Everyone keeps on telling me that I will scare off and offend women if I say that I want to be in a relationship to have children and start a family. And they told me not to mention that I wanted children for the bloodline and the dynasty because that makes me sound patriarchal.
What is so wrong with what I am saying? Even the animals only want to have their own children. They don’t look after the children of other animals. It is natural to want your own.
Scientifically, we have ‘the selfish gene’ which wants to clone itself through offspring. Our bodies are geared towards sex and the purpose of that is to have babies. All I am saying is what is natural.
Culturally, the family is the unit of society. Why wouldn’t I want to extend the unit for my own family and dynasty?
I don’t understand this new generation of people. Literally, in the Bible, even in Western culture, it says that you should marry to have children. How have things changed so much for these Western people that what I am saying now is literally wrong?
It is not like I literally just see women as bodies to bear children. It is not like I only see them one-dimensionally as mothers. After all, you are not attracted to anyone. You are attracted to them for their personality and who they are as individuals.
In my view, it is lying to pretend that you don’t want a family when you are getting into a relationship to have a family. That is the main reason. You can get company from women that you like everywhere. What if you want something more than that? What if you want to build a future with them?
This culture and its values and its way of talking and thinking is incomprehensible to me. All you do is lie and cheat in relationships here. What happened to honesty?
Let me tell you something. What you want is never wrong, unless you want to commit a crime. It is not a crime to want your own family for your dynasty and your bloodline. There is nothing wrong with it. So why am I being told off for wanting it, thinking it and saying it? Just because other people don’t think the same way as me? It is not a secret. It is not shameful. In my view, it is not even private information, over-sharing or inappropriate. Yet I am being told to keep it as a shameful secret. That’s this culture for you.
Do I care if people think I am sexist and patriarchal? No. Because I am not. Not only have I taught feminism in schools, but I have written and given tours about it. I have helped women with their studies and their career ambitions. I have recruited women for roles at university. If I have chosen in my personal life to find someone that will prioritise the family and give me a child, I don’t think that makes me sexist or patriarchal. And I don’t agree with what Western feminism tries to say anyway. You are a body. I am a body. The body is the basis of our being. That is what science and psychology persuasively suggest based on empirical evidence. Science tells us that nature has decided that our main role in life is to have offspring based on analysis of evolution and animal behaviour. Not to go to the restaurant and chat with someone the whole night for ‘company’ which goes nowhere and doesn’t create any results for the good of society or anyone.
If other people want to waste their time on ‘company’ which goes nowhere, that is fine. Go ahead and do it. No one is judging you. So why judge me for wanting to produce results? This new society is incomprehensible in so many ways.
Today, I kept the whole evening free. I have been feeling depressed and exhausted over the past few days. But today, I feel fine. So I am just going to do some reading.
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.
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.
Before I began this diary, I sat for two minutes staring at the white screen on my laptop. Helen. Girl 3. Potential Girl. Maybe even all three of these women are reading my diary. They are sitting there reading my thoughts about them (although I avoid writing about Girl 3 and Potential Girl for various reasons – including the fact that I don’t see them for about five minutes a month like Helen and I don’t need to communicate to them like this). They know that I like them. It is not a secret. But do they care? Nothing is happening (although, to be fair, I haven’t actually asked Potential Girl out and I am not sure if I should or not yet).
I have started wondering if I am too old for all this stuff. There is nobody in a reasonable age range to me that I actually know and talk to and that I am attracted to that is actually available. Every woman I know is younger than me. They come from a different generation, aside from the fact that they are all from a different culture. The ones in my generation are too old to have children anyway. I have tried events. There are no women there. I have tried dating apps. That is not working how I want it to work – the women that are interested in me, I am not interested in. If they are strangers, they have to be beautiful. Otherwise, I am not attracted to them. The beautiful ones show some interest, and then it fizzles out. What should I be doing? I am not going out to pubs and clubs and hanging around those drunken women. I’m just not going to do it.
