Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Chandrashekhar Varier “Opening one’s eyes may take a lifetime. Seeing is done in a flash.” -  Fr. Anthony de Mello in ‘One Minute Wisdom’ L ike everyone else, I, too, wake up every morning looking forward to be happy. Now, if there is nothing in the day that I would be enthusiastic and excited about, there is no way I can hope to be happy along my day. The wise say, that doing what we love will make us happy. It is because we do it with great enthusiasm… But, they, also, say, that if we cannot do in life what we love, we should learn to love what we do… What is the other way left for us to be happy in life? Perhaps, an attitude of gratitude. But, again, learning to love what we do is nothing but being grateful for what has been offered to us. Isn’t it? Yes, every day, like everyone else, I look forward to be happy… and, I keep getting the same advice, “Do with love whatever you do… do with a great heart... Complai...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty I n one of THE DAWN CLUB debating sessions, the topic was cricket craze. A young boy blasted, without quoting George Bernard Shaw, “A famous man had said, cricket is a game played by eleven fools and watched by eleven-thousand fools.” “Whoever had said that,” thundered another young-man “was the biggest fool!” Today, like billions of ‘fools’,  all over the world, I, too, stayed at home to watch the India-Australia World Cup Semifinals. Right from the first over of Indian innings, my heart was telling me, “You fool, you should have gone to work!” After the fall of seventh wicket, I switched the TV off… Ashwin, a 12 th -standard (ISC) cricket-fool had his last Board paper, today, at noon. At around 11, I saw his FB status. “Angry… Ind-Aus Semifinals… And I am supposed to write my last Accounts paper today!” In the evening Ashwin called me to say that the paper was good. “Are you still angry?” I teased him. “Not at all, si...

Pic.: Rajiv Sharma       “Sometimes it is the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.” -           Darke M any a times, when my dearest ones ask me as to why I want to reach a certain destination, I find myself struggling for an answer. Because, that’s the time I become aware, that if my focus is more on reaching my destination – on becoming – rather than the process or the journey I chose to embark upon – on being… yes, if I am more stuck with reaching the destination rather than experiencing the joy and glory of my journey, I will only succeed in proving a point… Telling the world, “Hey, look, I have made it… I have arrived.” I alone will know, deep inside, if, after reaching my destination, my life would be any different from how it was before I had set on my journey… I alone know if the journey was worth it. Gandhi would, often, say, “Our means are as i...

Pic.: Alwyn Mathais “If you don't get out of the box you've been raised in, you won't understand how much bigger the world is.” - Angelina Jolie T he ‘box’, Angelina is referring to, is our mind. Unless, we bring ourselves out of the rut – the image – we are in, we shall, always, be held captive there. Yes, inside the ‘box’. Someone had said it, rather bluntly, this way: “A rag-picker’s son will, always, remain a rig-picker as long as he has the image of the rag-picker.” And, that’s the story of each and every one of us… We have this image of the situation in which we are born and grown… That’s our ‘box’, our ‘image’… our ‘world’. So, till we don’t look at it hard and decide to re-sketch this image, decide to re-write our script, we will, always, remain caught-up in our ‘boxes’. There should be something bigger than us calling us, all the time… There should be something greater challenging us, all the time… A bigger vision, a greater cause… a ...

Pic.: Nimala Sundar L ast afternoon, when I was talking to some of my old acquaintances, another friend of mine, a doctor, showed up. I introduced him to my old friends and our discussion continued. During the course of this discussion, my doctor friend, referring to me, casually said to my other friends present, “To me, Gerry (He calls me Gerry sir!) is a ‘Diamond in Jharkhand’!” Immediately, my other friends began to nod in agreement, while I was left clueless as to what was the significance of a diamond in Jharkhand’. Well, the rest of the discussion cleared the coal around this diamond thing… My doctor friend and others knew about the wealth hidden in the diamond mines of this otherwise remote state called Jharkhand. They knew, that no such mines existed in great cities like Mumbai, Delhi or Chennai. But, my friends, also, knew this: unless someone digs the diamond out of black coal mines and unless someone transports it to big cities – where people...

