Sunday, December 30, 2007

I

A few good friends of mine recently had a discussion over dinner about what opinions we had formed about each other when we met for the first time, and whether that opinion had actually changed over time as we got to know each other better. Right from being thought of as a "dude", to being in DS, everything came into the picture. But after our dinner, what really stuck to my memory was that we all had thought of one of us as being self centred and vain.
It got me thinking whether it's really wrong to think about oneself all the time. I mean, living the nuclear lives that we do these days, we should put ourselves first, at all cost. But isn't there a limit to do that? Don't we all think of something apart from ourselves sometimes at least? Is being self centred all that good for us? Is the "me" in all of us bigger than everything else in the world? Come to think of it, we're really inconsequential in the Scheme of Things. And yet we lead this life of ours thinking of ourselves as the center of the Universe. True, that's a perspective that we must all have, as only our direct actions affect us most of the time. But what about the rest of the times? The times that things affect us adversely for no fault of ours? Where's the "I" in that? Haven't a clue.
I have a friend who constantly ridicules everything about me. Right from my sense of humor to every opinion I hold, that person has poked holes into EVERYTHING I've said in an attempt to be funny or anything but mediocre. And that person has called me that word, MEDIOCRE. And boy did I hate it! But I didn't let it show. Instead I decided that the person who could ridicule me so much probably could teach me a lot. And in the short while that I have known that person, I've learnt to be more careful in what I speak. Not careful enough I guess 'cos I still get myself into sticky situations, but I'm at least on my way there. Not to deviate much, I was asked a question by that person about why I still talk to them inspite of the way they literally denigrate and berate me to such great extents. Had I had even a bit of self respect, I'd probably have not taken that shit from anyone. Now does that mean that I have no self respect? That I do not hold myself at high esteem? Or does it mean that anyone can walk over me and I'm going to take that lying down? I think not.
What I'm really getting at is that to really rise, one must allow oneself to be defeated and berated completely. One must stop thinking of oneself all the time if one really has to rise to the top and to use the word "I" liberally and not be thought of as haughty. However, we use the word generously, mostly out of context, being hurtful, interruptive to another's train of thought, and that keeps us from rising out of the banality of life. That keeps us from seeing the beauty in others. The blindness that keeps us from seeing the most beautiful things in our lives eats us up on the inside and we don't even realize that. That blindness will lead us to the death of our souls. I wonder if I want my soul to die. I wonder if anyone wants their soul to die.
Speaking of death, a very close friend of mine said to me one day that the purpose of life is death. That we are born to die. That no matter what we do, we will die one day and we can't stop that. I tried to come up with an answer to that. Thankfully somebody came and joined us at the table, leaving our conversation incomplete. What really hurts me to this very day is that I didn't have an answer to that argument back then. And that I still do not have an answer to it now. But it gladdens me to know that no matter how much I philosophize about life and death, no matter how many books I read on life, no matter how many spiritual lectures I attend, I still am unconvinced about somethings. And I'm not alone in that.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Romeo and Juliet

Disclaimer: This song is an all time favorite. Let nobody read between the lines and try to connect it with the previous blog entry.

Romeo and Juliet
A love struck romeo
Sings the streets a serenade
Now hes laying everybody low
Hes got a love song that he made
He finds a streetlight
And he steps out of the shade
And says something like
You and me, babe, how about it?

Juliet says hey, its romeo!
You nearly give me a heart attack!
Yeah well, hes underneath the window
Now shes singing hey-la, my boyfriends back
You shouldnt come around here
Singing up at people like that
Ah anyway, whatcha gonna do about it?

Juliet
The dice were loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded into my heart
And I forget, I forget the movie song
When you gonna realize
It was just that the time was wrong
Julie

We both come up on different streets
And they both were streets of shame
You know theyre both dirty both mean
Yes and the dreams were the same
And I dreamed your dream for you
And now your dream is real
So tell me honey
Now how can you look at me
As if I was just another one of your deals

Now you can fall for chains of silver
And you can fall for chains of gold
You know you fall for pretty strangers
And the promises they hold
Well you promised me everything
And then you promised me thick and thin
Now you just turn away and say
Romeo, I think I used to have a scene with him.

Ah juliet
When we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above
Gonna love you till I die
Theres a place for us
I you know this song
Now when you gonna realize
It was just that the time was wrong
Julie

But I cant do the talks like they talk on my tv screen
I cant do a love song not the way you song them to me
I cant do everything but I would do anything for you
Oh no I cant do anything except be in love with you

Yeah now and all I do is miss you
And the way it used to be you know
And all I do is keep the beat
I keep bad, bad company
And all I do is kiss you
Through the bars of a rhyme
When julie Id do the stars with you
Anytime

Ah juliet
When we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above
Im gonna love you till I die
Theres a place for us
I know you know the movie song
One day were gonna realize
It was just that the time was wrong
Julie
Julie
Julie

Now this love struck romeo
He sings the streets a serenade
Now hes laying everybody low
Hes got a love song he made
He finds a convenient streetlight
And hell step out of the shade
And hell say something like
You and me, babe, how bout it?

Love etc.

