Life had become a thing with thorns in it for many. A complicated and crushing thing. It was evident that happiness was only for the others. So now, the people did not want to live.
So they would go to the game of dying.
You could die any way that you wanted to. For a moment, you could feel the ease of death. Just for a few pounds. You could escape this thing called life and this trap that was the world.
The game of dying promoted itself as moksha, the Hindu ideal of freedom and departure from the chain of being and constant rebirth.
The downside was that even after dying, you had to go back into the world.
You could choose how you wanted to die. Poisoning. Being stabbed. Burning.
First, I started off by being poisoned. After all, was this world not poison that one had to swallow? It was exceedingly painful. The throat would swell up, there was severe nausea. It was hard to breathe.
My next death was the revolver. I would sit there with it, staring into the barrel of it, completely focused. I would forget about all the many problems and the unfulfilled cravings, of the friends and loves that had betrayed me. Then when I pulled the trigger, the beautiful oblivion…
But now, the death I chose every time was burning. It was the most painful death. Excruciating and unbearable. The most intense death.
They would watch us. The ones that had led us to death, they came in droves to watch us. The ones that had taken all the happiness would watch, eating popcorn, smiling at each other. It was an amusement for them and we were their clowns. They had always watched our suffering and poured petrol upon us while we burned. That was how the world went around.
Diljale. Which means ‘burnt at heart’. It describes a cynical, distressed or disappointed person.
It was the word that came to mind to him when he passed by the restaurant and looked into the window. There she was. And then, there he was. The two of them. Together. She was smiling and laughing. She was happy.
And he was out alone in the street.
It was cold, dark and windy. Specks of rain flew into his eyes. The beautiful warm light from within was closed off to him and nobody inside was giving him the slightest notice.
This was what it felt like to be a cliche of the pathetic fallacy. He should tell the story to his colleagues in the literature departments. It would be good for a laugh or two.
He had made a desperate effort not to look into the man’s face. Because he did not want to inflict any further traumas upon himself. That was a memory that he would have to return to time and time again. Why did she choose him over me? Why did he have to see them before him?
He walked off. He tried to forget. He tried to ignore the dirty hungry invisible rats that were gnawing away at his insides and eating their way up to his throat and that horrible feeling of nausea.
You are alone. You came into this world alone. You are going to go out of this world alone.
It was not fair. It was not fair that this happiness was their’s for the taking whenever they wanted it. And never his.
Diljale. The burnt heart. It was really going up in flames. A doctor would deny it, but it was burning. He was a corpse on fire. In India, they cremated their dead. He really was dead. He was burning in the rain. The rain could not douse these flames.
What was funny that they criticised him for being cynical and pessimistic. So many disappointments in this life. All he had was disappointment to look in the face.
And what was there to walk towards in the rain? But he would walk in the rain by himself. He would have to keep on going. And he would never be sitting in that restaurant with her. That smile was going to burn in his dreams of terror.
He was known for work. But why was he known for work? Why did he work so much?
First of all, there was the empty ache in him. No one had come to fill that space. So he crammed it in with works. Time yawned open unforgivingly. The loss of her and the family that there would have been… There had to be some substitute, some forgetfulness in the work. When he was not working in culture for money, he taught, wrote, photographed, drew, painted, sang and acted. When he worked, he always had the desire to meet someone through that work. He did not. So he kept on looking and looking. So that was why he was the maximalist for doing.
Secondly, there was the relentless energy. No one had come to claim that energy. So he crammed it in with works. And still, despite that, he could never get tired. So that was why he was the maximalist of doing.
Also, the ambition. To be someone. That monstrous ego. To be everywhere, to be god upon this earth. To shape the world in his own imprint. Ambition was a monster that had straddled his back. The self belief: I am one that will live eternally in my name. Not just for himself, for his people this ego, the ego for the Oppressed that had been crushed into the ground for thousands of years. To be their champion, their light and guide.
Then, there was the background. A father who had always been working. A family who had always been working. His working culture background. A family and a culture that always kept busy and productive. That had worked as farmers and shoe makers. A background of hard, labourious work. So that was why he was the maximalist of doing.
