Gerald D'Cunha

“There is no hope unmingled with fear, no fear unmingled with hope.” Baruch Spinoza   A n Irish proverb says, “Hope is the physician of each misery.” While, on the surface, it appears true, it’s also true, that when we hope for the best, we do not cease to fear the worst… Hope is hope when fear still stares at us, and scares us… Despite our worst fears, if we still hope for the best, it means, that we are living with gratitude and fortitude… The outcome is, certainly, not in our control… Hoping with gratitude and fortitude, always is. A wonderful woman, the mother of one of my students, battled brain cancer for a couple of years. The woman, a school teacher, was such a gentle and dignified soul… The one-who-wouldn’t-even-hurt-a-fly, kind. Yes, seeing this gentle soul go through the painful ordeal was heart-wrenching… Many of us asked: “Lord, why her? Why bad things happen to good people?” There is no answer to this question, I am sure… We can only interpret it with ...

  “I think, violence has always been popular, way before movies started being made.” Norman Reedus   N orman Reedus said it right… Violence has, always, been there since Kane and Abel existed… And, it has been described graphically in our Holy Books, even. Movies came just a century ago; maybe, a litter earlier than that. So, whether there should be violence – more of it, less of it, or nothing of it at all – well, it doesn’t really matter. Violence is there in our blood… I have it, you have it, and we all have it. Period. What is evident is this: Most of us don’t like to display our violence publicly. So, we like to see it being displayed on movie screens and like to watch it in the darkness of the cinema halls. I have liked to watch very intense scenes involving violence in all good movies. But, not when violence is shown for the sake of violence. The mindless or meaningless violence puts me off. Even if millions hail it as ‘great action sequence’, I simply canno...

  “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Mark Twain   O ne of the things parents will never be able to give their children is the fire in the belly… That one thing, the kid has to ignite on its own. But, if you ask me, ‘How’… I can only say, “I don’t know’. Yes, all that I know is, that the kid has to ignite it on its own… What is common – and quite natural – for parents to do is to give their kids a better education, together with better privileges… a better living condition, better facilities, better everything. The thought process of the parents, by and large, is this: “I had to go through a lot of struggles in my life… I was deprived of all the privileges… but, I do not want my children to go through similar struggles… I want them to provide with the best possible privileges.” And, that’s what my grandparents did to my parents, my parents did to me and my brothers, and we have done to our own children, and our children will do to theirs…...

  “There is no fire like passion; there is no shark like hatred; there is no snare like folly; there is no torrent like greed.” Siddharta Gautama   T hese days, there is no need to go to a barber; the barber comes home, you see.  A person like me, who grew up in a village, has been the one who, always, went to a local barber. My brothers and I went to a barber named Keshava… We lived not in a remote village, though. But, I remember the barber at my maternal uncle’s remote village… The house was isolated and miles away from the road… The barber had to come home. The name of uncle Lawrie’s barber was Isara. Uncle would sit in the shade of a nearby tree, and Isara would go about doing a complete job, including uncle’s armpits! It was a sight to behold for excited kids like us. One thing common with the Isara-kind of barbers and the Keshava-kind was this: they had the latest and the most exhaustive update about the village… People, always, went back updated about the ...

  “If I had a day that I could give you, I’d give to you a day just like today; if I had a song that I could sing for you, I’d sing a song to make you feel this way.” From the song ‘Sunshine on My Shoulders’ by John Denver   A s I am writing this Post, I can hear the beautiful Christmas songs from my friend Lancy’s windows. He lives just above our flat… and, Christmas, at their place, begins as December begins. My heart smiles and sings, “Honey, that’s how it should be” … Christmas has already come… This day… with this morning’s sunshine… This morning, my younger brother, Vivek, shared this touching video…   The message is the same… “Honey, Christmas has come… Feel the sunshine on your shoulders.” And, there was, also, this early-morning message from my sister-in-law, Merlyn (My elder brother Franklin’s wife), sharing the news about the demise of her uncle, Mr. Willam (Willie) Castelino… “My uncle passed away yesterday in Kent; some 40 days short o...

“If two people are thinking alike, one of them is not required.” An old saying     T oday, this old saying kept coming back to me… The same message has been conveyed through another saying: “If everyone is thinking alike, no one is thinking at all.” I can’t tell you how often I have come across the above sayings. But, today, they made me pause and reflect… For some time now, I have been strongly feeling irritated with a few of my social-media friends. They have been relentlessly sharing posts – mostly, political or religious – which, in my view, are extreme right… Often, they are provocative. In the past, I have blocked many such friends from my social-media account. So, this time around, too, I have been strongly feeling the prompting to block them… My reasoning is this: “These fellows are not adding any value to my life. On the other hand, they are causing unrest inside me… So, why keep them? – just discard.” But, strangely, this time around, I have not a...

  “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that, within me, there lay an invincible summer.” Albert Camus   I think, if young ones become aware of their strengths early in life, it will help them become confident individuals. It will help them to dream, and believe in those dreams. Just imagine those young ones, who are unaware of their strengths… How would they ever dare to dream, and pursue them? Whenever young ones ask me what I mean by ‘strengths’, I tell them this: “Your strong character-traits.” Yes, what else can it be? Mercifully, all young ones are blessed with their own strong character-traits. It’s possible, that many of them are unaware of this blessing. That’s why I said, that when they become aware of their strengths early in their lives, it will hep them to become confident individuals. Only confident individuals can dare to pursue their dreams… It's to be taken by young ones as a good news… It should give them hope. I wasn’t aware of my ...

  “We act out of courage; we react out of fear.” Aegelis Sophizo   A n emotionally-charged mind doesn’t think rationally… Objective thinking – based on reason – is possible only when emotions are kept under check… Our reactive behaviour is a classic example. When we react from anger, hatred, envy, fear and insecurity, it’s not a rational behaviour… It stems out of our loss of self-control. The instinctive, caustic comments we make about others only leave us exposed… not others. Well, when you read what I have just said in the two paras above, it’s highly possible, that you may wonder, "What an enlightened soul this man is!” I wonder, too. But, thinking, why, despite knowing this truth, I have not been able to stop me from ‘reacting’ for every ‘silly’ situation, all my own life! Yes Sir, between our ‘knowing’ and ‘doing/practicing’, there is a ‘space’… Just as between the ‘stimulus’ and ‘action’ there is… Like many that read books or listen to people who impart ...