Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Nicole Gubin I went off to sleep before 11, last night. I was blissfully undisturbed when crackers thundered all around at midnight. I knew whether the New Year, 2016, would be happy one or not was left to me… and not to my destiny. So, I chose to go off to sleep, as usual, with a simple prayer in my heart: “Guard me O Lord through this night… Thank-you for being kind, this long.” New-year messages were getting piled up quietly on my phone and PC… But, no one woke me up from my sleep, last night, to wish me a happy New Year. But, a very elderly gentleman did. Mr. Harwadekar is in his late eighties. He lives in the same building where I do. A well-read and informed person that he is, he has been a very proactive and zestful soul, too. He loves to dress up smartly and surround himself with good company. However, of late, his health has let him down… movements being restricted, considerably. While going to sleep, I had thought of this wonderful ...

Pic.: Manoj Nair     “Your blessings lay beyond your fear.”   ―   Shannon L. Alder “M ay God bless you.” “Stay blessed.” “Count your blessings.” “Feel blessed.” Honestly, I do not use any of these phrases casually. For, I know how much power they come packed with! This Post is inspired by some very mundane incidents of my life… But, none of them have passed by without making me strikingly aware of how blessed my life could be! J ust ten minutes ago, this happened. I call him Sharmaji,. He must be in his fifties. I have been watching him, for more than two decades, here, in this colony, where I work from. He comes twice every day on his bicycle to deliver fresh buffalo-milk to his loyal customers. Many years ago, I had the ‘fortune’ of teaching his son and daughter, both. Now, I said ‘fortune’… and I know why I said it. Because, it was his dream to provide them good education and see them placed well in life. The son,...

Our work is not our Life. It is only a segment… maybe, a greater segment… but, not the entire life. Work should not be our entire life… It should not be our ‘identity’… It should not be the sole source of our security, our well-being, our ‘everything’! And, yet, for some of us, it is so… and, our lives revolve around our work… so much so, without it, life is all a big blank! Shivang*, a 26-year-old young-man, had come to see me, today. For a while, I couldn’t recognize him – he had put on a lot of weight; there seemed to be something wrong with his left eye… And, till he introduced himself to me, I was unable to recognize that he was my student in his TY B’Com! Shivang hailed from a very humble and hard-working family. His parents had tough time to educate him and his sister. Father had suffered some business losses and was in debt and mother did some odd jobs to keep the kitchen fire burning. Both, the sister and brother gave tuitions...