And what about the commitment? The desire to change the world. The desire to contribute to society. The desire to be a productive member of this reality. To not just take but to give.
Do not forget the money. To have those savings. To always be ready to provide for a family. Money not for the self but for the family which never came.
And what did he get from the work? Did Sisyphus cry? When you move the rock up the mountain and never succeed, do you cry? Does the maximalist of doing ever cry? He did not cry. He could not. But he wanted to cry. His life was a punishment for some grave sin. He did not have the happiness of undoing, only its tragedy. Because the more he did, the more he was undone.
The night before, he had watched a play. And unexpectedly within the performance, the players had begun talking about heartbreak. It was a complete departure from what had been taking place and an absolute surprise. It was an outpouring of mourning.
He had watched uncomfortably, trying to forget their words as they spoke. He had thought that he had succeeded. That he had diverted his attention.
In other words, he had fooled himself.
Because in the morning, he woke up from a dream of heartbreak. He could see her face, more clearly than in a photograph, the face in life. Someone was telling a story about her. Her face was sad. They were saying that she was to marry someone else.
The mourning was not over. It had been years and he was still mourning her. She was alive and he was mourning her. It was never going to end.
He could not cry. He could not let it out. So his stomach churned with nausea and his thoughts kept on returning to her. His dreams cried for him.
He wanted to be free of her. He wanted his freedom. If he couldn’t have love, could he at least have freedom? He wanted her out of his mind. That mind was his. If she could not be his, she was not wanted in his mind.
Recently a fantasy had begun to take hold. To drink himself to death. It would be so easy, complete oblivion. Like the Indian film ‘Devdas’. Which was surprising. Because he abhorred drinking. But it was just an alteration of the usual fantasies of extinction aroused by his romantic failure. He was going to be haunted by the ghosts of the living dead forever. And there was never going to be any consolation in his life.
They wanted to liberate the people from love. But instead, they were liberating them from their humanity.
In this era, online interactions had replaced real life ones. It was no longer fashionable to date in the pool of people that you knew. The desire was for the stranger because the grass was always considered to be greener on the other side. And the stranger was appealing because prolonged human contact was no longer desirable in and of itself. Superficiality reigned, not deep knowledge of someone. That was what was undesirable. Knowledge was regarded as poison, ignorance as bliss.
As a result, the online dating companies grew and grew in wealth. Love was an industry. It had always been an industry. The Victorians would sell off their women to the highest bidder while canting about love in their triple decker romance novels. The royals had always looked at possessions for their matches.
To preserve their wealth, the dating companies needed their users to be always single. Or only to be in a relationship briefly. They decided to make it so that it was so. It was the grand conspiracy against love.
They took their cues from the world of work. They taught the people that everyone was expendable. You could just throw away someone when you had had enough. They taught the people that the most important thing in life was to be independent. So that the people could never tolerate being in a relationship or endure being connected to anyone. They taught the people to be selfish and grasping. So that they could never be in a genuine relationship with anyone and to give rather than to take, to give their whole heart without ego. They taught the people that there were only workers. Not lovers.
So there was no longer any love. I watched the bodies move in a loveless world. A sordid, practical world of money. I was all alone. Everyone was all alone. Just like the book, it was a lonely planet.
An unaccountable loss this, the ability to write purely imaginative work. Reality was pushing its sharp corners into my mind and my body. This life of suffering… How long was it that you could endure suffering for? It had been a sustained assault, a laboured siege, a ravenous feasting upon me that had taken place over years without end…
So what story could I write? That was different from my life? That was not an interminable quest? That was not a tragedy of heartbreak? A lament of loneliness and unbelonging? A fight against all that there was? A doomed resistance of difference in the face of the great evil of the One?
The public wanted a glimmer of light. That glimmer of light gave them hope. That was what sold. An orphan magician that defeats evil. A misfit that finds love. An underdog that achieves some kind of victory, whether real or imaginary. A problem that is resolved. Justice achieved.
