Gerald D'Cunha

  “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” Mark Twain   A fter concluding my regular Accountancy class (Class 12) at 5.30, last evening, I was to hurry up to take a session on ‘Personality Development’ for the underprivileged students in a nearby slum area (Organized by an NGO). Some 20-30 kids were expected to be there. The 17-year-old Arfaat had attended my regular Accountancy class, and he was to accompany me for the PD session, too. As it was pouring heavily, I requested Arfaat to get an autorickshaw to my classes. In a few minutes, Arfaat returned, drenched fully despite a wind sheeter he wore… “Where is the auto?” I asked him. “Sir, it is there,” he pointed to the auto waiting a few meters away from my classes. “Ask him to come in,” I said to Arfaat… Arfaat, my gentle-natured student, went back to the auto and conveyed my request… Through the heavy down pour, I could see the a...

“As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.” Mary Anne Radmacher A fter her fall in mid-2021, my Mom’s health began to sink. A year ago, just after her 87 th birthday, we thought, she wouldn’t make it. That was the time, I started putting together a book about her. I did not have to think hard for the title… I named the book – ‘The Good Shepherd & Her Lost Sheep’. In one of His parables, Jesus tells about a shepherd. This shepherd has hundred sheep and loses one of them... He leaves all the ninety-nine and goes looking for the one which is lost… When he finds the lost sheep, he rejoices, crying – ‘I found my lost sheep’… Our Mom had five sons, and each one of them was ‘lost’ at one time or the other, and in one way or the other. Our Mom was our good shepherd… She had to go looking for each of her ‘lost sheep’… and, like the good shepherd in Jesus’ parable, our Mom’s joy knew no bounds! In the first section of this book, I shared many stories...

Pic.: Sherry Haridas “Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear…  and a fool from any direction.” - Pro Rodeao.com Sports League I   was eating my dinner last night. I had a very hectic day… I was very tired. So, as I was having my dinner, my cell-phone rang… It was someone I knew very well. Instinctively, I picked the phone. “Is it such an important call? Can’t you get back to him after the dinner?” my wife reminded me… I took her advice for granted and began to talk to the man on the other end… That's my first mistake... The man had a certain complaint (my social work). Well, now that I had picked his call… so, I might as well satisfy him, I thought…. That’s was my second mistake… I kept explaining and reasoning out with this man… and he was taking me round and round and round. I was heading nowhere… I explained to him that I was having my dinner… I had just come home after a ...