Holiday Day 5: Marianne North, Kew Gardens in London, Queen Mary II Concert at the ORNC Chapel

30.04.2024

‘love skull’

when my heart was of glass

i threw it at your feet

and it burst

so i picked up each shard

with my fingers

and they cut me

then my heart was of shivers

and when I threw it at your feet again

you trampled them down

now my heart is so infinitely small in atoms

and i can’t find it to throw at you again

but still i am looking and hoping

watching and waiting

waiting and watching

breaker of my heart

Yesterday, I rushed my diary so that Helen could read it at night time. I missed out a few things. One of the highlights of yesterday at Kew Gardens Wakehurst was that me and my friend started walking in the labyrinth down there. There is a concentric circle labyrinth and you journey towards the centre. My friend was telling me that it was pointless, because you could have taken a geodesic route from the outside to the inner circle. We like to argue. I was telling him that I am a meanderer. I go the long route and meander into something. It is how I have lived my life. It is what I do on long walks. I like to dilly and dally and contemplate, smell the roses. You might be reading that and wondering how do I manage to get so much stuff done then? Because a journey is an adventure. How many adventures do you get in life? Work you have to do.

Speaking of work, I was telling my writer’s group where I volunteer (one of the many places) that love is work and work is love. Every night I write this diary to Helen. This diary is Helen. I am talking to her. What about Girl 3 and Potential Girl? Girl 3 used to read my diary. I don’t know if she does any more. And I’m not sure whether Potential Girl has ever read it. So why talk about them here? If I am not talking to them? I think about them. I see them much more often than Helen, who I never see at all.

My friend told me yesterday when I told him I have been writing for seven months to her and she has been reading my words every night that it was the greatest love story. If only I could get her. In practical terms, I should forget her now. I should erase her from my mind. But what does love have to do with reason and practicality? Look at her. She has a completely different perspective on life to me. She is Western. I am Indian. She comes from the city. I come from the village. We used to argue about things. But do you know the spirit of The Tiger? Romeo loves Juliet. Paris loves Helen. The Tiger loves difference. A warrior loves a warrior.

So, today, early morning travel to Kew Gardens in London to work on updating my tour script. It has to change with the planting and seasonality. There is also a new art exhibition around the grounds to incorporate into the script.

Then, there was a tour of the Marianne North Gallery – I requested it for the volunteer Tour Guides. It was amazing, from one of my best friends there. She is such a lovely woman and a lovely speaker. She answered all of the many questions that I had and took us through the life of Marianne North, the artist whose life I understand so much. And while she was talking, I noticed the theme of death running through her work which has interested me so much. Like me, she was all alone in the world. No company but the plants and her oil paintings. A solitary soul that adventured through life, that didn’t love a normal, secure life. Someone touched by death that fought to see what is living, growing, beautiful, colourful. She is without a doubt my favourite woman artist.

Afterwards I looked around. I was able to go into one of my favourite spaces which has recently opened up, the water lily house. The water lilies looked amazing against the black background of the pond – they have dyed it that colour with food dye.

We all met up for drinks (and lunches for some) in The Botanist, a swanky bar in the area. I tried one of their speciality soft drinks – raspberry, lychee and orange blossom. It was so perfumed and lovely. It was one of the most delicious drinks I have ever tasted in my life (and I have been in five star hotels, some of the best hotels and restaurants in the whole world).

I walked around Kew Gardens all day. The sun was out. I was in a place I loved. I had a nice lunch there with Harissa chicken, chips and butternut squash. But was I happy? I have started feeling sad again. I wasn’t in the mood to be in that bar. I didn’t want to be in the gardens without a woman. I am feeling the want again. But you know what, Tiger still smiles. That perpetual smile on his face is what the Buddha and Krishna always had. It is the smile of wisdom. Smile even if you don’t feel happy. No one is unhappy with you. Nobody wants to share unhappiness. So just smile instead. Psychology says if you fake an emotion, your body just feels like you are actually experiencing it.

Picked up a new uniform for volunteering there – as is often the case, I have to wear women’s clothes in these types of places. Even though I am muscular, the only size that fits me is women’s because they never have men’s in small. I had a chat with the Volunteer Managers – they are super nice and super likeable.