Magic. Love. Victory. Justice. Where was any of this in my life? Where were they in my world?
And so, the need for a new story. Fiction is not the unreal. Fiction is not the false. It is an old chestnut that fiction is another reality. Perhaps more real. Perhaps braver than this reality. An alternative imagining of reality.
Perhaps I should imagine myself as a villain. I write myself into my characters. I could pretend to be the villain. But this would serve the false narrative in place. I am not the villain. I am the hero.
I live in the dystopia. What is this world if it is not dystopian? Perhaps I should invent a Utopia. Where talent is rewarded. Where genius is recognised. Where there is true equality, fairness and inclusion. But would the mind of this society and this reality be able to take it? Would they even be able to begin to comprehend it?
Perhaps this is the great barrier. Perhaps this is the cause of my pen’s impotence.
But tomorrow we pick up the pen again. And tomorrow, we imagine a new tomorrow. That is what the artist creates. From the swamp, the lotus is born. And from the breast of the slave and the faithful, there comes the rebel and the freedom fighter. Just like the devil comes out from the mind of god.
B. – My friend told me that a man who she knew asked her out. She said no. The next week he was dead. He ended everything.
A. – It is sad and stupid. There are other women
B. – Are there though? Do other women exist apart from the ones you love?
A. – Do you want to die like this poor fellow with such thoughts?
B. – Why not? It would end the pain.
A. – You told me that in your culture, death by your own hand is regarded as cowardice.
B. – You asked me if I wanted to die. Not if I was going to do it. Courage is to live. In pain. In a heartless world.
A. – You are courageous?
B. – One woman felled this fellow. I had three that I loved in a row that said no. More before that. I am talking about recent events. I live. I cling to life. Is that the courage you ask for? I could not live without her. I did it.
A. – Did you love them? Did you love like Romeo? He gave his life for Juliet
B. – He forgot his duty to his family. And in any case, she loved him back. There is no Juliet for this Romeo. Courage is when you are all alone and you are still The Tiger. Courage is when your body and your soul screams with pain but you go on like The Tiger. Courage is when the whole world is against you and you fight the whole world for nothing. Like The Tiger. You want to be schooled in courage? On the street, eight come but Tiger fights them all. Do you think you can doubt Tiger for courage?
A. – It is your word.
B. – I am known for my word. For my honesty and integrity.
A. – You are not brave to live. You do not seriously want to die.
B. – Less than an hour ago, I was sitting in a dive. Thinking about being in a warm bath. With slit wrists. I was enjoying being in that bath and dying. The red mist circling around me. Slipping out of…
A. – Stop it.
B. – In the film Gadar, the hero has no one. Except for the one he loves. And she is of a different tribe. In reality, upon which the film is based, he commits suicide. In the film, he wins her. He wins. That is the boast of Punjab. All against a world of hate, he wins. He has love. I am the boast of Punjab. I am the dream of the people. I am the courage that lasts in the desert of reality. They are making movies and singing songs about my courage. Which you question.
A. – You are a funny fellow. With a big ego. Maybe you deserve to be alone? Have you thought of that?
B. – Possibly. Possibly everybody ‘deserves’ to have someone except for me. It wouldn’t surprise me with the fairness of this life.
A. – There. That’s why no one likes you let alone loves you. You are difficult and disturbing.
B. – They live. I am not living. The dead are walking amongst the living. Without dying.
A: Why do you spend so much time expending your bile on other people?
Me: Because they are intolerable.
A: To you perhaps. You are highly strung. Admit it.
Me: Not at all. Do you know, when I came home from work and an evening somewhere, there was just one person in front of me on the street. Just one person. And despite that, this miscreant was walking in a zigzag across the street, in my way everywhere that I turned. They were glued to their smart phone. That is what people are.
A: What do you mean, that’s what people are?
Me: Inconsiderate. Deliberately in your way.
A: How was this person deliberately in your way? They were just going about their business unaware that you were in the background.
