Gerald D'Cunha

  "I dream my painting and I paint my dream." Vincent Willem van Gogh   C larity is a powerful aide in life. A confused mind only takes us in circles… It makes life a clutter. I am a dreamer… But, I do not wish to get trapped when I dream. As Wilfred Peterson says, I like to see big, and keep it simple. One of the challenging things for every dreamer is not to lose his soul under the weight of his dreams. Somewhere, along his path, man, often, compromises – forgets the very reason why he dreamt so passionately… Therefore, the wise counsel: “Keep it simple, Keep it honest, Keep it you.” Let me read it backward… Most of us dream with our pure hearts and   fine intentions. We are honest to the core. But, along our paths, we tend to get entangled and lose sight of our basic objective. Yes, we lose it in the complex web of confusion… Never to lose your soul… Never, ever. That’s what ‘Keep it you’ means… What we think, we create; what we feel, we attract; what w...

  “In the age of distraction, single-tasking is a superpower.” Greg McKeown   I don’t think, we can accomplish any worthwhile goal in Life, if we lack clarity and focus. And, we cannot expect clarity and focus to be our allies when we are constantly distracted by a hundred ‘useless’ things… ‘Useless things’ are those things which are neither urgent nor important. The more we focus on such things now, the more blurred gets our vision… When we focus on things which are not related to our goals, we are bound to be swayed away from our goals… In Life, our energies, always, flow where our attention goes… What we focus on in Life, it grows… I have been teaching hundreds of young kids for decades. I have noticed this: The bigger their schools and households, sorry to say this, the bigger their distractions… Well, I am aware, that we cannot paint everyone with the same brush… But, then, when these kids are given almost everything at their beck and call, why would they s...

Pic.: Rajiv Sharma 11 -year-old Yommie began to attend our summer PD-course when he was seven. So, this time was his fifth summer-course with us! I love (?) his energy and mischief... He is a real sport. Rather, brat! One of the mischiefs, Yommie would frequently resort to, during our PD sessions for the little-ones, was his mimicry. The moment I went out of the class, he would mount on the podium and start entertaining his friends by mimicking me... Well, he had been watching me in action for five long seasons... Mimicry, thus, had to be top-class! Once he sensed that even I started enjoying his ape-act, he kept repeating it very regularly. At times, I would get annoyed and sternly send his little-tail in, screaming at him: “Enough!” Then, one day, fed up with his mischief, I decided to put an end to this monkey menace in my class. “Yommie, I am going to punish you,” I howled, “you will have to mimic me in front of a large audience on the certification d...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty P resently, our Public-Speaking course is underway. The young-ones, who are clear as to why they need to speak well in public, invariably, do well in the course... They become effective speakers. On the other hand, those who aren't clear, they don’t. So, the key, always, is to help them identify the reason why they want to become good public-speakers... In other words, if they know what they would do with their public-speaking skills, they would, invariably, become great speakers... The question, therefore, is not whether you will become a great speaker... The question is: What you will do, once you become a great speaker? O nce, a farmer had a dog. All through the day, the only thing this dog did, was: sit on the roadside waiting for the vehicles to come by. The moment a vehicle came by, he would run behind it, howling crazily, as if he was on a do-or-die mission of grabbing the vehicle! This would go on, all day long, day after day.....

 “One ship drives east and other drives west  by the same winds that blow. It's the set of the sails and not the gales  that determines the way they go.” - Ella Wheeler Wilcox Pic.: Sherry Haridas I magine, when you wake up in the morning, you have no idea about what you have to do through the day... Imagine, this happens every day... You have no plan for the day... for the week... for the month... for the year... for your life! Last night, another young-man - whose twelfth-standard exams will be over in a few days - was confessing with me that his self-confidence has been very low, lately. He told me that it  wasn't  so for him, some two years ago, when he had chosen to do science after passing his tenth-standard exams. He wanted to become a doctor. But, as college life started, he found himself getting drifted from his original goal. The boy  wasn't  prepared for the kind of grueling work-discipli...

Last night, I couldn’t watch the full match – India V Sri Lanka finals in West Indies. India had to score 202; and, though it was a small score from Sri Lanka, the pitch and the tight bowling from Lankan bowlers had made the task tough for India. I watched the first ten overs, and, then, went off to sleep. What had happened finally, I learnt through my FB friends, this morning… when everyone was showering praises upon praises on M.S. Dhoni. Yes, that’s the time, I got curious and checked on YouTube as to what had really happened. My admiration for Dhoni grew  hundred notches higher, instantly! What a man… What a player… What a captain… What poise… What clarity… What a die-hard determination! How does this man maintain his cool, his clarity? How does he manage to hold his nerves when everything and anyone around him - the entire world, in deed – is on fire, unable to even breath, see or think? I am really amazed, awe-struck! Not...