Gerald D'Cunha

  “To attain knowledge, add things every day; to attain wisdom, remove things every day.” Lao Tzu   O ne of my friends, who has been a fine financial-consultant and quite a resourceful person, is now on a sabbatical. “What are you occupied with, these days?” I asked when I met him, yesterday… “Cutting vegetables and washing clothes,” he said without even blinking. “Seriously?” I asked him. “Yes, very seriously,” he asserted, “I am 63 now; and all my life, I hadn’t learnt how to cut vegetables or wash my own clothes… I feel very happy and relaxed as I do them now.” T here are so many things, as this friend of mine has found, you and I haven’t learnt/done, yes, ‘all our lives’. As another friend of mine, who is a bigshot in a corporate proudly claims, “I haven’t boiled even a glass or water”… and as another bigshot goes further and claims, “I haven’t learnt to turn on the gas stove.” So, what does this tell us? In life, we may be experts in some things and du...

  “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 ...

  “As A writer, the main skill you need is curiosity. As a reader, the main tool you need is open-mindedness.” Gloria D. Gonsalves   S ome days ago, my wife and I were invited to attend a dinner hosted by a dear family. We were, in all, eight families around the dining tables. The day happened to be ‘The International Women’s Day’, though the main celebration was a couple’s 47 th wedding anniversary. My wife and I had picked eight books to gift each woman who was present there… “What a thoughtful gift,” we heard some women reacting happily. Others said, “Really appreciate”, or “Thank you so much.” Will those books be read? Do people ‘still’ read these days? Leave alone other people… do I ‘still’ read books – and, for that matter, even magazines and newspapers? That night, one of the books was gifted to my own wife. It was Shobhaa De’s latest release - ‘Insatiable – My hunger for Life’.   In fact, my wife, on listening to Shobhaa on a podcast, had nudged m...

    “Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.” Theodore Roosevelt   O ne of the most endearing qualities about our former President, (Late) Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, had been his childlike approach to almost everything. Be it as our country’s ‘Missile Man’, or, be it as its most adored President, Dr. Kalam had been   the epitome of simplicity and childlike curiosity. And yes, of human spirit and perseverance, too. So, some days ago, when Dr. Swati Mohan suddenly exploded into limelight, following her feat as Mission Director of ‘Perseverance’ – NASA’s Mars Rover (2020), as an Indian, I felt proud, too. Well, that is not the only reason why I am writing this Post… To me, Dr. Swati Mohan is a global citizen – a star-struck curious-child like the one anywhere under this God’s vast sky – than being an American, Indian or even Indian-American citizen. I am more fascinated by how she got hooked on to the Stars and Planets in space. In other words, l...

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” Socrates W ell, let’s accept the fact, that none of us here, on this planet, knows everything. And, none of us is fully prepared for the onslaught of change. But, learning has, always, been the outcome of our childlike curiosity, our sense of wonder and our ability to take risks by walking the less-trodden path. This was so since the beginning of time… It’s the quest that has been driving man to learn more and more and more. Therefore, the time we now live in – time of Information Technology – is not the end of Time… It’s just one more passage of time. You and I are simply happened to be here through this passage… Yes, let’s accept the fact, that, today, the information and knowledge are available ready on the platter for each one of us… They are right there at our fingertips. If any of us is still complaining, he/she being plain lazy… It’s an excuse. We all can make the best use of the inform...

"There are no uninteresting things; only uninterested people.” G.K. Chesterson L’ le Alice would not have discovered the ‘wonderland’ and experienced all her fascinating adventures had she not been bored that day… and, had she not been curious to find how deep the rabbit hole was and what lay inside it! In Life, Alice, the Rabbit Hole and the Wonderland – yes, all these are the fine metaphors… If we are human, we shall experience boredom, time and again. And, that’s the time to go near the rabbit hole in our backyard and get curious: how deep the hole is, and what lies inside… Every habit that we have formed – and every new habit we are going to form - if we think about it, is something that we have done when we were bored in life. Just think about it! So, now, when we find ourselves locked inside our four walls, for nearly four months – and not knowing how long this situation may continue – we are left with the same choice as l’le Alice was left w...

Y esterday was a Sunday. I was surprised to read on the front-page of TOI the ‘major national-news’: ‘KARAN JOHAR FATHERS TWINS, A BOY AND A GIRL’ VIA SURROGACY’. I don’t have yesterday’s TOI, here in my office... So, what you see above may not be the exact words… but, that was the exact news according to our national ‘leading –newspaper’… the front-page news… occupying so much space! I felt sorry for the kind of curiosity we guys have fed the media with and allowed it to thrive on… That’s the kind of news that sells… brings TRPs. When I pointed it to someone, last morning, he sounded cool: “If you don’t like, it,” he quipped, “don’t read it.” The message hidden was: “But, don’t crib about it’! I am happy for Karan Johar. “Congratulations, bro!” But, I still can’t understand why TOI – the only newspaper I have been reading every morning for close to four decades – made a front-page national-news out of it! The same gentleman, who shut my mou...

Pic.: Manjeet Singh Kukreja V ikas, one of my dear old-students, is a Geek! He is so tech-savvy, that I and many of my associates (Vikas’ teachers) call him, repeatedly, to fix our computer or cell-phone related problems. We really wonder how he does it… Yes, he fixes our problems! The interesting thing to note here is this: Most of our problems are minor ones! My wife was asking me, this morning, if she could sit with Vikas, one of these days, to learn some issues pertaining to the usage of computer and cell-phone. As Vikas is very busy presently studying for his final-CA exams, I discouraged my wife from bothering him at this stage and, suggested that after his December exams, she could approach him. Then I left for my work… Here, in my early-morning batch, I found myself hammering on my young-students what I had been repeatedly doing for decades… I was, once again, reminding them about the most fundamental ingredients of true learning… “Learning is learning...

Pic.: Manjeet Singh Kukreja V ikas, one of my dear old-students, is a Geek! He is so tech-savvy, that I and many of my associates (Vikas’ teachers) call him, repeatedly, to fix our computer or cell-phone related problems. We really wonder how he does it… Yes, he fixes our problems! The interesting thing to note here is this: Most of our problems are minor ones! My wife was asking me, this morning, if she could sit with Vikas, one of these days, to learn some issues pertaining to the usage of computer and cell-phone. As Vikas is very busy presently studying for his final-CA exams, I discouraged my wife from bothering him at this stage and, suggested that after his December exams, she could approach him. Then I left for my work… Here, in my early-morning batch, I found myself hammering on my young-students what I had been repeatedly doing for decades… I was, once again, reminding them about the most fundamental ingredients of true learning… “Learning is learnin...

  “There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child… There are seven million.” ― Walt Streightiff Of late, I find myself reminding my young-students about the three pillars of learning: Curiosity, Trust and Risk. Curiosity is the most important pillar… the corner-stone. Every piece of learning starts from this… for every one of us… and, it starts when we are little babies and lasts a lifetime… Perhaps, that’s why it is called the ‘childlike curiosity’… If we are eager to learn, all our lives, we are expected   to be little children… We are expected to be struck with wonder… The sense of wonder… Lee Ann Womack sings in her beautiful song- ‘I Hope You Dance’: “I hope you never lose your sense of wonder… I hope you still feel small standing beside the ocean…” Imagine, learning without this childlike curiosity… this sense of wonder. Imagine gazing at a star-studded nigh...