Skip to main content

Choices

Leonardo da Vinci
Image from rfi


Leonardo da Vinci was an illegitimate child. However, his father was considerate enough to let him grow up in the Vinci mansion though he was not entitled to get any formal education. He had minimal schooling. His boyhood was spent on the Vinci estate and surrounding landscapes watching birds and animals, cliffs and waterfalls.
One day the little Leonardo grabbed some sheets of paper (not easily available in those days) from his father’s office in order to sketch the beautiful things he saw around. He had no teachers, no paintings to learn from; he was his own master.
Eventually his talent came to the attention of his father. Leonardo was sent at the age of 14 to be an apprentice of the Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio. Verrocchio taught much more than art to his disciples. Leonardo too learnt engineering, mechanics, chemistry and metallurgy from the master.
In 1481, at the age of 29, Leonardo was a master himself. The Pope was looking for the best artists to decorate the Sistine Chapel which he had just built. Lorenzo de’ Medici was asked to find the artists. Lorenzo never liked Leonardo because the latter had no knowledge of the classics while the former was a great scholar. Leonardo felt bitter at this rejection. He also hated the role played by sycophancy in securing success in life.
Leonardo decided to make a choice: a choice between bitterness and steadfastness, between failure and success, between rejection by others and self-acceptance. The choice made all the difference to his life.
Leonardo decided to settle down in Milan and be more than an artist. He pursued all of the crafts and sciences that interested him: architecture, military engineering, hydraulics, anatomy, and sculpture. The rest is history: Leonardo became one of the greatest masters of the period. Mastery was his choice. Our choices make all the difference.
“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return,” said Leonardo. The sky was his choice. Heaven was his choice. He made himself belong there. That belonging was a choice.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 295: #WiseChoices


Comments

  1. SnehOctober 22, 2019 at 9:01 AM

    Lovely post.. i am a big fan to Leonardo's paintaings and I believe he started the Revolution in arts..
    http://www.bootsandbutter.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. rifle range boyOctober 29, 2019 at 5:03 AM

    nice write up

    ReplyDelete
  3. PragnyaOctober 30, 2019 at 10:09 AM

    His choices made him remembered as the one he was. Nice post.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching is a Relationship

I met Ms Dhanya Ramachandran a few years ago at one of the centralised evaluation camps of CBSE. Then we met again every year for the same purpose until I retired from teaching officially. I’m not sure whether it’s her Mona Lisa smile or her commendable efficiency with the job that drew my attention more to her. Last week I came to know that Dhanya (let me take the liberty of calling her so) received an award for her contributions to the cause of education. I wished to bring her to a wider audience for the cause of education and hence requested an interview. What follows is the result. Since it is an email interview, it has its limitations. Nevertheless, Dhanya comes alive here. Over to the interview.  Tomichan : Hi Ms Dhanya Ramachandran, please introduce yourself for the sake of the readers of this blog. Dhanya : Hello. I am Dhanya Ramachandran, a passionate educator with diverse background. My career journey began in journalism, but life took me on a different path, leading
7 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Why do you fear my way so much?

Book Review Title: Why do you fear my way so much? Author: G N Saibaba Publisher: Speaking Tiger, New Delhi, 2022 Pages: 216 G N Saibaba breathed his last on 12 Oct 2024 at the age of 57. It may be more correct to say that he was killed by the government of his country just as Rev Stan Swamy and a lot many others were. Stan Swamy was an octogenarian, suffering from severe Parkinson’s disease and other ailments, when he was arrested under the draconian UAPA. He died in prison at the age of 84 labelled by his government as a traitor. G N Saibaba was a professor of English in Delhi University when he was arrested in 2014 under UAPA for alleged links with treasonous Maoist groups. Polio had rendered him absolutely incapable of free movement right from childhood. The prison authorities deprived him even of his wheelchair, making life incredibly brutal for him in the Anda cell of Nagpur Central Prison. The egg-shaped cell (‘anda’ means egg in India’s putative national language) i
6 comments
Read more

Women and Breast Politics

Until a century ago, quite many women in Kerala had to go without covering their breasts because of the caste system that was in force. The latest issue of Mathrubhumi weekly [dated 1 Dec 2024] carries a few photos of some Nair women of those days. Let me reproduce two of them below.  Notice the ornaments they wear Up to the 1920s, Kerala’s women were confined to domestic roles. Their lives were regulated by their respective communities. Women belonging to Christian and Muslim communities were expected to cover their breasts while their Hindu counterparts had to leave them bare. Those women from the lower castes had no choice in this matter. However, the Nair women enjoyed a remarkable degree of autonomy because of the matrilineal system that was followed by that community, though the eldest male member known as karanavar wielded the ultimate authority. The Hindu system in those days upheld a lot of evils such as child marriage, denial of education to girls, restrictions on wid
6 comments
Read more

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r
34 comments
Read more