Before you complain of how brutally shattered you are by your heartbreak, how acute is your loss of love, think of your 80-year-old grandmother living alone in the ancestral house in Patna, stumbling upon the garlanded picture of her late husband every now and then. When was the last time you saw her shedding tears mourning her 20-year-old love-loss, when grandfather gave in to cancer at merely 65?

Her tears won't be found on pillows. Her poetry won't be found in diaries. She had just one day to express all her sorrow in public, that funeral from 20 years ago. The grief is now held deep within, never to be revealed to any of us. Love is a private affair for her, the tsunami of heartaches is a personal calamity that she braves alone. Even the doctor doesn't know if the water that flows out of her eyes at night is because of cataract or pain. Think of her and you'll figure why she is called a grandmother and why you (with your ephemeral wound) will always remain a little kid.

- हर्ष स्नेहांशु