Well, having read Shantaram, there was this one line that really stuck to my memory. "I love you but I'm not in love with you." Profound words, I guess these are. And last night, I met a friend. A very dear friend. We sat by the street and discussed at length what it meant by being in love and what it meant to love. It's really hard for me to understand the difference. And then I said something to her, and that, in its entirety, hit me only this morning. I realized that when you love someone, you're willing to let that person go. To love, one has to learn to let go. But how does one do that?
She sat by me last night out there. I know I love her, and that she loves me. But there's this small difference in our love. I am IN LOVE with her... whereas she's not in love with me, she just loves me. She loves me for the fact that I make her feel special whenever I speak with her,that I bring tears to her eyes when I sing to her, that I make her feel wanted. She's beautiful. She has the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen on anyone in my entire life. Her laughter is like the sound of little bells, it's infectious. You'd hear her giggle, and you'd want to hold her to yourself and never let her go, for letting go would make you sad again, and you'd just want to be happy forever... For that selfish joy, you'd want to hug her forever.
Having said all this, I still did not hold her. I did not hug her. I just sat there in great pain. The pain of knowing that she'll never be mine. The pain of knowing that she'll always love me but never be in love with me. And I smiled at her, if only to see her smile back. To see those beautiful green brown eyes sparkling with joy. And I know that she'll belong to someone else someday. That someday those eyes will sparkle all the more, with ever more of that special glint and she'll be in love with that person. For once, she'll not just love someone, she'll actually be in love with that person. And that feeling of completeness that one gets on knowing that another human being will stand by them no matter what.
And then one returns to innocence when one falls in love. You know, they're right when they say that love brings that shine into one's skin. That one shines all the brighter for themselves, and for the one that one loves. Because once you've surrendered to someone, you're like a child who has absolute and complete faith on the world around him. So sure that nothing can take his perfect little world from him. And that surety, that security, is what makes a child unconditionally happy. So, when someone says that they're in love with someone, and you can see it in their eyes, believe me, it's not an illusion.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Bheemeshwari Trip

The TGN Family(Nicky,Anisha,Joy,Muru,Gyan,Sheik,me) had been out for a day trip to The Cauvery Fishing Camp at Bheemeshwari, about 120 km from Bangalore, after Kanakapura. We started off on four bikes(Unicorn - me, Yamaha - Nicky, Pulsar 200- Joy, CD Dawn - Gyan) at about 7 in the morning and reached the spot by 11:00 am thanks to quite a few breaks and photography sessions along the way. The roads were in fairly good condition, so no complaints about that. Gyan managed to fall off his bike on a pretty sharp Hairpin turn, flying off the vehicle (Superman Style) taking Muru down along with him (Rajni Style). Anyway, we got to Bheemeshwari and set up the barbeque(or should I say, Nicky set up the barbeque and we went shopping for stuff :) ). After a mouth watering barbequed Paneer(for me) and Chicken(intermittently chasing monkeys off our bikes), we decided to go boating. However that didn't turn out as expected because we were told that we'd have to book the entire package to be able to do the boating and fishing etc. To our good fortune though, there was a spot where there were "Tokri" boats at Rs. 25 per head and that was good fun. Got quite a bit of sun there and saw a great deal of beautiful scenery in that short boat ride.
We decided to take another route back to Bangalore. Albeit a bit longer than the way we had come, the route was quite scenic and there wasn't much of a climb so the road was a bit easier on the rides as well as the riders. However, as night descended there was a 5 km stretch of bad road(near Mandya) which kept us all awake! This was my first experience of riding on the highway at night. Quite an experience, I must say! Insects galore at night so helmet visors had to be down most of the time and its real tough riding with the visor down at night,so progress was a bit slow for the insect infested stretch. Anyway, we met at Punjabi Rasoi at about 10:20 pm, had a hearty dinner and then bid adieu to the Roadies!
Looking forward to the next road trip! Thanks to the Aditi Roadies for doing the trip. Was great fun.

The link to the pics is as follows:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10221671@N05/sets/72157603359640146/

My first text blog.

Having just cleaned out my room, I realized it's about time I started to prepare some material for my blog. First, I'll begin with a brief introduction about myself. My name is Abhishek Joshi. I was born in Gwalior on the 1st of November, 1984. I've been educated at Loyola School, Jamshedpur which I consider to be the best school anyone could have studied at. Proud of it, Jai Loyola! Moving on, I did my engineering in Information Science from Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, Vidyanagar, Bangalore. That's about as much a random reader needs to know about me. :)
As for why I've named the blog Assume Anything, I do not have much of an explanation except for the fact that it asks the reader to assume anything before reading an entry in this blog, and if he/she changes his/her views about that specific idea, then I consider it my privilege that I'd have shown the reader the true path. For it is only the seeker that finds the path. The rest wander in the Forest of Misery cursing God, their luck, others, and basically everyone apart from themselves instead of Surrendering and thus falling in love with life. Oh boy, there I go again! Well, no point in starting off already, I'll be writing a lot about these things later on. Reading it, you could probably just discard it all as nonsense, or read it and let your life be changed by it. The choice eventually would lie with you.
Enough for today! See ya around sometime.

p.s. Somebody once tried explaining Commitment to me as Integrity. I wonder if that person has come up with a better answer than that. :)