Gerald D'Cunha

  “Self-education, I firmly believe, is the only kind of education, there is.” Isaac Asimov   T here is something good – and praiseworthy - about every one around us. No one out there is a ‘good-for-nothing’… I remind myself about this truth, every day, and every time, I tend to lose patience while teaching. If Nethan, Sunny and Prita are slower in learning, and unable to cope with others’ speed, they are, certainly, faster in learning some other things… Like, all three of them have greater degree of respect to their teacher, all of them are very regular, punctual and sincere. So, whenever, I get impatient and irritated on their slow learning, I remind myself to see what is good about them… “Who knows what is in store for them? They may not even use in their lives any of the ‘stuff’ I have been trying to teach them here in my class,” I remind myself, “They may end up using only what is already good about them.” Reminding myself like this is even more important for ...

  “My feelings are too loud for words and too shy for the world.” Dejan Stojanovic   “D eep rivers run quiet.” Have you heard this statement? Well, let me tell you this: It’s not about rivers, it’s about many of us here on land – who are desperately shy… I was, I am and I will be one such deep river, always. Not because I want myself to be one… But, because, I have done everything humanly possible to overthrow this shyness from me… The more I have done that - like the cats my grandma wanted to do away with, in our village, while I was a little by – it has only come back… Perhaps, my shyness loves me more than I hate her! Jokes apart, shyness is something I had to struggle with as a young boy. As a young man, and as a 65-year-old, now – well, I still do; but, I am not bogged down by it, anymore… “Let the shyness be,” I now say, “It’s what makes me complete… beautiful” Our lack of understanding about our shyness can cause havoc inside and outside us. No matter ...

  “Start with a ‘Yes’, and see where that takes you.” Tina Fey   W hat excites me may not excite you, and what excites you may not excite me. But, in life, we all are excited by some things or the other. Let me apply this excitement factor in a student’s life. As a teacher, I get to interact with students who just walk into their first-year junior college, and, those who are in their final-year degree college. Typically, a Commerce student has six subjects to focus on. After weeks and months of teaching, I ask my students this question: “Do you love this subject.” It is interesting to find the answer… ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ are like black and white – the two extremes. The depth of ‘Yes’ matters a lot… Especially, for students. “The day you say ‘Yes, I do’, you start finding a career out of this subject,” I remind my students, “The early that happens, the better for you.” “Catch them young,” it is said. So, the best time to give that career advice is when they are just ...

  “ No man can be called friendless   who has God and companionship of good books.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning   “T he sight of a book excites me.” I have heard this from many people. The sight of a book excites me, too. If I see a bookshelf, I pause… Pick a book, feel it, smell it… flip through it… Get fascinated by its design… Read the synopsis on back cover or the flap… Quickly read a portion of the foreword or introduction… And, quite often, find myself transported to a faraway Harry Potter’s land! Books are magical… They can fire our imagination! But, it wasn’t so for me, when I was growing up. I hardly read books, leave alone writing them. As I keep saying, as a young boy, I had a nagging inferiority-complex… A constant feeling of worthlessness had held me back from expressing myself in any manner – be it in studies or any extra-curricular activities. Sometime in my twelfth standard, thanks to fine English teachers (who taught us Shakespeare and other li...

  “My body wasn’t the problem; my thoughts and beliefs were.” Anne Poirier   N o matter who we are, we cannot learn ‘every skill’ under the sky. We can learn ‘only some’… We can hone them well to become even experts in them… to be hailed by people - “Fine hands.” And, as we become experts in some of these skills, we do not bother to learn many other skills. Often, we try to… But, our lack of motivation, soon, makes us give up… True, where there is will, there is certainly a way. Whatever skills I have mastered in my life, invariably, are those where I have applied my strong will… I was miserably bad in Public Speaking and communicating (both, written and spoken) in English. But, because I wanted to become a fine teacher – where I dreamt of teaching Accounting subjects in English language, and because I wanted to write well, too, in English – yes, I found the necessary will to overcome my ‘problems’… It became clear to me, at a young age, that the motivation to ...

  “Kids don’t remember what you try to teach them; they remember who you are.” Jim Henson   T oday is Teachers Day… As usual, the ‘Happy Teachers Day’ greetings start pouring in right since the daybreak… Feels nice. Yes, it does. When your ex-students, current students and their parents shower kind words on you, you truly feel blessed, even humbled. It also takes you back to your own teachers… the ones who you have not remembered enough, thanked enough. The truth is, in life we all are students of many teachers, and we also are teachers of many students… Living this life calls for both these roles… We all keep learning; we all keep teaching… The label, that ‘I am a teacher’ is, therefore, irrelevant… Every teacher is not on a payroll… Many are just ‘honorary’… One of the greetings, early this morning said, “Happy Teachers Day… Miss you, Sir.” I had taught this young man and his twin brother more than twelve years ago. They both gave a lot of heartburns to their...

  “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? if God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31   W hen Lord Shiva – Mahadev – leaves in his blue, chic Ferrari, He says, “I have to go… There is another ‘mareez’ (patient/needy) waiting for me,” we smiled and left the cinema hall, convinced, that OMG3 will come soon… Lord Shiva – Har, Har Mahadev - will return soon… to help us through our distressful times… So what, if Lord comes in in the body of Akshay Kumar? Is not the promise same? Most of us have come this far, believing, that if we have complete faith in God, He will protect us… help us through our most difficult times… I loved the line in this second avatar of OMG: ‘Shiv ke das, Shiv ke paas.’ How innocent, how clean that promise can be! O f late, I have come across many young men and women who have been drawn towards Lord Shiva’s enigma… They are awestruck by everything about Shiva – His wrath, dance and destruction … what He wears on and a...

  “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” Michel de Montaigne   A hundred things shape our self-esteem. Almost all of them do it when we are small, helpless. So, today, when I am 65, or when you are 15 or 80, each of us has come here affected by our childhood events… Many pleasant ones, many unpleasant… Many empowering ones, many damaging. Yes, there is this load of our baggage in each one of us… Needless to say, the pleasant and empowering things have manifested into our high self-esteem. The unpleasant and damaging ones have manifested into our low self-esteem. But, no one is free from this bondage – what happened to us in our childhood, when we were helpless. So, why I behave the way I do now, certainly, has its roots in what happened to me, and around me, when I was small… Why I am fun-loving or dead-serious, why I am an extrovert or an introvert, why trust comes easily to me or why it doesn’t come so easily, why I laugh like a ...