Collaejoo Collaejoo!!

This morning I went back to college, after an over-indulgent holiday, ready to embrace my alma mater, arms widespread…
I walked into that campus, feeling all proud. Sniffing that green air, and greedily swallowing every bit of beauty that came my way…

And the first thing to catch-my-eye was the college central pathway being marked off on its edges with a ‘horrendous elevation’, painted in stripes, in colours so mismatched, they reminded me of a zebra climbing a tree!

(No… o… o…o…o…o!)…

I stood back aghast, and wanted to scream out at the top of my voice “Like what...ev...er” (in typical college style), for that’s all I could possibly do…

I walked around college for the next ten minutes scowling at everyone I knew, had something to do with the administration, and (hence) was partially responsible for this heinous crime…

I mean, they couldn’t do that, it was my college, it stood for me, it stood for what I was, and what I aimed to be… they couldn’t be so irresponsible… God!

I gave up in a while, knowing my scowls were only attracting unwanted attention, and went to the kiosk, to calm my nerves over a hot cup of coffee…

Coffee, couldn’t taste better than when it’s served in paper cups, and drunk, with friends all around, sipping on their cups of coffee, chatting, and gossiping about everything possible, under the sun… (You don’t need a ‘café’ to make you love coffee, a few good friends to share a cup with, will do ALL the magic required!)

My friends were there to cheer me up over this humongous loss we’d all faced.
It was a loss for the whole of my batch, my seniors and my juniors…
As much as you’ll want us to accept that it was more about ‘our’ college being decked up to welcome the freshers, we just will not agree…

They’re freshers anyway, and we’ll let them know of how the pathway looked better without those ‘horrendous barricades’. (And you know what…?) They’ll agree with us, like all juniors do.

College life is a cycle of being a junior, a senior and at times of being somewhere right in-between. We’ve been there, done that and now was our chance of being seniors…

We ’d never forget how the farewells were, and how we got to know so many people on that day, and got to know them even better later…(It’s funny how we all wait for the last minute to get to know people, and regret for the rest of our lives that we didn’t get to know them earlier)…

My batchies (Batch-mates to the un-initiated!) were however of the more prepared sort, we sorted out our differences (we like to claim!), and have been a happy little batch ever since…

We’ve been more interested in patching up, or rather fixing up classmates, or otherwise, making grand plans of booking a movie for the whole batch (and going for them too), or otherwise just hanging out in college, happy with our company…ever since!
The company is what matters, not the place…
So as long as it’s us, it doesn’t matter where we are, we’ll surely have the time of our lives…

Our lives for the three or four years in college constantly mingle with each other’s.
We quite unknowingly forge and build relationships that will take us a lifetime to overcome or abide by.
We live such an inter-dependent life, that it’s hard to give it up, when we part ways.
We learn lessons the hard way, and learn to co-operate, but most of all we learn to live life to the fullest.

It’s funny how we die to go on holiday when we’re in college, and cry even more for college to re-open when we’re on holiday. Some of us go to the heights of following the college dress-code at home, and even following seating rules, laid down by the college…
Just so that we don’t feel we’re missing out on all that much.

The college, however inanimate it seems to be, is a part of all of us.
We’ve shared our secrets with the trees, our tears with those corners in the corridor, our laughter with those tables and chairs, and every memory is made up of each and everything we encounter within these four walls, day after day.

The College is alive in all of us!

The bell rings, its 9am, and all the chatting ends… Its time for the first class, of the year… Hope we’ve haven’t been assigned new classrooms… We just love the old ones… can’t imagine giving away even that to the juniors… (God! What else will they take from us?!)…

We walk up to our classrooms, most of us still quite grumpy about those weirdly coloured ‘Obstructions’.
We’re ready to face one more year of non-stop fun.
Sure we’ll have the downs, but who cares, when there’ll be more ‘ups’ to make-up for them.
We’ve just got one more year ahead, and we know we’ll make the most of it.

Friends, Relationships, Fun, Boredom, Sorrow, Tears and Joy; College has come a long way from just meaning ‘Education’ to any one of us…

It’s a part of our lives, none of us can ever forget.

The Others ?

“…If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not LOVE, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not LOVE, I gain nothing. LOVE is patient, LOVE is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. LOVE does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
LOVE NEVER FAILS…”
1 Corinthians 13:2-8
From The First letter from Paul to the Church in Corinth (Greece)

“Neecheay ishq hain, Uupar rrab hain, in donoeh kaey beech mein sab hain…
Ik nahiin soen baathein karloen, soen baathoen kaa, ek matlab hain…
Rrab sabsaey sonaa, Rrab saey bhi sonaa… Ishq! ”
From ‘Taal’


What is Love?

One of the most cliché questions to have ever been asked, is also the most difficult to answer. To me and I’m sure half the planet, who are romantics like me; Love is a feeling, and an emotion, that is pure, limitless, and makes one all the more self-less as it grows within them. It is a beautiful experience to share and feel. It makes you more human, as it works within you.
It is life, and everything that’s infinitely positive in it. It is God!

Love has been the base of all religions for centuries. Love is what makes Religions. And one great, Teacher, who gave love, the most important place in human life, was Christ. I follow Christ, but I will not call myself a Christian. The term ‘Christian’ somehow has come to represent a member of ‘The Church’, than a follower of Christ, for some odd reason. The Church teaches from the Bible, and the Bible is said to be the word of God. I however prefer referring to only what Christ said to be the word of God, and the rules or ‘Teachings’(as I would prefer calling them) as he had laid them down, are the only rules I believe I need to follow. The rest of the book is a guide, a warning and something that helps me understand life better.

