Thursday, October 06, 2005

I am dumb.Real dumb.

The distance between the moon and earth is pretty long.And the distance I have to go , before I can be called a "responsible member of the society" , is longer than that. But still ,one thing which is pumping in some kind of meaning in my life these days , is some work I am doing for the Indian Institute Of Cerebral Palsy (IICP) , an NGO here. It's noticeably better than downloading data about the textile market of Indonesia from the internet , and putting it together to make some report and submit many such reports and getting an MBA degree at the end.
Yesterday , while returning to the campus from IICP , I stopped by at Cafe Coffee Day.And sitting there and chomping on a vegetable sandwich , I looked around at all the "couples" who sat around me.Holding hands.Shy smiles.Loud giggles.People in "love" maybe.

Love. As in , the "boy-girl" love.Ok.ladies first.As in the "girl-boy" love .

If you shifted to earth very recently , its another matter.But if you have been around on this planet for anything more than 15 minutes , you would have heard this word.
Love.It is as overused a word as a public toilet in a dysenteric locality.For a bollywood director , "love" must be the greatest invention ever , right next to fire and wheel.To spot a UFO while on your way to office tomorrow is easier than spotting a movie which does not involve the deadly trio - boy , girl , love.A typical bollywood director can do without his underwear under his pants , but not without "love" in his movie.And if you missed the love component in movies , its usage is quite abundant in real life ,as is the usage of guns in Iraq.
My friend says he is in "love" with the girl who works at the second floor of his office.I am told the punjabi girl in my class is in "love" with the hairy south indian guy in the next class.The other day , I saw the boy who hands out the food in our hostel mess , with the girl who does the dishes.Maybe , they are in "love" too.Even the cyber world is bustling with desperate flirts who hope to find "love".
And then this boyfriend-girlfriend thing.Its like a toothbrush.You got to have one.
" Hi , I have brain cancer."
Thats ok , we all gotta die anyways.
"Hello , I got limphoosirkoma of the intestine."
Chill , Rajesh Khanna in "anand" had it too.
"Namaste , my house burned down last night."
Arre tension nahi yaar , these things happen.
"Hey , I dont have a girlfriend."
What ! Why did not you tell me about this ? Oh poor boy , everything will be fine.God can be real cruel sometimes...
So love is like the neighbourhood gossip .Everybody knows about love.Talks about love.
And the way this "love" word is used with the abandon of a drunk monkey , leaves me feeling strange.
I feel there are two different aspects.To love someone.And to be loved.It is said "to be loved" is a natural need.And for me , its a need and not love.As long as you want this person or need this person , you dont love her , you love yourself and want "to be loved".Love is not meant to be a selfish thing.Love is much harder and selfless than that.To love is not to wish for someone to be with oneself , but to give up oneself for that someone.Love is not in sharing coconut water on some beach, but in staying thirsty if it helps her.Love is not in her coming to you , but to care for her when you know she would not come to you.
For me , true love is not about the scene with your lady , where white clouds float around your ankles , and a cool breeze flows across the screen , well fed european guys play violins in the background , and you do a salsa with her and kiss her.For me , love's beauty is in being so consumed with it , that you forget your pains and smile , just because she smiled somewhere , aware of your existence no longer.

Love is not about wanting her , but wanting her happiness , with you or without you.

I wonder if the word "love" is used as a sweet cover for selfish desires , needs and wants.Its like dressing up osama in a monk's robe.Its like putting up a "St.Mary's charitable clinic" board outside a tantrik's camp.

I am no authority.I am no love guru with the sagacious face and the halo around my head.I am no headmaster of the "Institute of Love Matters" ( ILM.doesnt sound bad ).Infact I am more like someone who flunked thrice , was demoted for two years and then thrown out of ILM.But the way love is seen as some "coochie-coochie-valentines-gift-holding hands" concept leaves me feeling funny.Love is hard.Love is not a punishment which leaves you restless.But it is something which makes you feel a bliss in a punishment , just because she is happy.

I am not looking at any roses placed between yellowed pages.And I do not wish to insult anyone's feelings.Just that I feel, that to love someone is supposed to be something very deep and heartfelt, that when you say "I love you" to a girl , realise the responsibility and commitment it stands for. Its not about you anymore.Its about her.And I am not trying to preach anything here , please.Just that I felt something ,and wrote it.And if I dont make sense , and you wonder what's the problem with me - see the title to the post.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

I sincerely hope my comments aren't removed by the blog administrator. I am even ready to accept that you are dumb (real dumb) for that. But I think I am in love (sorry for using the word so lightly) with this blog. Hadn't been visiting it for some time and I was aghast at the stuff I had missed in the interim.
Nice post, and even though almost everything you wrote was a cliche, it sounded fresh and genuine.