People tell you sad things sometimes. Someone told me something quite sad today. And I understand her. And I understand the other side too, how the others saw her. Human relationships, when they end badly, are some of the saddest things in the world. I feel sorry for her and how much she had to suffer. And I understand it. She is going to suffer what happened for the rest of her life. This is the nature of love. It is absolute violence and carnage when it goes wrong. Because for some people, love is about control. That’s how they express their love. You have to learn to be a love and live, live and let live person. You can’t control someone else. You can’t force them to become you. But who learns this lesson in this society that we live in? It is a society of control freaks that can’t live and let live, people that have to feel exactly the same as each other before they can love them. They can’t love difference. Hence my situation right now. Because I am difference. And I won’t let anyone control me.
Today, I helped my friend with her dream. It was a dream of education. I went through my comments with her for her writing. Do you know how many women I have helped with their dreams? Even though I am busy all the time? So many. And then, do you know what I got for my care and attention? Just because I think that if I were a woman, I would prioritise my family and children, like I even do as a man, over a career, I am told that I am against women. That’s reality. It doesn’t matter what you do in life. That is how you are judged by the people in this society. Because you are Indian and they make assumptions about you.
I have been told to talk to everyone that comes in the galleries. So that is what I have been doing all day. Some of those women with little babies are literally desperate to talk to someone adult for a change. They just won’t stop talking. There were two like that today. Then, the other one that wouldn’t stop talking was a French schoolgirl because she wanted to practice her English with me. She was actually perfectly fluent and really showed up her classmate who stared at us talking without saying anything.
Today’s highlights from the tour about women artists I created: taking around a father with his two little girls. That tour has been written for women. When I told them at the end to keep on making art to share the thoughts in their head, the father started asking me if I made art. He thanked me for being so kind. The other highlight was that I gave my tour to about twenty young schoolchildren and made all the language and the ideas very simple. Later, the teacher came up to me to thank me for taking them around the poster gallery like that because they wouldn’t have known how to talk about the posters. I don’t need to say it – the tours are always the best when there are the little children there for the future. You plant the seed and see if it takes.
I was shopping for lunch tomorrow at the Marks and Spencer’s since I have a day off. I was looking at all the people rushing around at that time. And what I was thinking to myself was that these are the same people that have created this world around me. A world where I can’t just sit around and read and think all day. A world where the thing that I am the best at and that makes me special, my cleverness and ability to see the things that no one can see, my ability to put things together that no one knows go together, my originality, my creativity, my mind is all redundant and unused. All those massive ideas I have that would change how people think and what they read are just sitting stockpiled in my head. I don’t have time to write them up. Because I have decided to chase this family. And this family is not happening. I am wasting my talent for the dream of love. For money for the family that isn’t there. I have sacrificed my ambition for love. I did what I say that everyone should do: put the family first. The question is, how long? How long before I give up on that dream and just buy the children? At some point, I am going to have to accept the situation – I am not like the other people in this society.
Someone said to me today (I think she was joking) that I was flirting already with the new women that have come in. Is it flirting when you are being friendly with a woman if you are a man? Was she just joking? I am a man. I like beautiful women. I like talking to beautiful women. It is a fact. I’m not going to deny it. Why should I? If you don’t harass them and bother them, you are not doing anything wrong. Even if I am flirting – and I would say that I don’t know how to flirt – there is no law against flirting, as long as you don’t make innuendoes and insinuations and offend them. How do you even flirt with a woman? Is joking around considered flirting nowadays?
I just came back home from an overtime event – 23.17 right now (diary finished at 23.41). In that event, I greeted and talked to literally every single woman that came in. They were dressed in their finest clothes, beautiful dresses. It was a black tie, glamorous event. In this job, all I do is talk to women all day sometimes. At the museum, them and their children are the main demographic.
Leg is fine as long as I walk around. It is standing still in one place or sitting at one place that is causing the pain. So today I did 27513 steps and I feel fine.
I was thinking about the one single Punjabi woman I ever asked out. I was in my late twenties back then and she was in her early twenties (fate is that I only ever meet women younger than me). She accepted and told me that she would come on a date with me. But then, she stood me up. If I had had more experience back then, I would have just asked her out again. But I didn’t have experience, so I didn’t. I could have had my children with her at the right time. She studied art history at the Courtauld. I wonder what she is doing now? But I will not look her up. I wonder if she ever wonders what would have happened if she had gone out with me? Same culture. Same upbringing. Both humanities scholars. It would have been good. She wasn’t the most attractive woman in the world, but then I am good looking enough to pass the genes on to the children and she wasn’t bad looking. I asked her out because she was Punjabi and to make my grandmother happy.