Me: Not at all. Anyone could have been trying to walk past them. They acted like the whole street was theirs. They didn’t have one single thought that there might be someone trying to walk past them.
A: The incapability to walk in a straight line is not a personal failing. They must have got out of your way when they realised that you were there.
Me: After getting in my way. The point is that these people will never let anyone past them. Even at their pathetic rate. Even with their meandering nonsense. That is why this world is like it is. These gatekeepers are everywhere. They won’t let you do anything.
A: You have achieved plenty despite them. They couldn’t keep you out of letters.
Me: I did it by myself. By enduring poverty. By having nothing. With no connections. By being a dependent. Despite their racism and prejudice, their hostility. Because of my genius.
A: I am not disagreeing. I know that they are full of hate. But don’t import their gatekeeping into everything.
Me: Why not? It is everywhere.
A: Let us change the topic. What did you do outside of work today?
Me: An acting workshop. Reading a book about reading. Reading The New Scientist. Shopping. Eating sushi for dinner. Contacting friends. Watching videos. Reading the news. I met a new person somewhere outside of work.
A: You meet new people every single day and nothing ever comes of it.
Me: That is London and its racism. That is this country.
A: Once again, we come onto the topic of other people.
Me: All there are are other people to make life sour.
A: What is your concept of other people?
Me: Despite hearing racism all around me, I have always believed we are all one. When you are all one, you are us. However, it has become apparent that they are not us. I live with the they. None of them are us. None of them are me. They are other people. They want to reject us. And because they reject us, they are them and I am me. They are other people.
A: Do you not believe that we are all one?
Me: It is them that have made the division between us. Not me. That is all that they can do. Divide and fragment. They do not know the meaning of harmony and unity. Their unity is to pit themselves against someone like me.
A: The whole world is not against you.
Me: Yes it is. I am what they want to vanquish and to rule. The ungovernable wild beast. The Tiger. But they cannot rule me. Because no one has ever ruled me. I do what I want. I have the resources of a millionaire. I have the brain of a genius. I have the body of a god. I have the energy of the sun. There is one that is born that cannot be caged. There is the bird that flies high in the blue. Freud said that the paranoic is not entirely without suspicion. They would kill freedom. They would kill anarchy. They would kill real independence and freedom and honour. They would kill me. They would kill my mother. They are murderers of thought and difference, of equality and diversity. But you cannot kill Oedipus. However much you try to protect yourself from Oedipus, it is him that will be King and that will have the Queen. You think that you can kill The Tiger. Come at him in a real fight, see what happens to you. You can’t outsmart Tiger. You can’t out talk Tiger. The man with the heart is the one that will always win. Because the man with the heart is the only real man on this earth. Not these little cowards with their lies and the shrivelled things inside their heads that pump their bastard blood through their bodies.
A: You take the idea that you are a god and a hero far too seriously.
Me: If you model yourself on a god you are a god. You have been called a god after the prayer of the people, after the prayer of your mother. They have asked god to come down upon earth to protect the Mother. There is no other aim in my life. Against the Mother, they are all standing. They want to destroy the Mother. They have seduced all into their evil. But the Mother, she is invincible. That is her name, ‘The Invincible’, Durga. Shakti is what they call her, power itself. And she is triumphant because she sits upon the tiger. I am The Tiger. I am her vehicle. She gave birth to me so I would prostrate myself before her and carry her through this world. So I speak the words of The Tiger. I speak the legend of The Tiger. For six thousand years, The Tiger has dwelt in Punjab. Now he is in London. This era will be like every other era. It will be the era of The Tiger. I am the past. I am the present. I am the future. There is only one way. That is the way of The Tiger. The warrior culture. There is an Indian film. I have changed the last line:
‘Imagine there is a lie,’ I said to Alfonso. ‘A great lie that you are told, that I am told, that we are all told. A lie we have all spent our whole lives trying to obtain.’
‘Is this a riddle?’ asked Alfonso, looking over at me from above the pages of his magazine. Again, it was just us at the end of the day. In the lonely night, he was the only one there for me. The only one to say the things of the heart to. My most intimate friend.
