Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.:Neerja Panchal “O ne dollar and eighty-seven cents." This is how O. Henry's short story - 'THE GIFT OF MAGI' - begins. I am yet to come across a Christmas tale, as moving as this one. It's simply an ageless classic. Simply immortal! It is a story about the true spirit of gifting and sacrifice. It is about the silent strength of true love ... It is about trust, faith, simplicity and, above all, the true spirit of Christmas: the imitation of the Christ! It is, a true challenge ... for any one. Yes, whether you are a Christ's follower or not! This story can not be retold, here, the way the great author had done. Any attempt to do so - is like desecration of the Sacrament! So precious it is. Suffice this much: Only one day to go. Tomorrow would be Christmas. In a small apartment, Della counts her savings. It is one dollar and eighty-seven cents! All those pennies saved over the months, with small little sacrifices, with love, with the sole ...

If love has to be special, tomorrow – on 14 th of Feb, it has to be, first, special... today!  I do not know what a Valentine Day means! And, at 53 – and after twenty-one long years of my marriage, I am still trying to figure out what Love is! Yes, what LOVE is! My wife’s cousin Sunita and her wonderful husband, Benjamin , had got married twenty-five years ago… on -  what the whole world raves about as a -  'Valentine Day’. They celebrated their Silver Jubilee yesterday (for everyone’s convenience)… and, as I had told in one of my earlier posts, I was to raise the toast for this amazing couple.  Fr. Donald, the young and dynamic Priest, is a very close and dear relative of Sunita. Last evening, he celebrated the Mass in the serene ambience of that beautiful chapel in Andheri. Father never made us feel that it was a Mass… Instead, he made us feel that we were there to celebrate, to witness, something so special. It is only against ...