I hope the work for IICP is not for some credits as work for NSS is in my college. (I am joking!)

Sayesha said...

Dear dear Abhi,

Admire you for exploring a topic I wouldn't touch with a barge pole myself. At least not until I am clear about it in my own head.

You know, I am more comfortable talking about love in the general sense than the guy-girl (ok fine baba, girl-guy!) sense... the way I love my friends, the way I love some of the people on my blog... I don't know why... that love just seems more selfless to me... comes easily to me... cos I love them for what they are... and most of the time, not expecting anything in return... but this whole guy-girl love is so complex... soch kar dimaag kharaab ho jata hai... wish it could all be simple, where everyone loves everyone else, and there's no one-to-one mapping... but then maybe, we do need the one-to-one mapping... sigh... too complex... now you see why I wouldn't touch this topic with a barge pole :)

Cheers buddy! Keep writing, you have no idea how many persons' day you make with your blog! :)

ps: Here's a tip, Abhi. Do a 'remove forever' when you delete spam comments. That way you don't have these ugly remnants.

Tipsy Topsy said...

Agree with you here. However, there is this whole crazy fact that u cannot love only one person unselfishly..so ur love for that she or he alone cannot reach that height of unselfishness till u become unselfish in all ur relations and interactions with the world. Otherwise, u r still exercising favoritism and that happens only due to selfish reasons.

Since i dont think any of us are anywhere near reaching that high a state of existence, we can keep reminding ourselves what u have so sweetly put here and try express our selfish love unselfishly :)

Kaala Kavva said...

i couldn't agree more dude...
you seem to have written this post, right out of my head.

Anonymous said...

Reading you was so inspiring, had been wondering myself since quite long too- wasn't so organised with my thoughts -- no I am not unclear about her, I just couldn't have put it so forcefully! Oh and I am in love ;;)

not to mention that I agree 101% with the title =))

Phoenix said...

I can't agree with you any more. I hate the way everyone(unfortunately me included) ABUSES the word love all the time by taking it sooo lightly.

I ahte the cliches of boyfriend girlfriend love sooo much, that I have almost DECIDED I'll never fall in love!
Just that I'm slightly less naive than not to know that love is somethign u don't and cannot decide about.
The point u amke is true, there is an overwhelming degree of depiction of love everywhere around us, perhaps created by us as a shallow attempt at making up for the real lack of "love"" as we feel it and want it, but can't express it, in our own lives. It's something that works at the psychological/sub consciou level.Wierd perhaps, but that's just my feeling.

I dont think it's necessary to have a bf/gf. Life's ok without one, perhaps less complicated.The part I hate most abt a relationship like this is that very soon ur boyfriend or girlfriend, as the case may be, reduces to your boy or your girl and the friend part, sadly, dies out.
Inevitably then, so does the relationship, sooner or later.

wish this world had more sensible ppl like u! or else, lets all shift to another planet and make a better world there[:P]
watsay?

P.S. sorry for the loooooooooooong comment!:P

Anonymous said...

love is a misused word. nice post abhinav.
I loved the title too!

Darth Midnightmare said...

Hmmm......this is something that I too had posted on and if I remember correctly, you had mentioned something similar.....whether on the comments there or in a post here, I can't quite recollect.....

I totally agree with you about the stupidity of the "love" that we see around us....but more than that, I pity those who get taken in by the "I need to have a girl/boy friend to be alive...". The poor souls actually think of themselves as "missing out" on something "essential".........sad......but funny....

Anonymous said...

i tried ur philosophy but y am i sooo unhappy abhi..bcoz deep inside i know i yearn for her..i wud giv anythin 4 dat one moment she luks luvingly bak at me..if my so called selfish desire had been "the need to be loved" then any gal should hav been fine..i wanna smile wen she smiles..wanna hold her wen she cries..wanna mak her laf with all my silly jokes..wanna b right there wen she needs me..wanna make her happy..and abhi da world wud hav been all sad n morose if every1 went on luving without being luvd back in return..imagine u loving this gal..she luving someone else n he luving another some1..;-)..act abhi u cant be logical and rational and practical with love..there are no dos n donts n algorithms..as dey say heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing..

dots said...

would you believ it? i ws just thinkin of composing a post on the exact same matr myself!!
about the same fact that love is the most overused and exploitd emotion ever..so much so that it has become a commercial commodity.

and yet..judgin by the response on this post..it is an emotion which wil always remain eternal.

i appreciate ur views coz they are true and straight from ur heart..

