So JP's coming tomorrow evening, we're not going to Kanyakumari and didn't go to the beach yesterday (it was National Holiday). Funny how things change. We're going to try and go to Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari) with Juliet and the SM HM near the end of our stay, when we can go for a few days and we'd see more of the area. With Yesu, Jerry and Kumar we'd be at the beach all day, not really worth sixteen hours travelling for - we can do that here. On Sunday we've been invited to: a 'Discipleship Weekend' at St. Andrews, the Ramnad schools' Republic Day cultural event (dancing and such) and the CSI Harvest Festival. Which to go to? I think we'll probably end up at the school event with Juliet.
Muthu has been quite annoying lately, C.'s given him camera films, lent him his walkman and camera, and we bought him a nice watch for his birthday. Last night he wanted to borrow C.'s camera and C. said he couldn't because he was halfway through a film and he wanted to use it this weekend. So Muthu stood there looking really hurt and saying please in a really small voice for half an hour, laying it on really thick. He reckons he can get anything out of C. and he was being really unfair.
There's no way he'd ask me for anything because I'm a bit of a git about things like that and he knows it'd be No Dice. C. said that if I hadn't been there he would have given in and Muthu knows that. I don't want C. to be a pushover for them, so in the end we sent him away because it was eleven o'clock and we were dead tired. He had this, why aren't you my friend any more, look on his face and I'm not sure we really need a friendship that's based on us being Rich White People. Yesu and Kumar never ask for anything. It's like this bloke who asked me if I was taking my guitar back to England with me, and Rajesh asking C. for his camera.
...
On Wednesday (22nd) C. and I had a really long talk about us and our relationship to each other.1 Most of it all came out, about C. taking so long to do everything and being late for things and how it annoys me so much.
...And how I was really nasty to him when we were in Madurai (I was) because I wanted to go through Culture Shock by myself and he wanted to 'share' the experience. I know, I kept thinking, just shut up. Like when I was crying on the train, C. wanted me to share it, to talk and I didn't.
He told me what an arrogant person I am, how I treat people like lesser mortals. It's true that I get frustrated when people don't GET things as quickly as I wish they would, but so often I end up being nasty or critical instead of helping. I've also picked up the You Fool! that Yesu says all the time. It's supposed to be funny. It's been pretty bad recently and I listened to myself the other day and cringed. It's culture shock all over again and I've been reacting in a very anti-social way. They've started wondering why C. is always happy and I'm always angry, which is weird because C. is the one who's stressed out and miserable most of the time.
C. is a much more 'feminine' person that me (his words, not mine - 'feminine', not 'effeminate'!), a sharing kind of person. I'm not, any more - I used to be but I had to change because of the environment I was in.2 C. spends most of his time (outside India) with girls, so he is kept away from male friendships. I've also conditioned myself to cope with crises by just telling myself that everything's okay. Is that so bad? Where C. will talk about it and let other people tell him it's okay, he NEEDS them to, I do it myself. It comes from the school community where no-one likes someone who constantly needs needs consoling and no-one will support you. So I have become like those people and it must be very hard for C. with the confidence boosters he craves.
I know I must appear so unfeeling to him - well I know I do, he said so - but I'm not. It's just that I seem to have developed a male 'totally unaware of other people's feelings' attitude. It still really irritated me when C. said he was 'very sensitive to other people and how they feel'. I really don't like him saying all the things women say about men about me, I might as well start being misogynistic and macho (I won't, don't worry!). I do feel things, I can tell when C.'s in a funny, it's just in a different way that's all.
But when I think things inside, they don't show outside and people think I'm insensitive. Alright, alright I've been an arsehole and it's going to stop. Now.