I picked up some plant books in the library and also managed to get some in the charity shop when I went down to the Old Royal Naval College in the evening for the concert in the chapel to celebrate Queen Mary II’s birthday. The music was sublime. As I was listening to it – the vocals always make me experience absolute pleasure – the music was evoking all the emotions of that place and everything that has happened in it. It was the composer’s birthday so we sang happy birthday to him. I wasn’t going to, but then I remembered that singing always makes you feel better about yourself. So I joined in.

Dinner was Thunderbirds Chicken in Canary Wharf. The holiday is almost over and then it will be home cooking again.

Two compliments on my clothes today. The gardener at Kew Gardens said I looked like a rock star. Every single person at the Old Royal Naval College said I looked really cool and really smart. I have my own personal sense of style – I don’t copy anyone and I wear bright colours and think about the combination of things. That’s why people like what I wear.

Even if you don’t want to carry on going, you have to think about your responsibilities and carry on going. Today I was so tired. I was walking about the world with no woman in it. No comfort. They did an experiment on monkey babies with a wire mother with food attached to it. The monkey babies suffered with the wire monkey. They preferred a stuffed toy which was soft and comforting, not the food. They spent more time with it. Comfort is missing from my life and I am suffering as a result. The man that needs a lot of love and affection is not getting it from anywhere. I am suffering from love starvation again.

Holiday Day 4: Wakehurst Kew Gardens and Oxted

29.04.2024

my mind is i think about you

my tongue is i talk about you

my ear is I ask for advice about you

my heart is I love you

My friend’s advice is never to write about Helen again and only talk about the other women in my life. He said that she is not going to value you unless you are going out of her life. But this diary is itself a conversation with Helen. Otherwise, it is redundant.

I woke up early in the morning and started doing my art history assignment. It is taking so long to do this one piece of work. I’m quite happy with what I have done so and it only needs minor amendments. I have a whole day to finish it off coming up soon.

My friend picked me up in the car and we made our way down to Wakehurst. A few ideas we discussed were having recycled English so that people could re-use it – just quoting from other people. Another one was my daydream of making a shirt from scratch: designing the pattern, making the cloth, dying it, cutting it up and sewing it all together. Other wacky ideas I have: creating a jelly and ice cream shop in London with exotic ingredients that you couldn’t get at other places. Other topics of conversation: the appeal of Sherlock Holmes, hydraulics and lake management, all the things I want to study and don’t have time for, how many books we had in our libraries at home. We talked about The Secret History with Donna Tartt where they all study Ancient Greek as a community. I told him how much I loved that book because I studied Ancient Greek at school and I was obsessed with Ancient Greece and the ancients myself as a youngster.

Wakehurst was amazing, with all these beautiful views that you can see. We started off in the Millenium seed bank – the conservation work which is what led me to Kew Gardens.

The two women at the ticket desk gave me a very wry look as we went in and even my friend noticed them both looking at me. He commented that I looked like a super rich person. It is an observation that other people have made before. One woman told me that my face just looks like cash. Another guy told me recently that I dress like a millionaire.

I had chilli con carne in the cafe and later some chocolate fudge cake even though I started off the trip with a triple chocolate muffin.

Today, all I could think about was Helen and having her with me in Wakehurst. Libido is up to massive heights.

I sat in a birdwatching observatory with my friend for perhaps the first time in my life across the lake but the most birds we saw were sitting in front of a swathe of trees.

We left Wakehurst at about five and went down into Oxted. We had quite a journey up the hill. We travelled through some quite boggy grass and then up a steep hill which was about 45 degrees we guessed. Then through some thorny undergrowth and obstacles up to the top. It was an amazing view though, even though I couldn’t get a good photograph of it on my smartphone.

We had dinner in an Indian restaurant with a group of young women that were celebrating a birthday. I ordered too much food and had to get it bagged up to take home at the end.

I was falling asleep on the way home, but I know that Helen is probably reading my diary. So I have made an effort to put together the photographs and to write this blog. Because I have gotten used to sharing my day with her. I still love her. I think of her as mine. I want to tell her every night that I love her and think about her. Maybe she will change her mind about me.

Holiday Day 3: Four Museums, Five Exhibitions

28.04.2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Books I’m interested in that I saw:

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

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

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

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

The Holiday Begins: Teasing; Investment; Absence and Reunion; Reader Surprise; What I Read Today

25.04.2024

when

through the window

my mind connects with yours

when

you read my words

about how I think of you

and when you think of me

when our two looks

collide

in this moon of electronic paper

what do you feel inside

if it is not love?

