TO A FRIEND WHO WOULDN'T LET ME DISMOUNT THE PEDESTAL

"I have never quite allowed the adolecent in me to stop launching paper boats. I have never exchanged these boats with luxury ships of the rich. Only the rich grow old. They will always wait their youth out to be able to amass enough to enjoy it later. A bit like the Brahmin who wastes this life preparing for the next. Youth is never 'later'. It is always 'now'. The next moment, you are a moment less young. The trouble with most of the young I know these days is that they do not seem to deserve their youth; they cast it away counting their coins in the bank -- what a waste of youth!"



"Love is neither for the timid nor for the wise; they can have their cars and houses and power and fame in stead of love, and they are most welcome to it. Love does not mind it one bit if you want to leave it for those petty toys of clever boys. And love is most certainly not for the selfish. "

PAY LOVE'S TAXES IF YOU WANT TO ENTER HIS KINGDOM


Thanks for the high praise but may I please remind you about what I said about the challenge of being asked to mount a pedestal one doesn't think one deserves! But, my dear one, about what you say about the virtues of age, I hope you won't get me wrong, but I have never quite allowed the adolecent in me to stop launching paper boats. I do not sing with Jagjit Singh " Woh kaagaz ki kashti, woh baarish ka paani" becasue I never lost them -- which is becasue I never exchanged my youth with worldy wisdom or material success. I have never exchanged these boats with luxury ships of the rich. Only the rich grow old. They will always wait their youth out to be able to amass enough to enjoy it later. A bit like the Brahmin who wastes this life preparing for the next. Youth is never 'later'. It is always 'now'. The next moment, you are a moment less young. The trouble with most of the young I know these days is that they do not seem to deserve their youth; they throw it away counting their coins in the bank -- what a waste of youth!"

I valued life and I valued youth in it, and so I never let it slip. And I have always mocked the years that have failed to transfix me -- unlike Yeats who chose to spit in the face of time which he said had transfixed him. I hope I don't sound arrogant, but well, I have invented a new birth for myself each fresh dawn and have stayed ahead of the sun only to wait for it at the horizon and see it off, wish it bon voyage down the seas and so it can emerge awash with freshness the next morn. That alone has kept me alive, that alone has kept me singing and celebrating -- even amidst the desnsest zones of dark despair and pain born out of betrayal and love. I have often said that no one should enter the Kingdom of Love if one is not prepared to pay its (love's) taxes. And I have always joyfully paid those with the blood of my heart, and sought more and more time in his Kingdom by rendering more and more of these taxes. What am going to do with this blood if it can not even buy me the pain of loving with all the teacherous joys it promsises. But persist with it, and love will reward you if love finds you worthy. And the more I have bled, the more has blood quickened in my sinews. Love is neither for the timid nor for the wise; they can have their cars and houses and power and fame in stead of love, and they are most welcome to it. Love does not mind it one bit if you want to leave it for those petty toys of clever boys. And love is most certainly not for the selfish.

Have i deviated? Well, har su dikhayee deta hai woh jalwa gar mujhe ..!