Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Sheela Krishnamony  “A Bible which falls apart belongs to one who isn’t.” W hen Kannan recounted to me this, in our Tai Chi class today morning, I had to ask him to repeat it, slowly… “Look, if you delve deeply into the Bible, and do it regularly, the Holy Book is bound to ‘fall apart’,” Kannan explained to me, “but, it will save your life from falling apart.” Kannan has to pass by the OLPS church (Chembur) to reach our Tai Chi class. Every Sunday, the passerby’s  get to read a new passage displayed outside the church. Kannan is a regular follower of these inspiring messages… He had brought to us today’s Sunday Special… “A Bible which falls apart belongs to one who isn’t.” I was really impressed. Kannan went about citing many more passages he had read outside the church. One of them made a great impact on me: “If problems are long-standing, try kneeling.” Kannan did not have to repeat it… nor had ...

Pic.: Pradeep Nanda I like to be dumb about some things in life… One of them is the ‘wisdom’ about ‘Reservation’… what it is, how it works, its good side and bad side and all that heavy ghyan … When I watch this 22-year-old Hardik Patel, who is leading the agitation demanding reservation for Patel community in Gujarat, I smile and tell myself: “Hey, at twenty-two, I had just landed in this great city of dreams… and was busy figuring out how I could make a place for myself, here, as a teacher… I did not know anything about the subject of Reservation, the Quotas and the Minority Community status and all that went along with that… Yes, one thing I vividly remember. There was this boy in our neighborhood. He hailed from a high-caste and a high-class family… He was two years senior to me… My friends and I used to envy when we would see him constantly flirting with pretty girls in his car and motor bikes… Obviously, he wasn’t good at studies… But, when it came to hi...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty T wo days ago, one of my students’ (twelfth-standard, ISC) father had come to meet me. He was really concerned – rather disturbed - about his daughter’s unit-test marks. She had scored only twenty on hundred. Being a Chartered Accountant, and having gone the hard way up his ladder, and, above all, my student being his only child, the father was unable to comprehend how his daughter could score so low on marks… “Accountancy is not the subject to score so low unless one has no hold on the concepts at all, or unless one has not practiced,” the father looked at his daughter and said, “What is your case – are your concepts not clear or did you not practice?” “I did not practice,” the daughter murmured meekly to her father who sounded overwhelming. “I don’t think so,” the father reacted, “Had the concepts been clear, you would have managed to do something even with the help of those concepts.” “I told you, that I have understood the concepts,” the...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty “E verything happens for a reason… and ever person comes in our life for a reason… That, every problem, eventually, gets solved and every enemy, eventually, relents… That, there ‘is’ a way even though I cannot see it, now… That, there is a valuable lesson in every hardship I endure… That, tough times make me tough…” Let me tell you this: Telling all this comes easily to me when it comes to telling others. “Don’t worry, be happy… everything will be alright.” But, when it comes to telling it to myself, the same words do not come to me so easily! T wo days ago, I was with a small group of my friends. They have been harassed by another group of persons for a long period of time… Several efforts have been made by several people to prevail upon the harassing group… but, in vain. The harassment continues, and it seems as though there are no options left… there is no way ahead… it is a dead end! So, two days ago, when I was telling this h...

Pic.: Sheela Krishnamony T his is my childhood story. Every time I read it, it makes me peaceful… I have told this story many times before in my blog and in our PD sessions…  I wish to tell it, once again, today. I n a village, there lived this milkman. Every day, he walked near and far to sell milk in the village. With whatever money he earned, he was content and lived a simple yet happy life with his family. And, as years passed by, a thought began to trouble him: “I am getting older and tired… I won’t be able to go around the village like this for long… The family needs are increasing… my daughters have to be married… and, at this rate, it would be hard for me to face my future.” Thus, with the hope that he could make some quick money and secure his future, the milkman started to add some quantity of water in the milk, which went unnoticed in the beginning. As  time went by, the water quantity in the milk began to increase, and, his customers began ...

Pic.: Pradeep Nanda A lady – who must be in her mid-thirties – was trying to meet me and discuss something, as she put it most convincingly: ‘SO, SO important to you sir’. She was referred to me by a person I knew very well. But, even before meeting this lady, I could sense, that the lady was trying to ‘sell’ to me something… and, she was doing it the way a hardcore sales guy did… Yes, she was trying to tell me how ‘important’ her product, her idea, to me was… how incomplete and unhappy my life would be, if I did not go for it… I told the lady over the phone itself, “Ma’am, you are coming from so far… I do not wish to disappoint you… Why can’t you let me know what is that ‘so important’ to me?” “No sir, that’s something we cannot discuss over the phone,” the lady said with all the charm in her possession, “We will discuss it over when we meet.” And, I knew, that I would not allow this lady to make me feel how incomplete or unhappy my life was without the stu...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty M y wife had watched, yesterday, an inspiring video shared by our friend Sudha. It was the compelling story of Anita Moorjani, who had been through a near-death experience (NDE)… When I was home, at night, my wife was so charged by Anita’s story, that she coaxed me to watch the video before I went off to sleep! It had happened on 2 nd February 2006, in an emergency ward of a hospital in Hong Kong. Anita had been suffering from cancer for four years before that. Her organs had shut down, lungs were filled with fluid, body had become a skeleton… and she had walked into a coma… The doctors had told her family, that those were Anita’s final hours… But, Anita survived… Yes, to tell us her inspiring story…  She did it in 2013 through her best-selling book ‘Dying To Be Me’… Read that again… ‘Dying To Be Me’! And, that’s what drew me close to what Anita wanted to say… I haven’t read Anita’s book - ‘Dying To Be Me’, yet. But, I can t...

Pic.: Sheela Mohan “As you enter a house, wish it peace.  If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words, go outside that house or town and   shake the dust from your feet .” W hen Jesus gave this advice to his disciples, He had made it very clear to them: “Look guys, you may have in your heart the best of the best intentions, you may be love and peace personified under the sky… your motive may be pure and selfless, you may have gone to their homes for their sake and not yours, yet, be prepared to be ‘rejected’.” You may be good and selfless, and you may have the best intention and concern for others, but, how the other person perceives you - whether he welcomes you or shoos you off… is, certainly, not in your hand… But, one thing, most certainly, is: If the other person rejects you, shoos you off, you do not have to sulk, screa...