I am not a coward like the little boys in this country that can’t ask a woman out face to face. I don’t do it by phone or by email. I don’t sneak around second guessing myself. When I am sure, I am sure. And then I go for it. With everything in life. I don’t doubt myself.
My main frenemy was in a really good mood today. I haven’t seen her for quite a while. She was laughing and joking around with me. That is her normal personality. She is back to herself. Was it the holiday? Is it that she has a new person in her life? Or has she finally forgiven me? We will find out.
For this child, I have asked out women that I would never have thought I would ask out. Because the main factor is how they are going to behave around the children. That is first. My choice is second. So, first of all (after being the right age for the kids), kindness. For the children and for me. Then, the ability to converse. Third, looks. Even the ones that initially aren’t my type, you learn to think they are beautiful. Then, the accomplishments they have. So that my children can have them, including their languages if they have any and their cultures if they are different from British. And I prefer someone that can bring me genetic diversity for my children. Then, style (for me).
I spent about an hour talking to my friend in the context when I came in early. Her and me, we can talk and talk and talk together.
In the morning, I gave the tour I wrote at Kew Gardens. And, so beautifully, I had two young girls on the tour with their parents. The children were really getting into it, the older girl. She was running up to the front of the group to talk to me about what they were doing with plants at her school. And one of the young women with her mother asked me about what a botanist does. I was inspiring the young people for the future. It felt really good. I have put so many unpaid hours into this Kew Gardens project, lost so much pay. It is bearing fruit. Even if you just get one person interested, that is enough. Then it is worth it. The father really thanked me, and so did the mother.
I had my first meeting online at the place I volunteer for writing to bring about world peace through writing. It was good to hear the voice of the person I have been writing messages to. I know so many people now in so many different areas in life. Always people around me all the time. Everything has changed in my life since my time at my desk all day, researching and reading and writing. I set out to change my life. It has happened. There is just one last thing missing.
The young blonde friend I made in the Gardens was there today so I talked to her. She is super friendly to me. Maybe in time, I will know her enough to ask her. She is interesting, but I don’t know anything about her and there won’t be any opportunities. Right now, it is still the same situation. The hope for Helen and Girl 3. If either one of them change their mind. Then, there is potential girl. With her, there is uncertainty. If you can only ask someone once, you have to be pretty sure about things. And asking them directly scares them off. So there are still the three women in my life. Watching and waiting. Thinking about them. But they are perhaps all thinking of someone else.
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:
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.
One day, it will be time to say goodbye to Helen. Either she will stop reading this diary. Or I will stop writing. One person will exit the game. And then, the game will be over. Right now, Helen is winning this game. Whatever strategy I have adopted, I always lose. I hate losing. In any game. I play to win. One day, I will be sick of losing. Not right now. Robert the Bruce watches the spider falling again and again to rebuild his web. It is the story that my grandfather told me. The spider will keep picking itself up again and again. It goes on instinct. The web of words is created every night. And those gossamer threads we spread around the image of our darling. She is the nourishment of what it is that we are. She is comfort. She is the dream. Without the dream, there is no life or desire for life. That is where the spider is at the moment, though he falls. He falls in the fall of love, the glance from those fell eyes, the honey dripping from those lips, the waterfall in her hair and the blackness of her eyes.
After work today, I walked home with my new friend. And she took me grocery shopping with her on the way to the station. Why lie? I like being around women. That was interesting to me. Just being around them makes you feel good about yourself. They have always been scarce in my life. Now they are in my life. But because they were scarce before, they are all special to me, valuable. I could learn them for my whole life.
The highlight of today was dinner. I don’t like to write what it is. It is not nice when I know nobody else can have it as good as me. My mother is the most wonderful cook in the world. Her food is her love for me. She will spend all day cooking for me. How can anyone else in the whole world eat as good as me? It is impossible.