Anonymous said...

Easy is to get a place in someone's address book.
Difficult is to get a place in someone's heartEasy is to hurt someone who loves us.
Difficult is to heal the wound...
Easy is to enjoy life every day.
Difficult is to give it real value... Easy is to promise something to someone.
Difficult is to fulfill that promise...
Easy is to say we love.
Difficult is to show it every day...
Easy is to weep for a lost love.
Difficult is to take care of it so as not to lose it.
Easy is to receive
Difficult is to give
Easy is to keep a friendship with words
Difficult is to keep it with meanings.

Easy is to read this
Difficult is to follow it

R said...

first of all..since i see nivindya's post is goin to just above mine : hiiiiiiii nivindya, i dunno WHEN we'll be online at the same time(sighs)

now coming to the post....your emotions on love seem to be very intense... i , for one ,simply do not believe in the existence of love (like the boy girl love)....(yeah ..yeah...go ahead you can faint!!) see...u love ur parents...u love ur siblings...u love ur friends....but boy girl love...hmmm..i really dnt know if it even exists or if most people confuse it with infatuation/something of that sort ..that intense. Yeah...myb u'll ask me about it when i'm going to jump off a cliff coz my guy has decided to ditch me:)myb i'm right...my i'm rite...but thats how i feel at this point of point...but then to each his own

R said...

*myb i'm rite ...myb i'm rong but thats how i feel at this point of time...but then to each his own


dunno wat i had written...so was jus trying to make it clearer.....and i see that nivindya s post is not just abouve mine..:( anu chachi from jhumari taliyya being the reason.

Vidhi said...

bilkul theek abhi...love has to be unconditional...and forever...that's how VISA would sum up love as!

Anonymous said...

Dear Munnu, when I read the title of the post, I screamed aloud, "Wow, there are very few people in this world who know themselves so well". And once again you have put your ideas in a great way. I partly accede to many a things you have claimed. But your post planted the "introspection seeds" into my brain. And now I see so many points on which I would not agree with you. So instead of putting up a heated debate here, I will post something on my blogs about my views on love. Just my views. And I will link your blog for reference. Chalo, ab smile, and gear up for the big day tomorrow. And I promise kal on your birth day, no arguing and heated debates with you, not even your leg pulling. And that would be 24 real difficult hours for me, not even pulling your leg.

A great topic discussed very maturedly.

Anonymous said...

Very well written dear !!!

u hav put wat it shud b ,bt wats difficult to follow bt i thot dat let me b d one to tell u dat u are actually followng it vry bravely .

u r alwaz thre for me whnevr i need u, u make all ur efforts 2 see me smile nd u suceed as well....

i knw how much it hurts u 2 evn imagine me wid sumone else bt u never complain u just wnt me 2 b happy chahe phir my happiness is wid dis othr person......

i thnk i m unlucky 2 hav lost ur luv due to watevr reasons...........

bt aneday is a happy day for me coz i knw u r not far for me just a thot away ......

HAPPY BDAY IN ADVANCE DEAR........

BI

Anonymous said...

insightful!

Anonymous said...

ahan u r a libran..now i undrstand all da confusions..plzz read linda gudmans sunsigns.. :-)(evn if u dont believe in sunsigns plzzzz read da libra part..plzzz)u wud b amazed as 2 how she knew soo much abt u..:-) well HAPPY B'DAY..

Anonymous said...

hi abhinav,
reading ur blog frm quite some time and lemme tell u, u write wat i think...but for this post i have some queries....agreed dat love means taking care of her when u know she wud not come to u...but isn't it better dat if she comes to u...agreed dat it doesn't means sharing coconut water but remaining thirsty for her..but do we really need not share coconut water...so is it really wrong to have those things in love...and the fact is dat if i gonna say a girl dat i love her...albeit love in ur sense..she wud definitely going to take it of other form...so how to change the perspective of whole world..

Anonymous said...

HAPPY BADDAY oops i mean HAPPY BIRTHDAY...but d prior one dosent sound (not look) cute?

Adi Oso-Groot Finch said...

happy b'day dude!

Anonymous said...

@arnav-

"Hadn't been visiting it for some time and I was AGHAST at the stuff I had missed in the interim."

