Gerald D'Cunha

  “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain. But, all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” Andy Rooney   T wo days ago, my wife and I were watching the latest NETFLIX series ‘Hello Bachhon’. It’s the story of widely popular (and successful) teacher Alakh Pandey... how he started teaching Physics through YouTube and, eventually, became a sensation, scaling it up – and up – and up... into brand ‘Physics Wallah’. Yes, like every success story of an underdog, we found it very inspiring... Alakh Pandey Sir had a hard time while doing his studies. He genuinely wanted to help students who couldn’t afford to pay high coaching fees for competitive exams. So, from the depth of that sincere intent, his pursuit to reach a wider audience kept growing, and kept even growing... There is this disturbing scene in the last episode... A young IIT aspirant, under tremendous pressure and frustration, ends up taking an unthinkable step... Well, while wat...

  “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” John Wooden, basketball player and coach   I just returned from my younger brother Vivek’s house. His daughter Riya’s Class-12 Board-exams have started. She has taken Science. Like all her counterparts, Riya, too, knows the importance of ‘percentage’… That, if she doesn’t score ‘high’, she will not be able to get into what she wants to. She knows, that she has to work hard – burn the candle from both ends… But, I know my brother Vivek and his wife, Hemangi… They are neither helicopter parents, nor marks-maniacs . “Science was your choice… So, make the most of that choice.” … This is what the prevailing philosophy at home is. Thus, Riya is reasonably good… reasonably motivated… reasonably tensed. Not ‘High on anything’… Not at all. Today, when I went into her little gupha – her study room that is – I saw her walls packed with photos, paper-cuttings, timetables, reminders, quotes, pictures of her hero...

  “Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp; but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” Nathaniel Hawthorne   M any years ago, when I first heard the statement, “Happiness cannot be a goal,” I remember asking - “Why not?” After all, happiness is what we all are longing for… striving for, right? Then, what is the difficulty in making it our goal? Frankly, ‘Happiness’ falls in the long list of ‘little things’ – just some simple, random, unplanned things in our daily lives. The list of our ‘big things’ is always short… It is complicated, concrete and planned. Little things do not call for strenuous effort… We do not have to strive for them. They are there… We just need to see them, embrace them. On the other hand, the ‘big things’… yes, the more we pursue them, the more they elude us… like the opening quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp;...

  “Go into the world and do well. But, more importantly, go into the world and do good.” Minor Myers   L ast night, my wife and I had been for a dinner at one of our friends’ place. They had invited one more family, our common friends. Both these families had two young children each, who were preparing for their Board/college exams. While leaving our friends’ place late at night, I found myself wishing each of these young kids – “Best wishes… Do well.” And, that’s how I find myself wishing almost every young kid - hundreds and hundreds of them - who go into the world… Yes, I find myself sending them off, saying – “Do well.” Rarely, I find myself telling them – “Do good.” Well, you may ask me this: “When a young one does well in life, won’t he/she do good, too?” “So and so is doing very well.” Many of us, often, use this line loosely. Yes, what we are saying here is, that so and so is doing very well in his career, profession… He is doing very well financially… ...

                            Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open. - John Barrymor There is this widely-popular English-expression – ‘Pursuit of Happiness’. Its popularity comes from the plain fact that, in life, we all are in a constant search – a look out – for happiness. And, because happiness constantly eludes us, fools us, frustrates us – this pursuit shall ever remain just that – a pursuit! Though happiness is precisely what we all are working for, planning for, saving for, praying for… yes, though happiness is the ultimate objective behind our every thought and action, to achieve it – to find it – we precisely need to do just the opposite: stop looking for it through the main-doors of our hearts… Hello, your happiness has already sneaked it through the back-door… And, yes, you did not know you had left th...