Gerald D'Cunha

  “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion, still.” Dale Carnegie in ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’   I was born into a Roman Catholic family. By virtue of it, I have been following certain deity and saints, and practicing certain customs, eating and dressing habits. Similarly, over time, I have leaned towards certain political ideology and followed certain leaders.   But, which God I worship or which political leader I support, I think, I should keep it private, unless I have an aggressive evangelistic or political agenda. I have none… I wish to have none. But, let me make it clear: To follow a certain religious or political ideology is my basic human-right. At the same time, I believe, that it’s my basic human-duty to respect others’ basic human-rights… To me, that’s being civilized… Live and let live. Trouble starts, when I try to demean ‘publicly’ what others believe in and practice. That’s like stirring up the hornet’s nest… Da...

Pic.: Shankar Ramachndran A s the autorickshaw I was commuting by stopped at the busy signal, the cleaner of the tempo next to us spat out on the road, inches away from us, blood-red paan from his mouth. Barely the mess had touched the ground, my young autowala blasted: “You idiot, do you do it on your house-floor, too?”… He was really furious! “Why are you worked-up? Is there any problem for you?” the cleaner yelled back. “Yes, there ‘is’ a problem for me,” my autowala was out on the road, now, “Do you want me to show you that?”  On the other side, the cleaner opened the tempo-door and was ready to pick the gauntlet… The yellow-light had already flashed… I knew, if someone didn’t intervene, a war would break out on the busy street! So, I held my autowala’s hand, gently, saying, “Brother, let it be.” On the others side, I saw the tempo-driver gently pleading before the autowala, “Sorry brother, he shouldn’t have done that.” Luckily, the cl...

Pic.: Anand Ashokan I have just returned from the Jaslok Hospital, where my dad-in-law is, presently, hospitalized. As I was hungry, before leaving, I got for myself a pack of biryani in the cafeteria, and stood there in one corner (as it was crowded during the lunch-time) to have it. In the process, few grains of Basmati-rice spilled, here and there, over the floor. Yes, I was a little embarrassed about it. But, then, as soon as I finished eating, I, instinctively, bent down, picked the spilled rice from the floor, put it in my empty paper-plate, and placed it in the bin... “House-keeping staff would have picked it up,” the gentleman next to me said... “Yes sir, they would have,” I said to the stranger with a smile, “but, I should not have spilled in the first place.” “Today is Gandhi Jayanti,” another gentleman said, a little teasingly, “We are called upon to celebrate it as ‘Cleanliness Day’” Honestly, when I bent down to clean-up, I did not...