And as far as I know, Christ believed love to be foremost. Love overshadowed everything else, and Love was the only way to heaven, according to him. Fear, which was the key element in Pre-Christ writings in the bible, somehow took second stands when Christ came. Christ made us love our Lord instead of fearing him. That makes so much more sense to a person like me, because fear would have brought obedience out of fear in its self. But love would bring obedience out of respect, and pure natural love, that one could experience with the divine. I follow Christ’s teachings because I love the man, from deep down. You can’t help yourself from loving someone so understanding, so calm, so human and yet so divine.
And so for me my religion, ‘Christianity’ or not, has always been about loving.

Quite recently I was part of a debate on something that was well a part of me in some way, and thus implied to me more relevantly then anyone else. During a youth meeting at church, a discussion on relationships led to the topic of Homosexuality and Gay Marriages. The word, or its often misused relative ‘Gay’, is almost taboo in most Churches. But being a ‘Youth’ meeting, I guess the argument prevailed. I deep down believed that Homosexuality, if involving two people who actually love each other, truly and with purity in their hearts and minds, was acceptable. Not surprisingly, half the group did not agree with me.

Christianity and its Church have quite easily made all Homosexuals sinners. The moment a person agrees to the fact of loving a person from his/her own sex, He/She is doomed to hell. On the other hand a straight man who marries a woman and well does not love her, truly and in purity or Vice Versa, or for that matter agrees to a relationship with her/him, and does not love the partner truly and in purity, is accepted with open arms. Yes the Church claims He/She will go to hell too, but only after they die. (Yet the same church is bent on creating a living hell for Homosexuals)

On the other hand a Homosexual is even debarred from access to a Church. Any ‘Good’ Christian or Muslim for that matter will give you a reference of ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’, two prosperous towns in the Old Testament, that were destroyed for their sinful natures, one being Homosexuality.(The word Sodomy claims origin to this city), and thus prove that all Homosexuality is sin. Such generalizations only complicate matters. If everyone took a small part of their time to understand Homosexuals, it wouldn’t be all that hard to understand them. If you haven’t read on…

Homosexuals can be broadly divided into Real and Fake Homosexuals, keeping Biblical morals in mind;

A Real Homosexual is someone who needs the presence of a partner of his/her own same sex in his/her own life. They usually are very serious once they settle down with a partner, having found one, and even at times wish to get married. They like other straight may not always be potential Fidel partners but they have the capability of being so. (Sex is not all that important to a real Homosexual, it’s the presence of the partner)

A Fake Homosexual is someone, who well is just interested in sexual activities with his own sex out of sheer curiosity, having pre-dispositions that it might be more exciting etc., Such people use such relationship for primarily sexual satisfaction purposes. They usually prefer having a long term relationship however with their opposite sex, moral or not moral. Many fake Homosexuals call themselves Bisexuals. (Sex is what drives their relationships, it’s all that matters)

A True Bisexual on the other hand is someone who is able to find equable partners in either of the sexes and stay true to them. This however means relatively nothing significant in Christian terms as the person remains straight if he chooses a partner in the opposite sex, while the person becomes Homosexual if he/she prefers a partner in his/her own sex. A true Bisexual is therefore just a person who has the ability to love someone from either sex.

Now, about Linking Love to Sex… Well it should be logically understood, that sex is almost a branch that stems from love if love was a tree. Sex was meant to be a physical expression of love, and that’s what I will consider it to be. I do not support Pre-Marital sex; therefore I’m talking about Homosexuals who indulge in Sexual Acts only after they’ve decided to be Fidel to each other. Those who indulge in such acts before they’ve decided to live together and be faithful, well according to me, do not consider their relationship to be sanctified, and are not to whom I refer to in this piece of writing.

It is therefore quite ironic that Homosexuals who believe in the sanctity of their relationships, and agree to follow ‘Christian’ morals concerning Fidelity and Adultery, are still not allowed to be a part of any Church and aren’t accepted by many ‘Christians’.
While in the same breath Straight people who indulge in far from moralistic behaviour and might not even love each other, are accepted with arms wide open…

It’s unfortunate that a Religion based on true and pure love does not see the love within these individuals (who want to marry according to their religion, and be accepted, all within the conventions that define true love), and denies them membership or even the right to marry.

In such weird conditions one can’t but help loose faith in the religion, where the upholders of the religion somehow take it upon themselves to decide which kind of love is right and which wrong. Believing in Christ and his teachings alone is the only way out. He taught that Love meant everything, and that makes more sense than the double faced attitude today’s Churches take on the issue, in his name.

The Church has all the right to shun Homosexuals, who indulge in sexual perversions (as it would like to call it) for the sake of pure physical pleasure, and without Love for the person the relationship is being shared with. But the Church is completely wrong in Firstly, Generalising ‘True’ Homosexuals, as being perverted. They aren’t! For that matter they usually understand the emotion of Love far more comprehensively then most straight people. And Secondly, Debarring them from the rights of Religious Acceptance, and Marriage, for the simple reason that they are supposedly sinners!

Well, when did we become the judges of the sinner and the holy man? And since when did God say he would forgive only straight people? (If your so bent on saying ‘Gay’ equals ‘Hell’), and since when did loving people with all your heart, soul and mind and wanting to share your life with them, irrespective of gender become SIN in a religion founded on the emotion of Love?

I found my answers trying to answer these questions and I believe, at the end of the day…

LOVE RULES ALL...

May You Find Your Answers Too!

“When Christ accepted, never Judging, who are we to Judge?”

“…If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not LOVE, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not LOVE, I gain nothing. LOVE is patient, LOVE is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. LOVE does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
LOVE NEVER FAILS…”
1 Corinthians 13:2-8