All You Need Is Love

"Love, love, love," I said, pacing around the room with a pen and a paper-pad. "Love, love, love." I added, for good measure.

Mathew asked me, "What exactly are you doing?"

I replied, "I am just thinking of lyrics for our next song, and I want to rhyme love with a word that's not 'above', I mean I have done that in my poems a million times, don't want to repeat it."

Mathew stopped tuning his guitar and said, "Can we write a song that's not about Love for once?"

I said, "Considering we have written only one song till now, and it was not totally about love, yeah, I guess we can do that."

He laughed and said, "Well, are you capable of doing that?"

"Hey, there is NOTHING I can do that can't be done, get it? Or...something like it."

"Fine, you carry on with writing the lyrics, and please, please add a reference to Harley Davidson in the song somehow." He said.

I continued pacing around the room, sifting through the pages of the pad for old inspirations and half-used poems. I came across our set-list for an upcoming show. "I have a point at issue here."

"A pointed tissue? Where?"

"No, I have an issue, with the song selection." I told him. "It appears, by some crazy mistake, you have added 'Rock n Roll' by Led Zep in the song list."

There was a pause in the conversation, I stared at Mathew, he shifted his gaze to birds sitting on a tree outside his window. "Come on," he said, "It's one of my favourite songs! And we gotta cover Led Zep sometime!"

I said, "There is a problem with that my friend, and I am going to be vocal about it. You see, the problem is with the vocals, I can't sing this song man, it's too tough."

Mathew threw his hand up in the air and said, "Hey if it can be sung, you can sing it. Practice, do whatever, but that song isn't going out of the set list."

I decided to go out of his room, and went to my own to write the lyrics. As was usual, I found a persona non grata sitting on my bed and staring wistfully at his cell phone. It was the other guitarist CP (Chandra Paul) of my band. I told him, "Get out." He said, "Fuck you." And that was that. The conversation moved to other areas.

"What the hell are you doing staring at your phone for?" I asked him, not caring to be grammatically correct.

"I just had a long, unpleasant conversation with my girlfriend Jyoti."

"Right," I said, "And I just remembered I have some work to do somewhere." I tried to escape but he caught me by the wrist and looked me in the eye, holding me at the spot like the ancient mariner had held the wedding guest.

I sighed and said, "Fine, tell me about it."

He stayed silent for a long time, and as I tried making a quiet getaway, he said, "There's nothing I can say to her these days. I have been with her for two years now, and I still don't know how to play this game called love."

I consoled him, "But you can learn how to play the game. It's easy."

After a few more minutes of (studied) silence, he said, "I guess I should not think about break up, should I?" I offered him nothing, he continued, "If this relationship can be made back again, I am willing to make it."

I told him, "Well, you can be saved still."

He laughed sarcastically and asked me, "And what do I do for that?"

I said, "There is nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be yourself, in due time. As I said, it's easy."

"How?"

"All you need is love."

Presently CP exited and Shobhit-The accidental philosopher entered the room. He picked up my writing pad and read aloud, "Love, love, love." He looked at me and then continued, "Love, love, love." He sat down and said, "Strange poem, six words and all are the same."

I told him, "Well, love is all you need."

We chatted for a while about this and that and about some girl who did not know who Franz Kafka was, and then he said, "Have you ever thought about knowledge? You know, as knowing being a fundamental part of being?"

I said, "No, I rather run away from academics and stuff."

"I am not talking about that...you see, this universe, it is full of knowledge. In fact it reeks of knowledge, it's almost vulgar in it's display of knowledge. There is a lot that you can know, I mean, there is nothing you can know that can't be known...and, I want to know about that which can't be known." He stopped speaking and looked at me, "Do you see what I am talking about?"

"If you show it to me, I can see it."

Shobhit laughed and said, "Never mind, we will talk about this later."

"You shouldn't be in this college maybe, you know."

"Why?"

"Cause...you think weird!"

"He he, you see, the individual is the driving force behind his own actions, and thus is the sole decider of where he should be, by that logic, you can't be at a place that you are not meant to be."

"Hmm...I see, I finally see what you are talking about." I didn't.

"You do, so what do you think about it?"

I tried to find a way out and said, "It's easy. Well...I think, All you need is love."