Pic.: Alka Chawra O ne of the most humbling moments in the life of a teacher – at least in my life – is when, many, many years later, your student comes back to you to give you back that priceless lesson, which you had imparted to him or her several years ago. Your lesson had empowered the student when he or she needed it the most. And, now, here comes the student to empower you, when you need it the most! I believe, this happens to all  teachers several times in their lives… The students grow up to become great physicians and surgeons… and they come back to treat their teacher… The teacher has lost strength… also, hope…”Teacher, it was you who taught us not to lose strength, not to lose hope,” the student, now, reminds the teacher… The students grow up to become Lawyers, Psychologists, Chartered Accountants, School teachers and Principals; they become Architects, Builders, Bank Mangers, movie and sports stars, even Ministers and Clergymen… They all ...

Pic.: Manjeet Singh Kukreja “Selling millions of records is great; but, at the end of the day, it really doesn't bring peace.” - Toby Mac O n some days, some words or phrases keep coming to your lips… and, they come straight from your heart. Today, it was ‘In good faith’… I have used it, today, in my conversation with, at least, ten people! What was I trying to achieve through the use of this phrase? Was I trying to ‘sell’ them something, make hem believe in me, or, in I was trying to present before them? Though I fully believe, that, in this world, each and every one ‘sells’… and, though I know, that, if you have a fantastic product, service or idea and do not know how to present it to those who it is meant to reach, then, there is something wrong with your approach and attitude. Yes, though I fully believe in this theory – rather, the reality – I refuse to believe, that we should ‘mislead’, ‘hard-sell’ whatever we want to promote. ...

Pic.: Pradeep Nanda “The hardest walk is walking alone; But, it is, also, the strongest walk.” - Anonymous T here are some things in life, which we are deeply convinced about… We believe in them and we are passionate about them, so much so, they have become our ‘magnificent obsessions’… Some ideals, some dreams, some projects, some causes… Yes, there ‘are’ those things in our lives which we alone know how close they are to our hearts… we breathe them all day and all night long… all through the year and all through our lives… We wake up with those things, we go to sleep with those things… We talk about them to everyone and everywhere… And, it seems, our lives would be empty and miserable without realizing those ideals and dreams… without completing that journey, without reaching that destination… Every dream, which is dreamt passionately, every ideal which is cherished very, very intimately… and every cause which is carved on the solid ...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty A couple of days ago, a friend of mine pointed to some of The Dawn Club activities and events of the past and wondered if they had yielded the ‘desired results’. “Have they just gone wasted?” he was concerned. I took a long pause before I could reply to my friend.  The question was so familiar to me; for, more than I had heard my well-wishers asking this to me, I have asked this to myself. Inside me, there had been – there still are – two voices… One, soars, dreams, trusts, embraces, laughs, rejoices… The other sulks, dreads, doubts, distances, broods and despairs…. One comes from the sphere of abundance… The other comes from the sphere of lack… One makes me walk into the world with my open arms, the other, with my guarded fists… So, to this concerned friend of mine, I replied, “No, not at all… Every activity we did seem to me as the connecting dots… They have brought us here, today.” Another friend of mine, who was with us, c...

Pic.: Alwyn Mathias “No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.”   ―   Victor Hugo W hen I was small, back in our village, I would feel excited seeing seeds sprout in the wild orchard. They were all sorts of seeds - cashew seeds, mango seeds, jack-fruits seeds, tamarind seeds, berry seeds, coconuts seeds, papaya seeds, chikoo seeds, guava seeds and all sorts. Many a times, after returning from school, I would attempt to plant a cashew or a mango seed in place of my choice… And, then, I would go there, every day, to check if it had sprouted…. Most of the times, it hadn't… and, I would wonder ‘Why’? “Because,” my mom would tell, “all seeds don’t sprout, my son.” “But, why so?” I would insist. “For, that’s how God wants it to be!” my mom would calm me down. Today, I attempt to plant seeds of different kinds… One of them is my ideas. The ideas that I try to give life to… Like I did as a little...