Gerald D'Cunha

T oday is the last day of the year 2017. Early in the morning, Mr. Amol, a person I admire much had shared with me this wonderful message: “Time has no holiday, Dreams have no expiry date, And Life has no pause button. Live it… Love it… Enjoy each and every moment of your life! Save only those memories which give twinkle in your eyes… not wrinkles on your face! Good morning… Have a fantastic last day of the year of 2017 and look forward to a wonderful 2018! I  really loved the lines: “Save only those memories which give twinkle in your eyes… not wrinkles on your face!” So, today is that day, when all of us have to decide what we should save in ‘our memory card’… and what we should not. Yes, the year 2017 had its own offerings to each one of us… There were joyful moments and there were painful ones, too. We have smiled and laughed a lot many times… and we have cried, feared and sulked a lot many times, too. But, at t...

I wanted to watch a very good – heart-warming, feel-good, entertaining and inspiring – movie immediately after Christmas. I did not mind it was English, Hindi or any regional-language film… All that I wanted was  to feel happy and warm when I left the cinema hall. So, yesterday was a Friday… I checked the new movies running in the nearby theatres. Finally, I settled for the English one – ‘The Greatest Showman’. Before deciding on this movie, as I always do, I did some google search about the movie, and I learnt, that it was based on the life of P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), who was considered to be the ‘Greatest Showman on Earth’, and played by Hugh Jackman. Normally, I don’t go by the reviews and the box-office success. Had I gone by that yard stick, I would have ended up watching ‘Star Wars’. But, both my wife and I chose not to watch ‘Star Wars’ as we would never understand the story...  Call us 'dumb'... We don't mind. We both felt very happy, t...

A s the curtain comes down on the year 2017, one of my regrets is: I haven’t laughed enough in 2017! So, an important item in my list of 2018 Resolutions is to loosen up a little… Laugh more… Take things not too seriously as though they are all major emergencies in life! Nothing is an ‘emergency’ unless my mind sees it so… wants it so. Well, this ‘knowledge’ needs to be ‘lived’ in the coming year, you see! I n the morning, today, I was reading William Henry Davies’ popular poem, ‘Leisure’. A century later, the poet’s words still haunt us. Let me take you through this wonderful poem:           LEISURE  What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars like skies...

“S ky is the limit.” As a young man, when I first heard this saying, I really felt charged: “Hey, you can do anything”… “Nothing is impossible”. Yes, all these went well along the saying. Then, Napoleon Hill provided to me the right perspective: “Whatever you are able to conceive and believe in your mind, you can achieve.” The perspective was clear as a summer sky: “Your sky lies in your own mind, your own imagination… Therefore, you set your own limits.” So, today, whenever someone tries to pump me with  the war-cry, “Nothing is impossible”, I remind him of the scene in the movie ‘3 Idiots’, in which, Raju (Sharman Joshi) squeezes  toothpaste fully from the tube on Farhan’s (R. Madhavan) palm  and retorts, “If so, put this back into the tube, now!” Well, the point is not whether or not there are things beyond our personal limits… whether or not everything is really possible for us to achieve in life. In my view, the point is this: ...

“ Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”   ―  Eckhart Tolle ,  A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose W e need to know not only how to give, we also need to know how to receive. Both have to come from a clean space in our hearts. I think, we have undermined the significance of the attitude involved with receiving. A married young woman had come to visit her mother late last evening. When she saw me inside my office, she opened the door. “Hello sir, Merry Christmas,” she said as she came inside. I was delighted to see this woman after a long time. As I was talking to her, I handed to her two of my books and said warmly, “This is for you… You will love them.” “Thank you so much sir,” the woman said excitedly looking at the books she had just received, “I love your writings… They are so simple yet so good.” “I am glad to hear that,” I said, obviously fe...

A dear friend called up a few minutes ago to give me Christmas wishes… “How did you spend the Christmas day Gerry?” he asked, “Hope you enjoyed.” How did I spend my Christmas day, today? Greetings and calls apart, my Christmas day was homebound. Actually, my wife, son and I spent our time with my in-laws, who live nearby to our place. When they were in good health, we would invite them to our place. Now, they cannot come. So, we meet at their place and spend the Christmas day with them. My father-in-law is in his eighties and my mother-in-law is in her seventies. We do not allow them to go out alone. They are not able to attend the Sunday Mass any more, the way they did for years, when their health was good. Last evening, my father-in-law expressed his desire to attend the Christmas Mass. Obviously, the night mass was not advisable… So, I assured him, that I would escort him to the church for the morning Mass today, which I did… It was a very satisfying ...

C hristmas Eve has been a special time for most of us. Many of my non-Christian friends look forward to this day. The night mass (which is still referred to be ‘The Midnight Mass’, though in most of the cities, it gets over before midnight) is one of the many things they look forward to attend… “My son has come on a Christmas vacation from Australia,” Kannan said to me when we met in our Tai Chi class, today, “He, my wife and I have always loved to attend the Midnight Mass on the OLPS (Our Lady of Perpetual Succor) grounds… We are excited to be there tonight.” Kannan also recounted their visit to the Shirdi shrine some days ago. I love his open-mindedness when it comes to religious beliefs and practices. I have heard him speak with loads of respect whenever he would speak about faiths other than his own. “When my son was leaving the country, for the first time, to pursue his higher studies in Australia, he asked me to take our car to OLPS church. He wen...

A couple of days ago, I had blogged on the subject of human greed for money – rather, the temptation to grow rich faster… via whatever short-cuts, including the latest one: Bitcoin mania. A restless young man said to me, the other day, “Sir, today, the so-called the ‘hard-earned’ money is hardly enough for us to buy a decent house in any suburbs of Mumbai… Leave alone meeting other expenses.” I told the young man, that every generation had the same anxiety. “Even I had the same thought when I was your age,” I said, “but, along my way, I realized, that everything becomes expensive including the sale value of the goods and services we sell.” My advice to the young man was, that he had to learn to increase the sale value of his potential and not succumb to the temptation of making some easy money. But, the ‘young blood’ would not buy my theory so easily, you see! Last night, my bother forwarded to me a lovely story. I am sharing this story, here, with a few grammat...

“If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you.” - Louise Hay F or last two days, I have been reading some of Louise Hay’s writings, particularly some powerful quotes from her famous book, ‘You Can Heal Your Life’. In August, this year, Louise Hay died peacefully in her sleep… She was 90. Her story has been an inspiring testimony of self-healing. By her own account, she was raped  by one of her neighbours when she was 5… At 15, she was pregnant… at 16, she gave away her just-born for adoption… She dropped out of her studies without a Diploma… She was physically abused by her step- father… Her own husband, after years of marriage, deserted her for another woman… For many years, she did low-paying jobs for survival… At 51, she was diagnosed with ‘incurable’ cervical cancer… and, she was devastated! It was when her body was besieged by life-threatening cancer, Louise Hay became aware of the root cause of her disease… he...