Gerald D'Cunha

  “There are some of your graces which would never be discovered if it were not for your trials.” C. H. Spurgeon   T o survive calamities beyond human control, it takes God’s grace – His mercy.     What else can we call it? Luck? Co-incidence? Whatever that is… Once we survive, Life still goes on, right? So, what does it take to make Life worthy of that Grace, Mercy, Luck, Coincidence, whatever that is? On this Easter morning, I came across the story of Kechi Okwuchi. At 16, she was a school student in Nigeria. On 10 th   December, 2005, she and 60 of her schoolmates were on their way home for Christmas. The Sololiso Airlines Flight-1145 had 109 passengers including five crew members, Kechi and her 60 schoolmates. Due to a terrible turbulence, the plane crashed while landing. Only two passengers survived… Kechi was one of them! Kechi, in a state of coma, was airlifted, for immediate medical attention, to a hospital in Johannesburg, South Afric...

  “Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” Carl Sagan   A while ago, I was talking to a friend of mine from Kerala. The topic of discussion was, how, through tough times, some survive, while some don’t. He gave me an example of what he had just witnessed around him. Apparently, one of his elderly aunts, who was fair and beautiful, suddenly seemed a lot anxious to notice some dark patches on her face. When she went to see her doctor, he prescribed some cream so to do away with those dark patches from her fair face. But, then, Covid struck her the very next day, and within the following two days, she was gone! Meanwhile, in the same household, a cat had given birth to four beautiful kittens. As soon as the babies were born, some dogs attacked the mother cat, and the babies were left orphaned, all of a sudden. There was fear of attacks from not only the dogs, but also from some male cats. The kittens, somehow, survived… “Now, they are young, hale and health,” s...

“Once you choose hope, anything is possible.” -       Christopher Reeve -         W e all are sailing in the same boat, now. Yes, our President, Prime Minister and Mukesh Ambani included… The Pope, The Super Powers and The Super Stars included. And, whether we sail this rough sea aboard our Titanics or village boats, the storm doesn’t ask who we are… Just as Werner Erhard said, “If you stand in the rain, you get wet, whether we understand water or not.” What ‘is’ is what ‘is’… Not what we want it to be… Not how we want it to be. That’s why, the early we learn not to argue with the reality, the peaceful our hearts will be. Byron Katie keeps reminding us, “Sweethearts, we don’t get to vote on reality.” Just as the plight in which we all – yes The Presidents, The Prime Ministers, The Bill Gates, The Jack Mas, The Ambanis and The Adanis, The Tom Hanks, Bachchans and Rajnikants, you,  ...

I f you do not know where Mangalapuram is, let me help you: it’s Mangalore, now called Mangaluru… Magala Uru , which, in Kannada means ‘Daughter’s place’. Anyway, friends from Kerala, always, called it - and they continue to call it - as ‘Mangalapuram’. We are immediate neighbours… a lot of spill-over! Mangalore is so full of Keralites… They run so many businesses - from hotels to recruitment agencies… They work in every sphere – in hospitals as doctors, nurses and technicians… in offices as mangers and clerks… in schools and colleges as students and teachers. St. Aloysius College, where I studied, had hundreds of Malayalee students and scores of teachers, both in school and college. They belonged to all communities – Hindu, Muslim and Christian. But, the amazing thing about them was: they spoke only one language – Malayalam. The language bound them so much, that their religious affiliation dissolved when it came to observing festivals like Onam, Eid and Christmas. It...

T esting times are called so, for they ‘test’ us. Why else would one call them ‘testing times’? To me, Jesus Christ was more a human than God. Yes, my Christian faith makes me believe that He was ‘Son of God’. But, then, what about you and me? Whose sons and daughters are we? So, every time I seek inspiration from Jesus Christ, my Hero, I seek it seeing Him as a real human just like you and me. Yes, He touched and healed others… walked on water… gave sight to the blind… cleansed lepers and the sinners… even brought dead men to life. But, when it came to His own life, He dreaded, lost all His courage… was left torn and tormented just as how you and I would in testing times… That’s why, from the Cross, right from the pit of His acute agony, He cried out loudly, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Come to think about it!!! Two of my most favorite hymns/songs are about surrendering to God’s will in our times of trial, and they both talk about ‘s...

“Never hate your enemies… It affects your judgment.”  ―  Mario Puzo ,  The Godfather W hen I was a little boy in my village, Cassius Clay – who later became the famous Muhammad Ali – ruled the boxing world. “I am the Greatest”. Yes, this was how he loved to thump his champion-chest. He was my dad’s favorite… My dad, you know, was a young-and-dashing man, too, at that time! Some fifteen years later, when I migrated to Mumbai, I was a young-and-dashing man, now. My dad wasn’t… Ali was a spent force, by now… Moreover, the years of head and chest punches – and the ranting and swearing - had taken a big time toll on him. He suffered from Parkinson’s  and found it difficult to speak clearly… he walked like a little baby… and, certainly, he no longer spoke like a World Heavy-weight champ of the boxing ring… We never heard him say – ‘I am the Greatest’ In fact, what we began to hear from Muhammad Ali was this: “Ali is not the ...

Pic.: Nicole Gubin M y dad was a very nice man, very loving… His boss, too! The thing that my dad’s boss – a well-educated and a pious Muslim gentleman – loved about my dad was that he was very skilled and honest. The thing that my dad’s boss hated about my dad was his excessive drinking. Drinking was my dad’s huge weakness. He would drink every day but within his limits. But, on Sundays and social occasions, it would be a complete knock-out scenario. And because of his excessive drinking on Sundays, he would, invariably, skip work on Mondays… or go late. Often, he would skip work for many days in a row… He would, also, spoil work! But, because my dad was a skilled lathe-machine worker – even more than that, because his boss was a kind soul – he managed to survive in that workshop for so long. Any other boss would have thrown my dad out, long back! Yes, like all kind souls do, my dads’ boss, too, gave my dad a long rope to hang on to. He counseled him like hi...

Pic.: Shankar R A s I approach the threshold of New Year, I, get this feeling, that I am approaching God’s altar holding an offering in my hand. And, all of a sudden, the words of Jesus Christ come back to challenge me… Yes, all afresh: “I f you are presenting your offering at the altar, and, there, remember that your brother has something against you,   leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering…” Do I have a ‘brother’ who has something against me? Do I have a ‘brother’ against whom I have something? It has been a mystery to me as to why Jesus asked me to go back and make peace with a brother who has something against me. Why didn’t He say, “If you have a brother against whom you have something”? I think it is relatively easier to go back to that brother against whom I hold a grudge. All that I need to do to go back is: realize what I am holding… have a true in...