After I got home, I did a bit of shopping myself. I picked up some things which I really fancied: cherry yoghurt and cherry jam. It is the season of the cherry. The most beautifully flavoured fruit for me. The tartness and the sweetness combined. Why did they say that the cherry is virginity? Because the sensuousness of the taste is sexual, animal.
It is almost bedtime. And therefore time to read. Tomorrow morning, I have promised myself that I will pick myself back up and throw myself once more against the world. Tomorrow morning, I have promised that I will win the day for my people. Tomorrow morning, once more, I have promised myself that I will be The Tiger, The Machine. The prayer of the Punjabis, of Mother India. Her true son and lover. No one amongst us has this mind. No one amongst us has these privileges. No one amongst us has this support system. No one amongst us has had the best education in the whole world. No one amongst us is so strong, ferocious and powerful. There is one that has come into this world. There is one that knows the unknown things.
Inquilab zindabaad! Inquilab saada zindabaad! Jai Maa Kaali! (Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution live forever! Hail to the Dark Mother Goddess!) Remember the promises that you have made and the oaths you have sworn. Remember It is time to get better. It is time to be the best again. The lone man in this country of non-men. Punjab expects. India expects. The village expects. Jai Maa Kaali!
The Pink Roses: Innocent love. Love beginning to deepen into red. The youth of the feeling. The virginity of emotion. Fresh always. No matter how many times you have fallen before.
The White Rosebud: I thought my love for her was dying. I thought I had to kill my love. It comes to life again. Nothing is ever over in life while the air gives you breath. Look how majestically the bud sails up into the moon…
The Daffodils: Spring awakes, the mind shakes/eternally the heart breaks/what nature makes/she unmakes/I smell the daffodils and the scent of the new/I smell the daffodils and begin to heal and laugh anew.
I took this day as a complete rest day. I had applied for my normal shift on a Sunday and I didn’t get it. So I made do with what I had.
In the morning, I met up with my friend in the park. I deliberately told him we would meet up early so I wouldn’t have an excuse to lie in bed and not do anything. We got massively muddy. We see each other basically every week. He is even going to go on the first two days of my holiday with me and drive me down somewhere. He wanted to come with me on the rest of the holiday too, the other four days, but he couldn’t. Whenever I meet up with him, I lose all my stress. Because even though we argue over everything – including Helen and my approach to her and what I write in my blog – he makes me feel relaxed and we can talk forever about things. One day recently we talked together for about thirteen hours non-stop – one of my last holidays. So after that, I was completely stress free, despite everything that has been happening.
My friend’s advice to me about Helen? They all say the same thing. Leave her alone, she doesn’t deserve you. And if you can’t do that, my friend added, make her jealous by talking about other women and then write about the lifestyle that you live – the lifestyle of a king when you can do whatever you want, when you eat the best foods in the world, when you can have whatever you want whenever you want it, etc.
Why talk about other women with Helen like I do here? What’s the logic behind it? There isn’t any logic. The logic is because if she is interested, she has drawn it out all this time despite knowing that I am fairly attractive and that I am going to be talking to other women because they are going to be interested in me. And she hasn’t done anything about it. So she must not really care that much about me. Or maybe she thinks that no one is interested in me. She is wrong. I only talk about the women that I am interested in here. Do you know, that almost every week, some Indian woman likes me or sends me a message on the Indian dating app? Top women with really high status jobs. The only thing is, I am not attracted to them. This week, a very physically attractive Indian woman liked my profile and we matched. Do you know what the problem is with her? She is two years older than me so that would create difficulties with any potential babies. Other women on the dating apps have liked my profile and some of them have messaged me. And they haven’t been right so I haven’t responded. Helen has this thought in her head that I am desperate and I will go out with anyone. Other women in real life have thrown themselves at me. I don’t go on about it because I’m not going to sit around notching up all the attention I get. I mean, five women in one day a couple of weeks ago came up to me on the street to tell me they liked my clothes and one of them asked me to kiss her. Do you think that happens to other men? It doesn’t.
Well, that’s Suneel as seen through the eyes of Helen. Who, despite what she acts like, reads this diary every night. To see what I am thinking. Most probably.
