Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Pradeep Nanda A few hours ago, I heard someone banging on the wall outside my office and went out to see what the disturbance was all about. It was a plumber hired by one of my neighbors…. He was drunk and was careless. Hardly a sentence I must have spoken with him, and I found myself speaking to him with irritation and anger. The fact that he was drunk, and the fact that he or my neighbor hadn't discussed the work before starting to hammer, yes, it was playing on my head, and, added to this, I couldn't swallow the rough way in which the plumber was talking to me… I stopped the work and told him that I would talk to his employer, who I knew well. Well, the work stopped. But, not the talk inside my mind… Today is Good Friday. I had chosen to work… I  hadn't  kept a fast… Abstinence is a very powerful term… After I had subdued the drunk plumber with my strong words, which came from my stronger position in life ...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty “A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions… They thrive because someone expended effort on them.” Liberty Hyde Bailey A while ago, I was talking to a group of five young-men. They wanted me to help them develop their self-confidence; particularly, they wanted me to help them overcome their self-doubts and anxieties with regard to speaking in English before an audience.  All of them were working young-men. Along with work, they were doing their post-graduation, too. They had studied through English mediums schools. But… They did not speak English… They did not read English… They did not write English… They did not listen to English speakers… “Your low-self-confidence is not due to your poor English,” I told the young-men, “it is due to the poor self-image you hold.” The young-men, perhaps, had not heard of it anytime before, from anyon...

Our actions stem from our intentions. There are two kinds of intentions: good ones and bad ones. Now, how are we supposed to know whether our intentions are good ones or bad ones? I have a simple way to know that. If my intention is to deliberately cause harm, harass, malign or punish someone, then, my intention is bad. In the same way, if my intention is to please or help someone at the cost of my own well-being, that’s also a bad intention. Thus, when my intention is not to deliberately cause harm, harass, malign or punish someone, then, my intention is good. And, in the same way, when my intention is not to please or help someone at the cost of my own well-being, that’s also good intention. My own well-being, always, comes first. It is only when I care for myself enough that I am able to care enough for another human on this earth. Not, otherwise.  Our actions are always visible. But, our intentions, whi...