Gerald D'Cunha

  “We are very good lawyers for our own mistakes, but very good judges for mistakes of others.” Anonymous     S ome days ago, while I was in my hometown, one of our relatives sent a personal WhatsApp message to me. The message contained only six simple words. Incidentally, when the message arrived, there were six of us in the room. When I first read the message, I derived a certain meaning out of it. I read it again and derived a different meaning… I read it a couple of times more, and, each time, the meaning I was deriving kept changing. I was curious, if others around me would get a similar experience… Every one’s interpretation was different, every time they read it! I thought in my mind, that the proverbial elephant had come to our room… and we were the six blind men trying to touch a part of the elephant and arrive at our own conclusions: Elephant was like a rope… Like a wall… Like a tree-trunk… Like a fan and so on. There had to be a wise man to tell the...

  “Everyone loves a conspiracy.” Unknown   “D on’t’ read too much into it,” a dear friend of mine, often, cautions me, “you’ll go crazy!” If someone has not responded to your messages or greetings, according to my friend, it only means this: He has not responded, yet! The human mind is so fickle, that it swiftly goes into a victim mode and weaves stories… It sees red… It goes into the motive and interprets: “He doesn’t care”…”He doesn’t deserve”… “He thinks too much of himself”… “He does it deliberately and does it always”… “I will never again wish him, greet him, say ‘Hello’ to him”… etc., etc. “You will go crazy!” I remember my friend’s caution. People have their own reasons for doing what they do or don’ t do. For example: some of my students just don’t bother to acknowledge my messages or call back. They will message me or call me only when they want. And, I have tried to inculcate in them the value of acknowledging a teacher’s messages or calls. But, then, i...

Pic.: Rajiv Sharma “Remember, this meeting never took place.”… “Remember, this conversation never took place.” W henever I have come across this movie dialogue, I have immensely liked it. The person saying this wants to convey: Look, it is private… only between you and me. No one else should come to know about it. When I think of this dialogue, I feel very inspired, too. The reason for that is: It is the fear of what people will think… and what might be its consequences… yes, that makes us tensed, all the time. For example, if someone says something nasty about me, in public, I might feel offended or angry. I might even react to it, immediately. If the same thing is said in private, when there is nobody around, I might take it a lot differently… So, it is clear from this, that the value we have attached to other people’s opinion… yes, it makes all the difference. Is it possible for us to separate what someone says ...

Our thoughts rule our minds as long as we allow them to… as long as we want them to. Yes, as long as we hold them in our minds! If we believe a thought to be true, it lives there in our minds. Else, it has no business to be there! The thoughts have never tortured any of us… It is our interpretation of thoughts - the story we tell in our minds – that brings about the torture, the constant suffering inside. So, someone says something to us… Our mind immediately starts processing those words… interpret them, attach meaning to them, read motives behind them… and, thereby, weave a dramatic story out of them – Yes, just out of someone’s words! Now, this story – this belief – gives life and power to the words, which have, by now, become robust thoughts… In the same way, someone behaves before us, even without words… and, our minds are already on job – analyzing, interpreting and concluding! Byron Katie fondly calls this fa...

My friend, Dr. Deepak, used to always tell this story to our young ones… especially on the Certification day, as his parting message. Today, I remembered him, and his story, with a lot of freshness. Once, in a town, all the frogs decided to hold a competition among them. The challenge: to see who would be able to climb the tallest tower in the town! When the day of the competition arrived, the people from the town came to the spot to witness the great spectacle. When they saw the tiny creatures – the feeble-looking frogs – near the town’s gigantic tower, all set to climb, they all became cynical and cried, “Silly fools! They can’t!”   And, gun-shot went up in the air. The race began… As the frogs tried desperately to climb, and fast, the spectators began to scream hysterically, “You fool, you can’t,”… “Give up, you silly creatures… Go home!” When the little frogs heard the cry of the mob around, they got discouraged and di...

"Do you remember this point...? I have explained it in the class many times." Sameer's face drew a blank when I asked him that question. His two friends looked towards him and began to laugh, poking fun at his ignorance. Sameer retaliated with some nasty comments... and some girls started giggling loudly... Looking at the funny girls, half-a-dozen boys got restless... And, while all this was unfolding in my class like a fast-paced movie, I lost my head completely. Then, for the next fifteen minutes, I went on a rampage - 'the emotional atyachar'. I did it with such strong words and with such intense feelings... that the mutiny had to die down. By the time it did, it, almost, killed me. I was left with no energy... but, with a hell lot of turmoil within. That was at 11.30 in the morning, while teaching the 12th standard students. At 2.00 in the afternoon, I was teaching the T.Y. B.Com students. The class was packed, and I was in full flow. "Do you remember thi...

Some years ago, I had gone to meet a Builder. I had booked a flat in one of his projects, when the property prices were at their peak. When the market crashed, the Builder began to delay the work, and the buyers began to delay the payment of instalments. In my case, due to other problems involved, I stopped making the payments completely, even though the Builder kept charging interest. I had decided to get out of the project, either by selling the unfinished unit, or by surrendering it back to the Builder. But, because of the slump, none of these was happening. In the mean time, the bill amount kept mounting. So, against this back drop, one morning, I took my younger brother and went to see this Builder. My objective was to negotiate with him, and find a win-win solution. However, in the course of our discussion, the Builder went on the offensive. With his loud voice, he began to 'insult' and 'accuse' me in front of my brother and some other customers. I lost my cool, a...