Gerald D'Cunha

“Start by doing what is necessary;  t hen do what is possible; and, suddenly, you’ll be doing what’s is impossible.” Francis of Assisi I n the beginning, there was only one phrase: ‘Common Sense’. Then, someone with ‘extra sense’ said, ‘Let there be IQ’.   Not pleased, another soul, with even more sense, said, ‘Let there be EQ’. No, even that was not impressive enough. Thus, came a soul with extra-ordinary sense and said, ‘Let there be ‘SQ’. Stupid! What about ‘AQ’? So, the Guru of Gurus said, let there be ‘AQ’! Well, for those like me, who have been long living under the rock, here are the full forms: IQ = Intelligence Quotient. EQ = Emotional Quotient. SQ = Spiritual Quotients (My wife argues, that it is ‘Social Quotient’). AQ = Adversity Quotient. The day we learnt about the sad and shocking death of Sushant Singh Rajput, we also learnt about – thanks to WhatsApp University – the ‘Theories of Intelligence’. WhatsApp professors claimed...

S ome days ago, a woman called me. “Sir, I have heard about your P.D. programme during the summer. I have an 8-year-old daughter. As her school system is June to June, she will not be able to attend your timings. She is a very intelligent and confident girl… Very expressive and sensitive, too. Is there something you can do for her?” “Ma’am, she is just 8, and has in her everything a parent desires to see in a child,” I said, “Don’t worry about our P.D. programme. You can always enroll her in the future.” “But, sir, her school schedule will never suit your summer programme,” the mother insisted, “I just want her to ‘learn something good’ from your place.” The same day, the mother signed up for her little one. And, we took off… Let me tell you this: This kid is a whiz kid… A joy to behold… a pride to associate with! O ne of the reasons why I do what I do is: I get tremendous amount of fulfillment from the thought, that I am a part of someone els...

Pic .: Sana Shetty I f we look back and reflect on what Hitler did – including the Holocaust and the Second World-War – it simply boils down to that old Sanskrit wisdom , ‘Vinaash Kaale, Vipreet Buddhi’ …It means: when one’s end is nearing, he acts without his intelligence. In the same Second World-War, look at what Japan did. It did not surrender even after Germany and others did. It continued to unleash havoc even though it knew what was in store for it. And, the wickedest – and the dumbest - act it did was to attack Pearl Harbor. Till then, America was not dragged into the War. Now, this one act of madness on part of Japan was enough to awaken the sleeping giant… and, you know what happened after that! Every dark act in human history is carried out by man in his dark hour – at a time when he had acted against his intelligence… The most negative and the wickedest acts are the result of this… Man going against his intelligence… Saddam Hussein did t...

Pic.: Pradeep Nanda “If Jesus were here today, he wouldn't be riding around on a donkey. He'd be taking a plane, he'd be using the media.” Joel Osteen T oday, I was teaching my twelfth-standard students, in my early morning batch (HSC Board). Unlike the ISC-Board students, the HSC-Board students are not allowed to use calculators. So, today’s kids you see… They are so used to machines and gadgets for quick results; their mind is simply not willing to buy the idea that they have to use it… to become sharp and smart. When I was like them, calculators were seen as a luxury. I rarely saw anyone using them even in offices, leave alone in schools and colleges. So, we had to use our mind… think in order to add, subtract, multiply and divide. For a Commerce student, it was deemed to be a basic skill which had to be honed. Our teachers taught us various simple and short-cut methods to do complicated arithmetic. For example, if we had to div...