Heart Complex

One of my nephews is three and a half years old now. If you have spent a good amount of time with a kid this age, you would relate to the fact that they ask a zillion questions. Or should I say they ask the same question a zillion times? As most things are new to them, kids look at everything with boundless curiosity. As such, I am now being barraged with so many WHYs on a daily basis. Upto a point I would answer his questions patiently, but then it gets down to basics where it becomes increasingly difficult to answer. These basics are something I always believed that I understood, but with one of his simple 'why?', he destroys my illusion in no time. When it gets difficult to answer, I get angry. Because my ego is hurt! Is he teasing me? No! Because I can see the innocence in his face and these questions coming out of pure curiosity. Yet, that doesn't seem to be a very good reasoning. I try to console myself by thinking he is not old enough to understand all the nuances. H...

As we get older and older in life, until a certain point, all equations in life get equally messier. Kids live in the moment. Whatever is their state of mind, they stay in the present. Mostly active, curious, and happy, and sometimes hurt, crying, and sad. It is an intense state of living. Does a kid born in a rich family feel more happy than a kid born in a poor family? I am talking here of the depth of the happiness, not the breadth of it. Of course, a rich kid is always attended to, its whims will be satisfied quickly, and hence it may have more moments of happiness in life. On the other hand, a poor kid is mostly unattended, possibly subjected to traumatic experiences every day, and hence may have fewer moments to cherish. But I don't think the intensity of both kids' excitement and happiness differ at all. I was born in a lower middle class family. Both of my parents had to work to make ends meet. Thus I and my sister were hardly supervised. Though my parents genuinely tri...

"Hurt" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from its second studio album, The Downward Spiral (1994), written by Trent Reznor. It was released on April 17, 1995, as a promotional single from the album. The song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Song in 1996. In 2002, Johnny Cash covered "Hurt" to commercial and critical acclaim. The related music video is considered one of the greatest of all time by publications such as NME. Reznor praised Cash's interpretation of the song for its "sincerity and meaning," going so far as to say "that song isn't mine anymore." Sorry, but I am so lazy that I am taking the above description word to word from Wikipedia. I think a lot but rarely put my thoughts into words. Most of you will agree that thinking and penning it down are two different things. But I want to save this song for a later stage of my life (If I make it till there), when I can sit on the roof of my ho...

I came across this song on Yousician (an app for learning musical instruments) during one of my guitar practice sessions. I tried to find original version of the song on the Internet and found a thousand of them! After sifting through many of them, I still liked the Yousician version. Someone has a recording of this posted on Youtube, so here it is: Coming back to the lyrics, Wikipedia says that the lyrics for this song were written in 1856 by Rev. Henry D. L. Webster after a broken engagement. The music was then composed by his friend Joseph P Webster. It quickly became a favorite of soldiers of both side of the American Civil War. And here I am trying to treasure it in my open closet. :P The years creep slowly by, Lorena The snow is on the grass a gain The sun's low down the sky, Lorena The frost gleams where the flowers have been But my heart beats on as warmly now As when the summer days were nigh The sun can never dip so low Or down affections cloudless sky A hundred month...

     T he prior of the Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery was visibly irritated as he saw Leonardo, without a paintbrush, standing and staring at his partly drawn painting on the wall of the dining hall of the monastery. For the whole day, Leonardo hadn't touched the wall. He seemed to be living in a different world. There was no other sight or sound that could draw his attention than the painting in the making.  It wasn't the first time. Some times, Leonardo wouldn't turn up at the monastery for weeks. Those days, he would be found somewhere outside the city, looking at a bird with searing intensity, or somewhere near a pool, looking at the water and scribbling something in a notebook that he always carried with him. Some other times, he would come early in the morning to the monastery, mount the scaffolding, and start painting without a minute's rest, not speaking to anyone and not even stopping for food or drink, till the curtain of dusk is drawn for the day. Ther...