‘It is no riddle. The lie is connection.’
‘Absurd. You have friends. The obvious example is before you. You are connected.’
‘Real connection is romantic love. It is the highest order of connection. Romantic love is the highest form of connection, whatever form it takes.’
‘Some people have romantic love.’
‘Not people like me.’
Alfonso tutted at me. ‘It is the case,’ I continued. ‘They lied to me. They said to become something and you will find real connection. They are all fucking liars.’
In a patronising tone, Alfonso asked me how that made me feel.
‘I have learnt not to trust anyone. So now there is no trust in my life.’ Tut. ‘I have learnt that there is no connection with anyone. So now there is no connection in my life.’ Tut. ‘I have learnt that there is no warmth from anyone. So now there is no warmth in my life.’ Tut tut.
‘You are suggesting,’ Alfonso said, ‘in your wallow of self pity, that you are a meaningless, isolated atom that is removed from the whole of humanity. When all you do is build communities around yourself. You have literally hundreds of people that you know. If it is the case that no man is an island, you in particular are no island.’
‘They are all strangers.’
‘Because you can’t fuck them?’ Alfonso asked incredulously.
‘There is no need to downgrade the sexual act. That is real connection. The chemicals that it creates. Its alteration of the mind.’
‘You only feel lonely in the nights.’
‘We only talk together in the nights.’
‘You are not lonely.’
‘When I lie in my bed alone in the night time, I feel the loneliness of death.’
‘Love is heartbreak. Love is sorrow. Be thankful you don’t have to have your heart broken every minute.’
‘What do you think this world has done to me? Why do you think I am like this?’
We sat in silence, ruminating on things. It was past eleven in the night time. Soon would come the witching hour.
Absolutely superb. That’s what the weather was like for the long walk. I met up with my friend at Newbury station and we bundled ourselves onto the Tube at nine o’clock for an early start on the day.
In the morning, it took about the same time to get into Chigwell as it would take me to get into Central London for work due to a change at Hainault and a long wait for the next service. On arriving at Chigwell, I was struck by the beauty of the place and the grandeur of the big houses out there. Really a dream destination to live in. Chigwell is called Chigwell because the name derives from an Anglo-Saxon personal name, ‘Cicca,’ and the word ‘well,’ meaning “Cicca’s well”.
We came across some beautiful horses but I couldn’t get a good shot or composition. I have a personal ambition to ride a horse but haven’t got round to it yet. It is a very modest and achievable ambition but I am always too busy for it.
Almost at once, we came to a beautiful view and the farmlands. I had already got out my camera and was trying a few shots. As I did so, we came across some fellow walkers and they told me and my friend that they had been doing the walks on the London Loop for about two years. They were finally going to finish off the walk today. It was an old father with two young blonde daughters, one of them wearing a red jacket and looking somewhat like Red Riding Hood.
As we trailed after them when we were ready and they were already in the far distance, we worked out the percentage of weekends they had committed to their mission as we were arguing about how committed they were as walkers. If they had taken two years for about twelve walks on the London Loop, that would work out as them having invested 6% of their weekends on the trips over two years. I maintained that that was quite committed but my contrary friend disagreed with me.
My friend is a birdwatcher and I was trying to one up him by spotting more birds than him. I got a robin that he hadn’t noticed and felt quite chuffed but then he showed his experience and expertise in this subject. He spotted a woodpecker, a brilliantly yellow coloured creature that I had never seen before. It was winging its way through the air. He also spotted some buzzards and regaled me about the story of the corpse of one he had encountered recently as roadkill. On the trip, we saw about nine different species of bird, so it wasn’t a bad day: peacocks, hens, Egyptian geese, robins, a white egret, the woodpecker, crows, some little ones I forget the names of and seagulls and magpies. So for birds, it was certainly a great day.
It was a delight to stop for elevenses at precisely eleven on a little bench in the woods as I had a Dairy Milk with me. I shared the chocolate with my friend. I was watching the birds fly into the trees. A Dairy Milk always reminds me of the war. Probably it is because Roald Dahl, my favourite author as a boy, mentions being a taster for Cadbury’s chocolates in his biography and he fought in the war.