So, what was today’s menu?
BREAKFAST (usually always the same unless I can’t wake up): orange blossom honey, canadian maple syrup, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashew nuts, almonds, brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried goji berries, raisins, lemon peel, oat biscuit with yoghurt and strawberry, a banana, dried apricots, dates, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, yoghurt with chia seeds, flax seeds and lemon and lime marmalade, green tea.
LUNCH: Marks and Spencer’s Pigs in Blankets with Heinz Baked Beans.
TEA: A plain chocolate and vanilla Magnum.
DINNER: Marks and Spencer’s sweet and sour chicken with rice, Mark’s and Spencer’s Thai Panang curry, Marks and Spencer’s White Chocolate, Strawberry and Raspberry Mousse.
While I got everything on reduced for lunch and dinner, we are talking about twenty five pounds worth of food there from lunch onwards. Breakfast probably adds another fiver onto it. So, like I said, I live and eat like a king. I just don’t go on about it, because why boast when other people that are reading are likely struggling? That’s not nice.
On the way home, I bought some lovely daffodils which you can see in the photo – it was the one store that was open.
I spent a lot of time watching videos, but because I am what I am, I spent a few hours writing social media posts for the Japanese art gallery I am at. I also applied for the same thing as a volunteer at another website because I was interested in the subject matter. So I think I wrote quite a good post and sent it off as a specimen of my work.
I had a leisurely shave and a shower for once. Water makes me feel good. It’s why I enjoy swimming so much – or did when I had the time. When we are babies, we swim in our mother’s stomach. That’s why I love the water so much. It soothes me, it makes me feel relaxed and good about myself. It is comfort – a mother’s comfort. Water is woman. It is the same feeling of being loved. Love all over your body.
I watched a reel by Mia Khalifa on Instagram saying that men are easy and she has gotten every man that she has ever wanted because men are ‘cheap and easy’. Whereas she has turned down lots of men. So she isn’t. Maybe that’s how they think of themselves, these young women. It’s a triumph to hurt someone and turn them down because it makes them feel valued about themselves. And us men? We are nothing and not even worth having. It’s weird how gender dynamics work in this society. If I said that women were worthless and not worth having, I would be an incel, a misogynist. But because she is a woman, she can say what she likes and it is shared on public platforms and recommended on my feed.
Do you know what love is? When Matthew Perry (Chandler in Friends) found out that Julia Roberts had said she would only make a guest appearance on the show if he was in the scene, he sent her some red roses. And then they started faxing each other every day. That’s how they fell in love. That’s what love is. Love is commitment and communication.
Do you know what love is? After Napoleon Bonaparte became the man that he was – after he had been a poor immigrant with nothing – he met a woman that had rejected him when he was nothing and nobody. And he asked her why she had rejected him. That’s what love is. You don’t forget. Whatever happens.
But you know those stories? They don’t mean anything in this contemporary context. Do you know what love is now? Love is swiping on a dating app and meeting some stranger. Because the people around you keep you in constant reservation in case someone else better comes along. Because you are Indian.
Do you know what happened to Matthew Perry? He couldn’t believe that he was with Julia Roberts. He couldn’t believe that he could keep her. He was insecure. So he broke up with her in two months. And at the end of his life, he died alone. Even though he was starved of love. That is also what love is. It comes to weak men that can’t handle it.
Do you know what happened to Napoleon? When he became the man of the moment, he cheated on his wife and discarded her. That is also what love is. It comes to weak men that can’t handle it.
Love is not perfect. In love, you have your moments. The good ones and the bad ones. My friend who has had a wife for so long said that to me. Don’t assume that you are going to live in happily ever after even if you do find someone. You have to be able to work at it and commit. You can’t let your insecurities get the better of you.
I look at love and all of the barriers to it: gender differences, cultural differences, the way women have been indoctrinated in this society, what I have been brought up to believe women are like from movies and films and songs, the fear of these people, the inability to talk, rampant racism in society. Without the illusion that there is going to be a happy ending, without the need for a family, why would anyone want to be in love with anyone here?
