you’ll start to see various forms of that, and in a more invigorated way, than we’re probably seeing in other places where Indigenous people have had to assert their mana (power),” said John Tamihere, Te Pati Maori president.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/meet-new-zealands-youngest-mp-whose-parliamentary-war-cry-went-viral/tewa1dqqo

WHAT IS THE WAR CRY?

‘Maori Haka’ energizes warriors before battle. The war cry is a symbol for the spiritual war to begin against the racism of the white (male) majority in New Zealand who can’t stomach difference or give respect to the people that were in the country that they colonised.

Haka is the Māori word for dance. It is usually a group performance. It includes chanting and actions like stamping, with hand movements, and facial gestures.

https://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-what-is-maori-haka-native-war-cry-performed-by-new-zealand-youngest-mp-hana-rawhiti-maipi-clarke-in-parliament-3073688

SUNEEL’S COMMENT

Watching those eyes blaze with fury. Watching her words blaze with fury. Feeling her power. Electricity runs up and down my spine, the blood pulses in the body like fire. The excitement is rising, building, unquenchable… Pride. Admiration. Hope for the future. Passion for the fight again…

In my diary a few days ago, I wrote that 2024 is going to be the year of the fight. This is the first solid action in the fight, the first sign of the year. The one who is like me. The one who is in the spiritual war. The new generation. The woman fighter, the warrior goddess that we pray to on my mother’s side of the family, our heroine and our idol.

The woman warrior, Durga (‘the Invincible’), The Mother Queen, The One with the Tiger, whose insatiable fighting form is the bloodthirsty Maa Kaali (the Dark Mother) comes in the hour of your greatest need. When the world is threatened by the utmost evil and oppression.

It is important that the warrior is a native woman. This is the direct opposite of the white man in charge, the oppressor. She is the challenger. She is difference in all of her beauty. Woman have historically been the weaker in history. Even now, she is the weaker. She is in the minority. When she fights, she is wounded. But because she is wounded, she is more dangerous.

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke stands for all of us threatened by the neo-imperialism of the colonisers with their hypocritical talk of ‘integration’ and ‘diversity’ when they cannot even stomach the sight of us in the workplace or in their personal lives. The empire is not over yet. Maori culture, as she says, has survived for seven generations despite the colonisers and their mission to eliminate difference from the world. (SOURCE – LinkedIn)

This war cry was brought to me by the Indians on LinkedIn. This war cry resonates with the Indian. We understand that the war cry means. We have held on to our culture through six thousand years despite invaders and colonisers. We have held on to our heritage, language, art and culture despite everyone and everything. We have survived the illegitimate British Raj. We will survive ethnic minority status in the Asian Diaspora despite disrespect, distancing, forced isolation, hate, prejudice, lack of representation, lack of opportunities and the racist rhetoric of the government which promotes all of the discrimination against us and codifies it to keep us away from power.

When in Rome, we will not do what the Romans do. Where the tiger sets his feet, that territory is his.

We have held on because we have the mother goddess, the female warrior. The One with the Tiger. We know her spirit.

When I look at this young woman and I hear her war cry, I see my mother. The mother that named me after the real life hero that saved the life of the actress that played Mother India in the film when a fire broke out on set. The mother that gave me the Mother Goddess to protect me through my life, the warrior goddess. The mother that gave me the Indian languages I can speak and our own culture and identity by refusing to speak English and kow-tow to white British culture. The mother who gave me a culture and a language, a way of seeing where we are not inferior to the white neo-imperialists in this government and in this country. Where we are seen as men and tigers.

India salutes Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke! Inquilab zindabaad! Long Live the Revolution! Long live the fight to preserve the way of life that is ours! Long live the warrior goddess! Long live difference!

Now, the year has started.

The International Booker Prize Shortlist 2023 – Reading Books by their Covers

19.04.2023

These are my initial comments (in my typical jaded style) about the books from the blurbs (my qualifications are a First Class Honours degree and a PhD in English Literature). The shortlist is from https://lithub.com/here-is-the-2023-international-booker-prize-shortlist/

Guadalupe Nettel, Still Born, translated by Rosalind Harvey

ABOUT: The recommendation says it is for readers of Rachel Cusk, one of the most boring contemporary authors imaginable. The story is about two ‘independent’ 30 year old career women that don’t have babies (one of them doesn’t want any). Then one of them has a difficult pregnancy. Revives the contemporary debates about whether it is worthwhile for women to have a career or a baby. Explores female friendship following a life changing event.

VERDICT: I don’t want to read this, an exploration of a relationship and ‘independence’ (THE fake myth of the West – nobody is really ‘independent’). The book promotes itself as about ‘the lived experiences of women’ if this is what you want to read about (apparently some people don’t talk to real women who are pregnant as if this was a highly unusual event in life). It is not about the lived experiences of ‘women’ – it is about middle class women from Latin America who have decided to put career before the family but whose plans are suddenly upset by SEX (shudder, the encroachment of a body in their bodiless, body-phobic work environments and culture).

