Gerald D'Cunha

L ast week, a friend’s family had booked tickets for me and my wife for the Hindi play – ‘Javeda’ (A forbidden love story). It was at Ravindra Natya Mandir auditorium in Prabhadevi. One of the gazals in the background was ‘ Tum ko dekha toh yeh khayal aaya’ from the movie ‘Saath Saath’ (1982). As you know, Jagjit Sing and his wife Chitra Singh had sung it so soulfully, that, here in the dark, quiet auditorium, the gentle background score had held us all spell-bound… On our way back, the melody of the song kept haunting me… Gazals and good music have that power! Today, while I was watching a news report, I learnt that, Kuldeep Sing, the music composer of this beautiful gazal, was one of the PMC Bank depositors and he had parked all his money in the doomed bank. Incidentally, Kuldeep Singh had, also, composed the music for the iconic song ‘ Itni shakit hame de data’ (from the movie ‘Ankush’ (1986) … Ironically, here was he, with...

Pic.: Rohit Makhija I t is a human tendency: If my present life-situation is pleasant, I want it to last… Last long so that I can enjoy it more and more. On the other hand, if the present life-situation is unpleasant, I want it to go… pass as quickly as possible. But, Eckhart Tolle says in his acclaimed book, ‘The Power of Now’, that our present life-situation - the situation in hand – is right there before us to provide us with the experience we need the most. He says: “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.  How do you know this is the experience you need?  Because, this is the experience you are having at this moment. No matter how much I try to avoid the unpleasant experience of my present life-situation, the truth is, that, it ‘is’ there, right before me! Whether pleasant or unpleasant, when it is there, I have to accept it as a godsend… as something God wanted me to experience, r...

When I was in my ninth standard, we - my parents and we five brothers - had to leave our joint family, and settle somewhere else. I was the second child; the elder brother was still studying, and the younger ones, were too young to comprehend the impact. My mother had borrowed Rs. 500 from a kind neighbour, and rebuilt our home, from the scratch. Living with honour, with her head high, was more important for her than living in a constant hell of family discord. Those were tough times. The Bangla war was raging on the two frontiers of our nation. Millions of refugees had flooded into the Indian land, and there was a killing scarcity of food, oil and other necessities. Here, in our village, ours was a different kind of migration. We were refugees of another kind. "Will India pass this test?" ... "Will the homeless millions be able to get back on their feet?" ... "Will our family get back?" ... These were the questions that ceaselessly haunted the nation, and...