Gerald D'Cunha

  “The greatest single achievement of Nature to date   was surely the invention of the molecule DNA.” Lewis Thomas H ow big is really big? And how much is really much? The ‘bigness’ and ‘muchness’, somehow, don’t lure me anymore. But, it wasn’t so, many years ago, when success meant ‘how big’ the numbers were… How many students I had (How many branches), how much I earned, how popular and widely known I was… What I began to realize, over time, was this: If I let ‘size’ and ‘popularity’ to decide the state of my happiness, then, that very need could become a constant source of my anxiety and worry. Because, deep in in my heart, I knew, that ‘size’ and ‘popularity’ would slide… When they did, would I be prepared to ‘accept’ the reality? “What goes up comes down!” It’s not just a Law in Physics, it’s a Law in Life, too. The most beautiful pageants - ‘Miss Universe’ and ‘Miss World’ - and ‘The Strongest Man on Earth’ – haven’t they all shrunken? What about ‘The Fas...

I told this to young Suman, all over again, today: If you have a story and you are dying to tell it…  If you have a cause and you are willing to fight for it, nobody needs to teach you how to speak in public… You will sit down for hours and prepare it well, You will stand up for hours and practice it well And you will go up there and deliver it well… That’s all there to it – to the art and science of Public Speaking… Prepare it… Practice it… and Deliver it. S uman was my student some years ago. Her initial dream was to get into Chartered Accountancy. But, it did not take her long to realize that she wasn’t cut for the CA profession. So, after her graduation, she deiced to pursue a course in Fashion Designing, which, Suman tells me is her present calling in life… “Is it?” I prodded Suman, “Is Fashion Designing a real calling in your life?” Sunman said “Yes”. But, it wasn’t a resounding “YESSSS”. A couple of days ago, Suman h...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty F or some days, 18-year-old Ashwin, a student of our on-going PD course, had been persuading me to play in the class a BBC documentary-film titled ‘HIROSHIMA. “Sir, it’s a must watch,” he kept telling me, “I was moved watching it.” Last morning, I watched it on my computer, and, yes, it was, in deed, very moving. On one side, you feel angry at the blind, adamant and insensitive military chief of Japan .... Even after the dreaded Nazi force of Germany surrendered, Japan refused to... and, all calls and threats from the Allied forces, particularly, America , failed. America had entered the long-drawn Second World-War only after she was provoked by the horrible attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor . And, now, in spite of all the devastation wrought upon Japan , and even though Germany and other nations had surrendered to the Allies, Japan had remained ruthlessly adamant... So, as a last resort, America did what it did: history’s first - and pr...

 Pic.: Anima D'Cunha I am very fond of learning idioms and phrases in English. They really add spice and color to our language. Used at the right place, idioms can make one sit-up and listen as we speak! The night before last, Arvind Kejriwal had attacked the media alleging that it was being highly biased and it acted as agents of other political parties… I heard a reporter using the idiom: ‘Shoot the messenger’. Well, frankly, I did not know, till then, what the idiom meant. But, the moment I heard it, I knew what it did: In olden times, the arrogant kings used to do it… The poor messenger, who went to the King carrying the bad news, rarely returned! So, the reporter was telling us, that, the media - the peoples’ messenger - who persistently asked the AAP spokespersons some uncomfortable questions and cited to them what the ‘aam admi’ on the streets really felt about the high drama on the Delhi streets because of the   reckles...

They are in 12th standard. They have been studying under me, in the same batch, for almost a year. I will rename them, for the purpose of this post - Mitesh and Rohit. I had taught Mitesh's dad more than twenty years ago. Those days, I had been struggling, to rise from the ashes of my just collapsed venture. I had learnt from my mistakes and I was determined to make a come back. I had come from my village, and there was no one here, in Mumbai, to support me financially. It was tough; but, the desire and resolve to rise from the ashes was so strong that I had no room in my mind to think otherwise. Mitesh's father, was studying under me, then, for his final year. They were three brothers. Their father had set up a textile business from the scratch, and over the years bought some properties. But, their bad phase was on when I was teaching Mitesh's dad. It took just a couple of years for them to fold up their business, sell their properties, one by one. In the years that follow...