Around Chigwell and its forest, we came across an Islamic chapel with Christian gravestones in the garden which was quite an example of religious amalgamation. We didn’t go inside but looked at it with intrigue from the outside wondering what it was.
The next phase of our walk was Hainault Forest Country Park which is not too far from our local area. Hainault Forest was an old royal hunting forest. I had gone there many a time with the family. We saw the two daughters with their father there and I shouted out to them that ‘it wasn’t a contest, but…’ and they all laughed which was pleasing. They were sitting on a bench looking out at the lake. We kept on walking and didn’t see them again and probably won’t in this lifetime.
Hainault gets its name because its original Old English name, recorded as “Henehout” in 1221, meant “wood belonging to a monastic community”. The Abbey of Barking owned Hainault Forest. The name’s spelling later changed because it was incorrectly associated with Philippa of Hainault, the queen of Edward III.
We stopped for a hot drink in the cafe and it was absolutely chock-a-block with young families. So we sat outside. Lazily, I watched two brightly coloured aeroplanes flying about in the sky and the families with their dogs all making their usual Sunday walk around the park. I was telling my friend that I should buy a dog so that I could also talk to the dog people.
After that I persuaded my friend to go to the farm and look at the animals. The goats were all butting heads with each other and the peacocks were sunning themselves. I got a few okayish shots on my camera as the light was quite good but missed a dramatic fight that the goats with brown hides were having as people had stopped to watch them and I didn’t want any people in the shot.
We walked through the golf course next and then we were back in the forest and in the farmland and then the forest again. There was a rough swing rope that someone had put up in the trees. The only way to get to it was up some precariously placed logs, so it was a challenge of balance. I climbed up it childishly and recklessly. It was only a few feet off the ground but felt like I was walking in the atmosphere and slipping about. I managed to get to the swing rope with my hands but then there was no way to get any momentum to swing about! I had almost fallen off once, but only once. And I hadn’t. So man nature was appeased. My friend shot a video of me doing it.
When we had walked through an enchanted pine soaked place with a delicious scent, I decided that we should stop for lunch. I had brought chicken satays from the reduced aisle with me and the scent was too much. Because we were accosted by two dogs that wanted to partake of the feast. The first one was a giant and was very forward and slightly menacing. Two young boys had to run up and grab him by the leash to get him away. The other dog was a black miniature hound and his owner, an elderly lady, said that he was ‘incorrigible’ as she rushed off with him.
After the forest, with its beautiful light and soothing smells and ambience, and after watching the little trickle that was the river Rom, the next thing, we were sitting in a pub called The Deer’s Rest which was in Romford itself. The whole pub was tricked out in Halloween decor. I got us some drinks and downed an ice cold Pepsi. It was absolutely delicious in a way that Cola is not always. My friend told me that I had worked enough so my body was rewarding me for the work with that delicious sensation. He said that he was having it with his drink as well. The pub had this wallpaper of framed butterfly specimens and it was something that I quite wanted for myself as I thought it looked very sophisticated and cool. And much nicer than real specimens of butterflies which I have always found slightly creepy. Because they are dead beauty.
We walked on through the beauties of nature talking about life, the universe and everything. At some point, we found ourselves in a park. I was keen to watch the young people at the skate park but it was disappointing. They were not doing any tricks! The kids were quite young, but then that Olympics gold medallist had been about thirteen. As we progressed through the park, we came across a father at the top of the slope throwing around a brightly yellow coloured glider aeroplane towards his son. The son was babbling away at us as I remarked that the dad had made a good throw. It was a really touching scene of family and its happiness, the joy of children.
The last stretch of the walk took us to Harold Wood. The name Harold Wood refers to an area of land associated with King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. It was about four o’clock. We had initially decided to do a bit more but decided to pack it up before the light started going and we’d done about thirty thousand steps. It was about eleven miles well spent.
diary of a lone man 