Gerald D'Cunha

A couple of weeks ago, during the training programme in a Mumbai college, a young girl asked me this question: “Sir, what is more important – the journey or the destination?” “Journey,” I replied without even blinking! There was a time – perhaps when I was this girl’s age – when I would believe, that the destination was ultimate. In fact, my approach was to reach there at ‘any cost’… Did you hear that? I said, ‘at any cost’! As the years passed by, I could see the self-destruction wrought upon me by my own attitude - ‘Do-or-die’, ‘It’s-now-or-never’. Yes, I could see, that ‘at any cost’ was an irresponsible and immature statement. It brought about a huge load of avoidable stress – I began to let loose my goals. Even though I never did anything without clear goals, I did not want to achieve my goals ‘at any cost’… It was not worth the cost, Sir! My goals - success yardsticks and benchmarks – are not everything in life. It’s okay if I haven’...

A s a student, both in school and college, I was always scared of my exams. Obviously, I did badly in all my exams. Somewhere in my S.Y. B.Com, I had decided to enjoy studying and leave my exams alone… I wasn’t keen on preparing for exams… I was only keen – in fact, obsessed – to ‘discover’ more and more and more! Planning for exams, trying to excel in them, needs the right ‘exam-cracking’ mindset. I did not possess one. I just wanted to ‘express’ myself well… and, teaching became the medium… and, the subjects I taught just happened to be  there… So, for nearly four decades of my teaching, I have never ever asked a single student of mine, “How much did you score in your exams?” I don’t even keep a track of their exam dates… I don’t hold the typical ‘Tests’ and ‘Test series’… I do not like to correct papers and declare marks… All these are assumed to be so essential and typical of all ‘coaching’ system… May be… But, I tell my students, and I stick to...