Just now, at about this time that I am writing, someone – probably Helen (I assume) – checked if there was a new diary entry. Whoever it is that is reading almost without fail every night is so used to reading this diary. It has become a habit with them. Has this person ever asked themselves why they are so interested in me and my thoughts? Maybe, if it is Helen, she wants to know what I am writing about her every night. It has been seven months. Every night, I think of something new to say about Helen. Every night. I love her. It is like the Arabian Nights in real life. But the storyteller is not a woman that is about to have her head cut off. It is a man that has had his heart ripped out. The one that is holding it in her hand is the one that is most likely reading every night. Maybe, one day, she will give that beating heart back. But you wonder, what is she waiting for? If it is her. Who knows? In this relationship, like with all things with Helen, everything is unequal. She has anonymity. I don’t. I am the one that invests the time into writing, which takes much longer than reading. I am the one that loves at a cost. She receives the love for free. She has to do nothing for it.

My holiday has begun after work finished at 6pm. I rushed down to the Wellcome Collection for the Cult of Beauty Exhibition. With comic predictability, it rained. With comic predictability, the Collection was shut down because the toilets and the water weren’t working. The trains were messed up when I tried to get there too. This is what happens when I have a holiday. I am unlucky. It affects every aspect of my personal life and my relationships.

I went to Waterstone’s on Gower Street instead. Amazing haul of books today. One of my favourite places in the whole world.

Everyone that is close to me at one of the places I am at teases me. Especially the young women. They all pretend to be mean to me. It is so much so that other people comment on it. As I always say, what have I done to deserve this treatment? I am a nice person. But it is all in jest. But when I tease someone? The last time I did it, I got told off for it – in serious trouble. I am still in the bad books for it. That is the difference between different contexts and if it is a man that is doing the teasing or a woman.

Discussion with someone about types of investment. Some make financial investments. Some, like me, make an investment into education. I was told that my education was an investment into myself. But it is actually an investment into our people. There is a reason I have had one of the best educations in the entire world. It is for us as a people. For the Dalits, the Untouchables, the community of the oppressed. We who were denied education to keep us down. They prayed for a mind like mine to come into this world. For us. To be our voice. To be The Tiger. The Tiger has come into this world. The Tiger has become an author. Someone who writes our values. Our way of life. Our hopes and our desires. For us. By us. As myself, I am no one and nobody. As The Tiger, I am Us.

I saw someone after a while. I missed her. Everyone missed her. She is like Helen and Girl 3. She is one of the darlings of the place. Everyone wants to talk to her, be around her. Life is a popularity contest and some people win in it. When they go, there is a vacuum which can’t be filled.

Someone at the place saw me as they were walking past and told me that they read my blog entry on an exhibition. And that it was really good. I was caught by absolute surprise. You never know who is reading what you have written. And why. It was the same when I was doing my PhD. I used to share stuff on the Whatsapp group for PhD students. And, believe it or not, these busy busy people, who I didn’t even talk to, all used to read my blog. It is incredible.

The long-awaited holiday has come. So today I was able to relax and read on the tube. And what did I read? An introduction to some travel memoirs and the history of the Indus river which flows through the Subcontinent. And then, an introduction to plants, their lives and how they have impacted the human imagination.

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.

The Bird Flies

23.04.2024

Sometimes I wonder how you can be happy in this life. Today, Girl 3 was sad. Sad things have happened. She won’t admit that she is sad and I can’t intrude on her like that. It is in the way that she was speaking. And, I like Girl 3. She is one of my best friends in those contexts, whether she thinks of me like that after I asked her out. How can you look at them and not be sad when they are sad? And she is flying away from me. It is happening. I knew it would happen. It has started. Her, I forgave for not going with me. Because the situation was different. She is not like that. Now, I am sad for her. But, she is young. The future is all open for her.

When someone is in my life, I don’t want them to ever go out of my life. But this is life, this is this world – you have to keep on watching them go out of your life. And? And? I cannot cry. Do you think that I can tell Girl 3 that I am sad for her and don’t want her to go? Of course I can’t. That is the situation. Maybe she will read and she will know.

If she was mean to me, I like to think it was out of love (and not because she hated me). So I forgave her every time.