But with love, there is nothing you can do about it. When you love someone, you just do it. It might be impractical, inconvenient, irrational, even wrong. You can watch how differently they treated everyone else to you and downgraded you. They can be unfair to you. But you still love them anyway.
My holidays are at the end of April. I have decided to give up on Scotland for the time being and go to Italy on holiday with family. I have said that when we get there, they can do what they want and then I will do what I want and we can just meet up at night time and in the mornings. The first two days of my holiday I will just spend with my friend in a driveable distance in the countryside and nature.
I was going to just go somewhere by myself but the thought of being a foreign country all by myself all day doesn’t particularly appeal to me.
Social Media stats:
300+ impressions on each LinkedIn Post 13 impressions on each Instagram Posts
I should actually just delete my Instagram account. It is useless.
It is the festival of colours today. Time to repair relationships and begin anew. And in fact, because I was around certain people for a while (why cover it up, Girl 3 and potential girl), I don’t feel that bad. Because even if nothing is going to happen with them, you can date them in your mind. I get on well with them. I like them. Just being around them, talking to them and looking at them makes you forget about your problems.
All my friends want me to give up on Helen. I have tried to give up on her three times. Twice by not talking to her. Once by going with someone else. Helen herself has never given me any encouragement. She has said no twice. Yet look at how stubborn and senseless the human heart is. Even now, as I am writing these facts down, I am thinking about being with Helen. I am waiting for her to change her mind.
If it is this hard to just take the first little baby steps, how hard would everything else be with her? But then, you make the excuses to yourself. She has some kind of situation. There is the thing I heard about her from someone that slipped out, whether I heard it or understood it properly or not, whether or not it is just a misunderstanding on my part or a false memory.
But maybe this is a false problem. Because she has to make all the moves now. So if she doesn’t, I can’t do anything. Those are the rules. I have already asked one more time than I am allowed to. So I just have to be around her, thinking about her and not being able to do anything. Otherwise, I would not only feel like I was bothering her, I would probably be bothering her.
Because Helen is like she is, because the situation is what it is, I am having to talk to other women. That I am not even interested in.
What am I doing to change my fate? I need to meet some new women somewhere that I am actually interested in. It is not working on the dating app. They like my profile. They even reply to my messages. But then, nothing happens. And what are they saying that is so interesting? All they are is pretty faces. It is boring and not satisfying. I have more intimate and satisfying conversations with the women I already know.
The only place I can think of is the dance studio. Someone told me not to go there and don’t use it for that. What does he know anyway? There is bound to be someone single there that I could be interested in. I really should go to the slow dancing with someone. Those celebrity women went out with the male dancers in Strictly Come Dancing even though they literally have nothing in common with each other. Because all love is is being around someone all the time on a shared project and that’s how you fall in love. Just create the intimate moments. I will be holding a woman around the waist. I will be holding her hands. We will be moving together in beautiful music, looking at each other. I am still good looking and I know how to talk to people. It is not rocket science.
I will have to think about it. Helen is extremely unlikely. Girl 3 is extremely unlikely. Potential girl is extremely unlikely. And I don’t want to ask potential girl out because if I do and she says no, I’m not going to want to talk to her again. And I’m looking at the lifestyles of these women that weren’t raised like me and I know it would be very difficult with them. But when you love someone, you make allowances for them and you compromise. If they let you – that’s the issue.
The problem for me and everyone else is that I have been raised like an Indian woman in a village. No staying out all night. No drinking. No pubs and clubs. No hanging around anywhere where there might be any women. I have been raised to stay at home and look after my family. To do things with the family. To think about the family first. And now, when it comes to having my own family, all that is creating is problems. When you become institutionalised, you can’t just get up and leave. It is who you are.
If the Indian women in this country could just have been attractive enough for me and didn’t have such arbitrary demands on me as a man, if there were more of us in this country that actually had arranged marriages so that you could actually have an actual choice with these women, I wouldn’t have any of these problems. But what can you do? You are stuck in the box that you are in.
So I can either do nothing. Or go to the dance studio. Unless I get a better idea from someone else. I will have to ask one of my friends at work what to do, some women that are just friends. Maybe they will be able to point me in the right direction.
diary of a lone man 