tumhe dillagi bhool jaani padegi

mohabbat ki raahon me aa kar to dekho
tadapne pe mere na phir tum hasoge
kabhi dil kisi se laga kar to dekho

This is from a time long long ago when I was young and stupid. I am no longer young. Stupid, is debatable.

The year was 95 or 96, and this very good friend of mine was upset about.... well the stuff young people are supposed to be upset about, only, I personally - on account of the above mentioned stupidity - did not much sympathize with his situation and he must have been in a very foul mood because he said with not so much anger as certainty- one of these days you are going to fall in love and that is when you will not find this so funny.

Umm.. back then, I must confess, I actually laughed at him, which in hindsight was a very bad thing to do. You should not laugh at your friends whether you understand them or not. It was just plain wrong. But he was a gem of a person, a real heart of gold to shayad isliye uske shraap ne zindagi me mera zyada nuksaan kiya nahi. But every time I listen to this song I remember that episode and I wish I was more sympathetic, I wish I had not found his predicament that funny, and the trouble is that even if I do meet him in person, which I haven't since we graduated and I have no idea where he is, but even if I did, it is the kind of thing that you cannot really apologize for after this long a time. It is one of those really awkward moments to bring up and might actually be a worse offense than the first one all those years back, so this here, a pubic apology out into the universe is the best that I can do now.

The year is 2009 and it took me twelve years but I do think that I understand what it is to feel that strongly about someone. I think I have a whole new appreciation for love and it is not a teenager's idea of love either, but I have come to understand that even that teenage puppy love must be treated with due respect. What you feel is what you feel and if you deny or belittle your own feelings, then you deny and belittle your own self, in order to deal with something you must first acknowledge its existence, so if i could go back in time, I would actually sit down and listen to his side of the story. Not that it is a big regret in life or something, I understand that I did not understand it back then, and I was acting from a place of ignorance, but in my own paradigm I was being honest and that perhaps is the only redemption.

And that is the other aspect of the song that I admire, that you only understand something when you do. It is like, let's say you have no idea what a square root is, and you see a set of statements like this

2x^2 = 8
x^2 = 4
x = +/- 2

So you say the first step is fine you divided by 2 but what about the next. Remember you don't know the concept of a squareroot. It will bother you, you might even be sure that this is a mistake, and the thing is, it should, because you don't know, if you pretend to be smarter than you are and say ok something happens here, well you are not being completely honest are you?

I suppose that is how it is meant to be. You hold strong opinions, and insist you know what is right and wrong, you go through life judging others and holding yourself in high esteem and then life shows you the other aspect, their side of the story, and you realize how much in error you have been, how wrong your in judgments and worse, how foolish, hasty, and naive in your criticisms. That perhaps is the growing process. Learning, is painful and humbling.