Gerald D'Cunha

A few minutes ago, I saw on FB the iconic scene from the Hindi movie, ‘Deewar’, often referred as ‘the boot polish scene’… or, ‘Main-pheke-hue-paise-nahin-uthata’ scene… For those who are clueless about it, here is the narration… Vijay (Master Alankar playing child Amitabh) is a boot-polish boy. The harsh circumstances have filled him with not only anger but also a great amount of self-belief and pride… Though we know it is of misplaced kind, we empathize with this kid… After all, Life and God had not been fair to him, right? So, he is angry, he is a rebel and wants to recover his lost dignity… his mother’s particularly… In the process, he has refused to go to school or temple… He thinks he is the master of his fate and captain of his soul… So, in this iconic scene, the impeccably-dressed mafia-chief (Iftekhar) with his associate (Sudhir) land up at the boot-polish stand for their shoes to be polished… When little Vijay has done with Chief’s associate, the latter ...

Pic.: Indu Varier A t seven in the morning, today, my wife received a call from Anita, her cousin. “Rebecca expired at night,” was the sad news. “Oh, not again!” was my wife’s immediate response. Rebecca got married to Anil, a cousin of my wife, some twenty-five years ago. They were madly in love with each other and got married at a very young age against the wishes of their respective families… Soon, their two daughters – Aleen and  Ayril – were born… Anil, an enterprising young-man, faced a business setback from which, he couldn’t somehow recover. They had to sell their house to pay off their creditors, and ever since then, they have been moving from one rented place to another… Seven years ago, Anil died of a massive heart-attack He was 41. Rebecca was left shattered… She did not have a job… Aleen, the elder daughter, had just started her first-year engineering… Ayril had entered her ninth standard… “You need to cry… You need to grieve,” I reme...

Pic.: Elaine Pereira I knew a man who had made some easy-money. He suffered from an acute inferiority complex, which he tried to cover-up by going overboard trying to please and impress people around him, particularly, the ones who, he thought, came from educated, well-off and respected families. He had come from obscure background with no education or even ethics... made some big-money taking short-cuts, bought many properties including many fine cars... But, at the end of the day, it did not make him feel, inside, good at all... What he, really craved for was respect from people around him, who he thought were ‘good’ people... But, what he failed to realize was, that he could not win their trust through the route he had chosen to – by showing off his wealth and misplaced sophistication. I remember him taking some of us to his residence to show his 60”-TV when Plasma TV had just come in... showing us, with pride, the Ganesh idol made of pure gold... talking about ...

Pic.: Aparna Khanolkar Sheth F ifty-five-year-old Prakash was working as a mali in this Society, where I have my classes. Being a very honest and committed worker, he was liked and helped by most of our members. He would begin his day early, before 6, by washing many cars and two-wheelers; during the lunch-hours, he would wash the clothes of a bed-ridden patient... and, after the duty-hours, he would, also, do some additional errands for some of our members... and, this way, he was able to educate two daughters and one son. All his children have just been employed, here and there. Some months ago, Prakash was returning from his native place, where he had gone to visit his elderly mother. Just a few kilometers from his house, here in Mumbai, the vehicle he was coming by rammed into a truck and Prakash was taken to the hospital in an unconscious state, where he remained in ICU for weeks. On hearing about her son’s accident, back in village, his mother died in ...

Pic. : Chetna Shetty I n the ICU waiting-room at Jaslok, a person - who has been waiting there for over ten days, for his critically-ill wife to recover from brain tumor – has placed at least six inspirational or spiritual books. One of them is ‘Daily Teachings’ by Rhonda Byren, the author of the famous DVD film, and the book, ‘The Secret’. When my eyes fell on this book, for the first time, I couldn't resist. He immediately handed the book to me and said, “This is for sharing.” I was touched. Ever since that moment, that book has been there in the waiting room in circulation... People just pick it up, read a few short-passages contained in the book (There are 366 short inspirational-passages)... and, they go back and place the book on his seat... I do the same thing... Go, pick it up... read a few of those passages... feel the silence... and, then, go and keep the book back... This hard-bound book is costing Rs.499/-... And, believe me, nobody dares to ro...

Pic.: Neerja Panchal At 7.45, last morning, I saw Mr. Dighe* after almost two months. “Good morning sir,” I greeted him, spontaneously, “where is the little-man?” The little-man was Mr. Dighe’s two-year-old grand-son. Every morning, as I would come to open my office, it used to be a happy sight to see the grandpa returning after the daily morning-round with the little-one. I would invariably spend a couple of minutes chit-chatting with them. Mr. Dighe, a retired government employee, is one of the very warm and positive souls I have known in my life. Clean-hearted people leave you charged for the day… Mr. Dighe would do exactly the same for me… So, when I met Mr. Dighe alone and asked him, spontaneously, about the little-fellow, I realized that I hadn’t seen them for a long time! Mr. Dighe spent the next ten minutes to tell me the reason: His wife, an equally affectionate retired lady, had been diagnosed with cancer of the kidney…, and, the res...

  “We all make mistakes.” Well, it seems, this statement is just there in our vocabulary as a mere cliché! Yes, we all know… that we all make mistakes. But, in daily life, we would like to believe so only when we commit our own mistakes and want others to be patient, tolerant and kind to us! And, let others make their mistakes! We are right there, right away, with all our acidic responses! At that time, we coolly forget the famous quote – “We all make mistakes”… and, we assume that it is our moral and spiritual duty to correct the ‘sinner’ immediately… So, there we are: commenting, criticizing and condemning him all in public glare… all in the dubious pretext of ‘helping’ or ‘correcting’ him! Now, this, certainly, IS the mistake: forgetting that others, too, are humans like us, that they make their mistakes just as we do ours… that though they need to be helped, guided and corrected as we too need to be… we should first help them by saving th...