WHY IT WAS CHOSEN (guestimation of subject matter): Important as an exploration of what motherhood means for this generation, when lesser educated women are choosing to have babies and traditional type families. Lip service to women’s rights and feminism, although the book seems to be contradictory because we have a woman that seems to be giving up her career for a baby (I could be wrong, she could be balancing both things). Is the book critiquing the world of work (but then why should it be women that have to give up the world of work for the family, as per an ideology of what Western feminism tells us is ‘wrong’?)

GauZ’, Standing Heavy, translated by Frank Wynne

ABOUT: Undocumented migrants taking jobs as security guards over the years. French Immigration Law. A security guard’s contemporary criticism of capitalism.

VERDICT: Sounds boring. Notably, there is no suggestion that there is any interesting plot.

WHY IT WAS CHOSEN (guestimation of subject matter): The book’s importance clearly stems from the fact that right wing anti-immigration rhetoric across Europe has created a climate of intolerance despite the fact that immigrants do all the necessary but low-status, low-paid, boring or labour-intensive jobs that people born in Western countries don’t want to do. The nomination can be contextualised as a reaction against this. ‘Diversity’ is being championed. Sheds light on a contemporary reaction against capitalism.

Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter, translated by Angela Rodel

ABOUT: Time machine museum for Alzheimer’s sufferers is invented as a cure. People use the time machine to try and escape the horrors of the present instead. The past begins to invade the present.

VERDICT: This sounds quite interesting. One of the intellectual, thought experiment type novels that I enjoy reading and the plot sounds interesting because something actually happens. I agree with the idea that the present is horrible, as would any sane person.

WHY IT WAS CHOSEN: In a post-Trump era, obsession with a country’s past ‘great’ history is on the literary radar (Trump’s racism is based on the fact that there were less non-white people doing ‘white’ jobs back then, less multiculturalism, and America could go around attacking non-Western countries like Vietnam whenever they wanted as well as denying black people political and civic rights – in this ‘golden era of nostalgia’). I just finished reading ‘The Memory Monster’ with a similar criticism of being stuck in the past with history and not addressing the contemporary ills of society, although there the message was to forget about the past humiliation and violence of the Holocaust. We need to look forwards and at the now, not at the past (only the past for lessons how to deal with the present and future).

Maryse Condé, The Gospel According to the New World, translated by Richard Philcox

ABOUT: ‘A miracle baby is rumoured to be the child of (the Western) God’. Someone investigates.

VERDICT: BORING. I am not interested in religion or its support or debunking in novel form.

WHY IT WAS CHOSEN (guestimation of subject matter): If you have a PhD like me, no one is interested in your academic research. Yet writing like this novel is quite well loved by the kind of people that won’t read actual research, especially when you have pseudo research like this in novel form about something that is completely implausible or patently fictional and irrational. Literature of the undisciplined and uneducated that want to have the glamour of education. Importance? Studies the nature of belief and rumours of exceptionality – could be a debunking of the ego and purported uniqueness (in favour of what? Saying that everyone is base and ignoble? That everyone is a peasant and therefore ‘equal’ in this unequal society – opium of the masses).

Cheon Myeong-kwan, Whale, translated by Chi-Young Kim

ABOUT: No plot given. Described as a fantasy multi-generational novel with magic.

VERDICT: If you cannot at least say what is happening, sounds bloated and incoherent. I don’t like that. Fantasy needs a plot. It says it is ‘beautifully crafted’, but we will be reading it in translation.

WHY IT WAS CHOSEN (guestimation of subject matter): The one novel that isn’t ‘serious’ or worthy on the list. This is usually the one that is supposed to be the best read and there for the reading pleasure.

Eva Baltasar, Boulder, translated by Julia Sanches

ABOUT: Queer women that want a baby when one is forty, although one in the couple doesn’t want it. Almost identical to the other nominated novel about motherhood, but with an LGBT association.

VERDICT: Once again, we have a Western novel exploring whether contemporary women should be ‘free’ of babies and a traditional family or whether they should reproduce. I already know the answer from most of the women of my generation. What is this book actually telling us that we don’t already know? They are mostly ‘independent’ career women that don’t want babies (or if they do, with someone Western or completely Westernised). The usual boring ‘relationship’ novel that I am not interested in reading (fake relationships between people posing as ‘reality’? All from a Western perspective? Not appealing.)

WHY IT WAS CHOSEN (guestimation of subject matter): Same points as before, but this time ‘diversity’ is exaggerated, with the LGBT connection. Apparently, bringing life into this world is now a BIG PROBLEM for the Western feminist mantra of ‘INDEPENDENCE’ and we have to deal with it in literature so that producing the future in the form of babies can somehow be achieved despite hostility, reluctance and the awareness that you actually have to work to look after someone and invest time and care into them to create human beings for society in a convenience society (which means, shudder: sacrifice).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Madeleine writes:

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

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