So I was sad all day and I am sad now. That is life. You shouldn’t care for anyone. Because when you do, you have to be sad when they are sad and worry about them when they are worried.

But maybe, she will not be gone from my life. You never know. Sometimes, things happen. Even unexpected things and things you have realistically given up hope on. Pandora’s box always has hope in it.

So, for those reading, Girl 3 came a while after Helen. With Girl 3, I have not given her names. Although what I think of her as is Kali the mother goddess. Because she is all fire and rage. She has my personality. She suffers a lot.

What are the names that I have given Helen? So many names, because I have met her in dreams rather than in real life:

– Helen: the most beautiful woman in the world

– […] honey: because of her sweetness and the sweetness of her voice, the music of her words, and because of the country she is from

– Mallika-e-Hindustan: the Mistress of India (because I am India), because there is a word for what her name means in Hindi that is only very slightly different from Mallika (mistress)

– The Impossible Woman: because Helen is impossible to get, to talk to, to be with. She is the dream.

Whatever happens, even if Helen is with someone else now, I know that I loved her. I loved her. I asked her out. When I thought I saw even the inkling of a chance, I asked her out again. I never bothered her. When it came down to it, I told her that I loved her in front of everyone. I don’t care about the repercussions. I haven’t done anything wrong and nobody can say that I have. I am not going to accept it.

Even now, I think about her a lot. She didn’t let me love her, so nobody knows what would have happened there. One day, I will stop writing to her. One day, the news is going to hit me directly – I am going to have to see with my own eyes that she is with someone else. Maybe I have already seen it. That is the horrible thought.

Loving Without Loving; Talking Without Talking; Looking Without Looking

22.04.2024

In whatever this is with Helen – it is a relationship without a relation – I am not even friends with her, not her boyfriend – it is, as Henry James described it, ‘a flirtation without the benefits of a flirtation’ – I have achieved what we would think of as impossible. I have loved her without loving her. I haven’t even touched her one single time except by mistake. I have talked to her without talking to her – this is what this diary is. I have looked at her without looking at her – out of the corners of my eyes. She is the impossible woman. I have had to become the impossible man that pursues the impossible relationship with this impossible woman.

How much thought. How much time. How much investment into her. And what is in my hand? Nothing. I paid a price for love. It was an extortionate price. And despite paying all the costs, I had something taken away from me. My hope.

And, after one and a half years of effort, here we stand. It has been a tiring game. I have tried to exit this game so many times and take Helen out of my life. Every time, I keep on saying, never talk to her again. Possibly, the game is completely over. Possibly, she is with one of those men that follow her around. They are white. You can’t compete with them if you are Indian – that is this society and the women in it. There is nothing you can do about it. Absolutely nothing.

And this is the powerlessness of this situation in Western society for us. You have to watch the same story unfold over and over again. If the men they go with are not white, they act like white people. You can’t force someone to love you. So there is nothing you can do about it. You are on a perpetual trial with these women because of your culture. Nothing is ever good enough for them. It doesn’t matter how much you care about them. They will never accept you or look at you like a man. Because you are not a man to them. You are something else. Something less than a man.

And who are they going with? These low testosterone little boys that have never fucking grown up with their inane conversations. No achievements. No original thoughts. No fitness. People that I wouldn’t ever entertain the thought of going out with in a million years if I was a woman.

But it is what it is. You can either give up. Or you can hope to meet just one person out of all of these women here in this country that is not like that.

You know, I talk to different women almost every week on these apps. Helen has the opinion that I am not eligible. But other women don’t think that. I am still attractive. I have always been attractive. It has just been the question of meeting someone that I am interested in. Some of these women are very beautiful. And there is a particular ethnicity that finds me very attractive I have discovered. And I am not talking about Indian women.

I was looking at a woman today that I have recently met somewhere over the last few days. I have literally done nothing to her and she avoids me. For no reason. And then, I saw her talking to a white guy, white like her, and she was smiling at him and making an effort to talk to him after the first time of meeting him. What do you expect? Some if not most of them are like that. You get used to it, even if you don’t like it and think it is wrong.

Unlike some of these women, I don’t tar everyone with the same brush. You have to keep on hoping that you will meet the one that is not like them at some point. They literally all can’t be the same. Some of my friends are not like that – they are in relationships with men from other cultures that are not white. That’s how you know that you can trust them.