I know I write bad.But do I write so bad ? ;)

@sayesha - we are all muddled up about love maybe.but then , thats love - no logic.and you make the day for about 67% of indians by your simple and clean posts buddy.

@TT -you have amazingly clear and neat concepts about this TT.I really admire the way you look at this in so true a way.you talk sense , much beyond your years.I mean this.:)

@za chapaater - telepathy.maybe we were related in our last births.or for this birth , ever been to the kumbh ? ;)

@ashish - the title is the most true part of this post.you have an eye for the crucial parts.;)

@phoenix - your views are very similar to mine.jupiter ? or pluto maybe.i hear the land prices are low there.and dnt say sorry man.this space comes free.express urself.:)

@anat - everybdy seems to be loving the title.:)

@mike - hey mike.ur blog is like a real eye opener on some issues.the way u think and express is just so insightful.i really admire your thoughts sometimes.

@s - i agree brother.i dint mean to hurt you.all i feel is , that loving someone is not a right to be loved.take care of urself.be at peace.

@nivindya - no , i wont believe it.;)

@anu chachi - wow , this is beautiful.and the thought that you wrote this , is impossible.:)

@ruchita - yeah , we are not here to change each other.u believe wat u believe and thats just so understandable.maybe an experience is the best teacher sometimes.and plz dnt jump.

@vidhi - who better than you to know about love , vidhi.you really love S.:)

@sunshine - i told you buddy.ideas never oppose.they differ.only people oppose.ur views are as important as mine.looking forward to your post.

@anon - hey , just be happy.i have no reason to complain , as long as that happens.plz.

@jun - i hope so , jun.:)

@anon - thanx buddy.:).linda goodman ? and she is a woman ? ;)ill try to read it up.

@kool- i feel wats wrong is not her coming to you , but you claiming your right to be with her.love is letting go.i feel this way.:)

@anu - thanx a lot:).and pehle wala..umm...cute hai !:)

@free-soul : victoria memorial.evening.im going.

@raven - tnx a lott adi bhai.have fun during the hols.:)

Anonymous said...

How can you try and explain the kind of concept you wrote about? , things that are so inherently obvious in themselves.Is it possible for anybody to be able to understand such things just by reading them? the one-'selfless love' .Somehow I think for most people there is a difference between how things possibly could be and how they are.Maybe it is because they compromise on their standards, or they just dont have any.So the settling around with the 'in n available'. Forget love every single word is overused.No offence but I agree with the title.Not because you understand but because you try and explain.

Anonymous said...

"Love is not about wanting him , but wanting his happiness , with you or without you."-true...very much...

Anonymous said...

Wish he'd know it is rare to find a person who dreams and believes in them.....maybe he would be happier then

Anonymous said...

I hope somebody realizes its unusual to dream and believe in them,maybe he would be happier thenn that he gets there violins or not..;)

Anonymous said...

and also that the original one was posted....silly me!

Anonymous said...

Can i have your number? Hehe just kidding...

Very insightful post. I like they way you perceive the so-called love in society today.

Anonymous said...

late comment.. i know. but came across ur blog just recently, and now am sitting and readin the whole of it. it's a damn good one man, i swear.

about love..well,i was always a confused character when it comes to that.in school, i used to be the "messenger" for the "love-birds"..but always wondered if i could handle it myself. i couldn't picture myself being a romantic, singing and dancing guy, who expresses his love by doing those (according to me) filmy stuff. i knew girls preferred that. so, i kept away from love..and told myself that i hate girls who are too girly! well, that was till i was 25years old. and then, my world went ulta-pulta. ;) oh, that's for a post on my own blog, sometime.. heehee

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Anonymous said...

well this is the 1st time ive read your blog..i must say,u hv a gift!!...it really is a wonderful ability to say something so profound with such simplicity and humour!!
dont ever lose that ability to strip something to its bare basics and tlk bout it there on...it indeed is a very rare ability!!
will look forward to reading more stuff here.. :)

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

For the past few days I have been reading your blog day in and day out (with whatever little time I can take out). Your sensibility, your attitude towards love, life, your senti discussions, your humour is touching... I have started reading it from last.. Right from 2004 and I have reached till this much.. I have to finish fast, fast... It's like new episodes unfolding and I am reading an interesting novel and want to know what next.. Want to contact you, share some of my experiences with you, tell u many things... But before that lemme reach till 2013.. Long way to go
:-)

Anonymous said...

Though I don't know whether you will like to listen to me or i will be able to contact you or not... It's just that I felt you are a good human being and want to contact you :-)