The Prophet: Bootleg Version (Challenging Gibran)

Yes, I would challenege Gibran! (Note added in proof: And pigs will fly!). Jokes apart, no!, not that! But here I will jot down my opinions/obsevations on issues such as friendship, teacher and love etc., things I do not usually like to discuss.

What is friendship? Sankrit literature has a very beautiful verse on the definition of friendship; hpwever, what it mentions is the purest form of genuine friendship, a friend who would accompany you irrespective of whether it is for a celebration or to the execution ground! such friendships are, if not non-existent, extremely rare!

But what could be a working definition of friendship? I don't know. But what I know is that friends do not come in dozens. A person may (if he is lucky) perhaps come across at the most half a dozen friends in his entite lifetime. I'm aware of the fact that my yard-stick is set at very high standard, and my analysis is very harsh; but I genuinley feel that one can not have a lot of friends in life. I also feel that many of our miseries stem from the fact that we sometimes consider very unworhty people to be our friends and bestow friendship on them.

What is a teacher? I use the term, teacher, here in the Indian sense of Guru! Could any person, who taught me in the school of college be called a Guru? I disagree! To me, Guru is something much more sacred, much deeper, much more respectful; Guru is someone with whom I share a much deeper connection. As the Sanskrit scripture says, "Guru is the god of creation, the god of sustenance and the god of destruction; Guru is the ultimate truth."

Given the option, I would like to envision Chanakya as the ultimate Guru, someone who would hand over his years (possibly decades) of work to a 10-year old kid and ask him to go to the town and sell it (so that the money could be paid back to the kid's uncle to free him from the slavery), because Chanakya has seen in the kid the only chance for the revival of India. Thr kid will be Chandragupta Maurya (son of Mura), who would push the Greeks out of India and whom Chanakya would guard day and night, thus foiling the plans of someone as innovative and diligent as Rakshasa. I call him Guru, because he does not bullshit, he does not try to feed Chandragupta with the idea that the World is a bed of roses, but rather exposes him to various aspects of life and train him to handle and defeat all odds!

One does not need to teach soneone to be one's teacher. Every person learns from many different people in his life, and each of them could be a teacher to him. A person's social status, academic qualifications, age amd other criterions do not matter; one can learn from almost anyone and thus, can find a teacher in anyone. The only criterion is: from whom one learns!

Love: What is love? Can a platonic relationship be love? Or does it have to be all-consuming to be called love? I cannot decide. But I know that Bertrand Russell used to travel for hours by train each weekend to meet a woman 6 years his senior to have a cup of tea with her. Russell was in love! But then he was only 21 years old and the year was probably 1893! Could such love be possible in 2006? Who can tell?

How does one know that there is love? Does "love come to town"? How does one pursue love? Could one possibly even pursue love? Could one generate love? I am not sure. But I know that most of the so-called love is usually plain infatualtion; it dies the moment the two people go out of each other's sight. That is perhaps the reason that we often say: Out of sight, out of mind.

I also know trhat proximity and familiarity make love happen or blossom. One slowly gets used to a person one often meets, talks, works together and then one starts sharing thoughts, feelings and liking grows. Once liking develops, it's just a matter of time (provided conducive conditions pevail) for it to metamorphize into love.

Can one pursue love? Perhaps not. I personally do not believe that one can develop likings; it's a mutual thing. One may go out on date, drink, eat, even seep togehter; but one cannot create love. The magic, if there is such a thing, has to develop on its own. Surely, various factors help; but there has to be some inherent flame for love to be born. But I am also aware of the fact that white there could be the instant chemistry -- the so-called love at first sight -- in rare cases, but often, love is a by-product of familiarity and friendship.

How does one recognize love? In my opinion, when two people are in love (or at least mutually attracted to each other), it shows. It may not show to the world, but it shows to themselves, and each of them knows it at their heart! The few fleeting moments they spend together, the insignificant things they do or say make their heart filled swith a joy or some kind of unknown contentment. Love in, in essense, the feeling of well-being of a person that is augumented by the presence of the other person.

As my American colleague says, the best period in a courtship is when one is not sure if it's really love that is there or, is one just imagining! According to him, once one confesses one's love to the partner, the fun is over, even if the partner accepts and reciprocates it. It's actually very true! Long ago, a friend of mine told me that if one is really in love, one does not proclaim big things, onew does not continue to reassure one's partner oroneself about it; one just continue to be in it. What he said was diametrically opposite to what we read in books etc., but 15 years later when I look back at my life, I can see that he was correct!

Is love divine and blind? Perhaps not! Like all other human relationships, love is also need based. But more than other relationships, love also involves a business angle because unlike other realtionships, which do not involve pre-conditions, love hints at the chance to its leading to something long-term or permenent, and so, risk analysis and other such things happen; thus, love becomes a business venture. That is, people usually have the buyer's mentality when they have more than one options for love, and try to buy the best with the resources at hand. Perhaps that is the reason that throughtout the ages, Princes have been more successful in love than poor Poets and Philosophers.

Personally I don't even think that proclaiming one's love is necessary. I can love a woman and yet never feel the necessity to proclaim or confess it. To me, what matters more is the well-being or contendedness thatI feel, rather than telling the other person how I feel about her. Who knows, she may never feel about me the way I feel for her! Who knows, she may even take offense for it! (The fact also remains that I have always been a cynical and an escapist, and so, I would never risk a known friendship in the quest of an unknown love! Not after knowing what Gil Vicente said about it.). I'm not one of the bravehearts, who are willing to sacrifice friendship at the altar of love. For me: I will embrace love if it comes to me, but I won't go in search of it.

What then is the difference between love and friendship? Love invariably gives rise to possessiveness (it's like what some cynics say, "Everything is fear in love and war"); friendship is not. People in love try to change the other person; in friendship, one simply accepts the other! A person in love would like to see one's partner in the best of health, spirit and looks etc., and many a time, demands made by a partner regarding such issues to the other (to be the best!) ends up being considered nagging. Love , as they say, does not consist of looking at each other, but rather gazing outward towards the same direction together.

(Long ago, I had a friend who never drank a drop. I drank, but I hid it from him, for fear for being disgraced in his eyes. But finally, after two years or so, he came to know about it (or he had known it all along; it's just that he told me then that he knew!). I felt bad and asked him if his view regarding me changed foever, of if he would stop considering me his friend. He told me: You're my friend. Do what you want, and you will still br a friend. Even if you kill a man tomorrow, you will still be my friend.

Quite mature thought, coming from an 18 year old! After so many years, I still consider him a friend, and as luck would have it, almost every time I visit home, I meet him quite by chance!)

Since I talk pretty harshly about love and other such issues, am I a total pessimist? Or am I just a hypocrite, because as someone puts in, the songs I listen are "very romantic, and even a little cheesy"? I think, at the heart of our heart, none of us is a total pessimist. If it were the case, we would have hanged ourselves long ago. But since we do not do that, that means that we've not yet lost our hopes (in life, on love and other demons) and that's why we keep going.

Since I refered to Bertrand Russell, I end this with a quote, from my memory, by Russell that I read sometime in 1989-90, and thus could be not toally accurate. I remember the cover of the book where I read it, but fail to recollect the title. Perhaps it was Marriage and Morals! I'm not sure though! (I have two names coming to my mind right now: Marriage and Morals, and, In Praise of Idleness.)

"Those who have never known the intimacy and companionship of happy mutual love have lost the best thing that life has to offer; surely, if slowly, they realize this, and the resulting disappointment leads them towards envy, oppression and cruelty."
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Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalil_Gibran
http://leb.net/gibran/works/prophet/prophet.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophet_(book)