So, the loser in love speculates on the women in his life in this white culture and this white life. He is a loser in love not because of any other reason but because of the culture in which he was raised. These women think they are all unique individuals and their ‘choice’ is their freedom. That is their false consciousness. They are not free. They are controlled by a white supremacist society and patriarchy. That is their love.

So what happened today? The highlight was fish and chips for dinner. And shopping in Marks and Spencer’s for lunch tomorrow. There are two things you never lose interest in in this world – food and women. However disappointing women have been for you, you always find interest in the new ones that come into your life if you are attracted to them. And that is the luckiness of evolution and women. They complain all their lives that men are attracted to them and approach them. But without that attraction, why would anyone ever make even the first move? It is the elegant thinking of mother nature to keep the human race going, the impetus behind every ambition and every move. The beautiful woman. And thankfully, in this world I am moving in at the moment, there is always a new beautiful woman that comes into it. If number one says no, there is number two. If number two screws you over, there is number three. And now, there is number four. And if things aren’t going to happen with number four, a new interest comes into the picture. So, that is what is happening right now. Indian people have a saying – he who tries never loses. The prize is the family and the child. The biggest prize in the whole world: the future.

Paris’s Love for Helen

20.04.2024

husn tera hai nangi talvar

your beauty is like a naked sword

jido haath lagein

when I put my hand upon it

to ghayal ho javein

then I am wounded

aankhein teri

your eyes

ekh aag

a fire

jis mein hum raakh ho javein

in which I become ash

aag he aag

only fire only fire

jis me hum choor

in which I scatter myself

baatein mein jaddoo

in your words a magic

har baat qayamat

every word a calamity

humein manzoor

i accept

gum-e-dil-e-mohabbat

the sadness of the heart of love

ae mere huzoor

my mistress

jo rehte hai humsein itna door

that stays far away from me

20.04.2024

Do you know what Paris’s love for Helen is? Paris can’t sleep because he is sick of love for Helen. Paris can’t get out of bed in the mornings because he is sick of love for Helen. When he sees other men following Helen around, Paris trembles all over. Someone is going to take Helen away from him. When he sees other men following Helen around, it feels like Paris’s stomach is falling apart. He feels like he is going to faint. And when he is sick like that, he has to talk to people and smile and nod at them when the only thing he can think about is Helen in someone else’s arms, Helen not being his, Helen gone away forever.

When Helen is there, he can’t look at her because he loves her so much. She is the only thing he can think about.

Paris hates himself for loving Helen because he knows that she is never going to be his. Paris hates being sick in love.

Paris hates the fact that Helen isn’t in his arms. That he is not stroking her cheek. That he is not caressing her hair.

Paris hates the fact that Helen knows he loves her and she doesn’t care about it.

What does it mean to be Paris? Paris went into Greece and he took Helen from the king in front of everyone. It didn’t matter how many people were there. Somehow, he took her for himself.

What does it mean to be Paris? To keep Helen as his, Paris fought against the whole of Greece. To stop someone taking her away, to defend her, he fought against everyone.

How lucky Paris was that he could have Helen. And die when he wasn’t going to have her any more.

I talked to a woman that had a puppet in her hand today. She was using the puppet to talk to me. It wasn’t a performance. It was a real conversation. She carried that puppet around to the evening. She had that puppet with her as her friend. So many people tell me that I am handsome all the time. And today, for the first time, a woman said it to me through the puppet. I said that the puppet looked cute. The woman made the puppet say that it looked cute from all angles and that I was cute as well, dashing. Was she trying to flirt with me through the puppet? Or was she just being nice and playful? I was interested in an exhibit at the gallery that she is at and I mentioned when I was going – should I have done that? I was just making conversation and I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying because I was distracted by today.

I made someone’s day by pointing out that the brooch she was wearing was a Paisley design. She really needed that information and by chance I provided it to her. She kept on thanking me over and over again. That is what it means to have and to share knowledge.

I went to a chocolate tasting event. At first I could follow it, but then the thoughts took over.

Someone told me I looked tired today. What can I say? I can’t sleep properly. This is the biggest disappointment in my life. In a life filled with so many disappointments and betrayals.

let me clasp at the snake

and suck at its venom

let me be one with the hurt

and death

give me the paper and the pen

that I might maul it with my

blood

the cross with its cruel nails is the shelter

the thorns adorn the crown

for the man that is god

that loves the unloving other

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.