Gerald D'Cunha

  “That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.” Etty Hellesum   T oday is 7 th Jan., exactly a week since the advent of new year 2026. In the evening, I received this message from my dear, old student, Rekha: “Good evening Sir, wishing you joy, prosperity and endless blessings in 2026. A Happy New Year to you and your family.” She added, “Sorry for the delayed response, Sir. Your new-year message, somehow, got lost in the mountain of messages!” I loved that imagery – ‘lost in the mountain of messages’... My reply went to Rekha, instantly: “HaHa... ‘Lost in the mountain of messages!’ Rekha, I found the title for my next Blog.” “All the best for your next Blog, Sir,” Rekha cheered. Rekha and Srikar were my students when they were doing their TY BCom. They were in love... Soon after graduating, they got married... and, they never forgot to invite me for their wedding reception... A few years later, their little girl Sharika was born, ...

“We’ve all got the light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” Sirius Black in Harry Potter    N o. Shyness doesn’t go. It’s something beautiful about you… Your essence, your core. For God’s sake, recognize it, accept it, respect it, and celebrate it… Yes, I tell this to hundreds of worried parents. “Has your own shyness gone?” I, often, ask them. “Had you been to a psychologist or a Personality Development centre to root it out?” When you try to root out your shyness, you root out your essence, your core… What you leave behind is a distorted you, not the authentic you. Well, all this may sound very fictional for the uninitiated. A couple of days ago, a young, married woman had come to see me. She wanted to be a corporate trainer on ‘wellness’. “I want to learn voice modulation and right diction,” she kept insisting… “You don’t need them, madam,” I kept reminding her, “What you need is the belief in you...

  “The conflict between the need to belong to a group and the need to be seen as unique and individual are the dominant struggle of adolescence.” Jeanne Eliam   W henever someone tells me, that the struggle and the challenges, which today’s adolescents have to face, are far graver than the ones faced by the earlier generations – yes, whenever someone tells me that, I reflect on my own adolescence and ask: Did I find my own struggles and challenges (of adolescence) less daunting than my son found his? The delicate, turbulent transition between puberty and adulthood is adolescence. Roughly, it’s the phase of a teenager’s life. Even though, for some, it may start early and last longer, no man or woman can escape this transition… I went though mine; my parents and forefathers went through theirs… and, our children and their children will have to go through theirs… Yes, some describe it as the ‘terrible time’… Lonely time… Confusing time… Time of ‘shutting the door’… ...

  “The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; and, the willingness to learn is a choice.” Brian Herbert   “I am like this only”… Well, we all are ‘like this onlys’… There is a deep-rooted nature in all of us. You may be a born-extrovert, while I may be a born-introvert. So, this innate nature, I believe, is what makes us say - ‘I am like this only’… Shy people, I know, will, always, remain shy. Their basic nature gets formed in their mothers’ wombs. So, when they realize what they are born with, it becomes easier for them to work around it… I said, ‘to work around it’… I never said, ‘to do away with it.’ For, I firmly believe, that, while the social skills can be learnt and acquired, they can’t be replaced by completely uprooting our innate nature… Susan Cain describes this inner plight of my type of shy souls like this: “Introverts may have (acquired) strong social skills and (learnt) to enjoy parties and business meetings; but, after...

  “How many likes until you love yourself?” Alvesha Chauhan   I turned 65 on July 24. For a month before that, a group of my well-wishers were passionately coaxing me to start my own YouTube channel. They were strongly convinced, that I could reach out to a larger audience, and make a greater imapct… But, I wasn’t convinced, at all… So, their hope, that I would launch my own YouTube channel on my latest birthday was met with my lack of interest in it, and I ended up disappointing my genuine well-wishers… It was ironical, that when I was seriously contemplating on quitting a large-scale visibility – be it on any social media platform – I was being passionately coaxed by some of my well-wishers to do exactly the opposite. They kept saying: “There is so much you can do… There are so many people out there who you can reach out to… We will help you to expand… etc., etc.” But, I did not want to ‘expand’ outside… I wanted to expand inside! It’s nearly fifteen years si...

“The things that make me different are the things that make me.” – Winnie The Pooh G od hasn’t made all five fingers alike… Nor has He made me and my four brothers, alike. We five are as different as our own five fingers. Some of us, including me, are very shy – very introvert. Maybe, it’s come from our mom’s genes. And, some of us are open - very extrovert. Yes, maybe, it’s come from our dad’s genes… Why five children of the same parents are as different as cheese and chalk, yes, it shall, always, remain a mystery to me! I remember my childhood. I, always, hid myself from the world… I did not take part in any social events like singing, dancing, acting, public-speaking etc. As I turned a teenager, I, also, turned more and more inward into my own shell… “The whole world is watching me… and judging me”… Yes, this was how my mind operated. Those thoughts – of self-doubts - were the seeds of my lack of self-confidence. But, along this ...

W hat is good for the mind is good for the body. And, its opposite is, also, true – what is good for the body is good for the mind. If I feed junk into my belly, the body will, surely, react with discomfort… sooner or later that is. Similarly, if I keep feeding junk into my mind, won’t my mind react with discomfort… irritation, anger, sadness, prejudice, hatred, loss of empathy, even violence? The interesting thing is this: Just as the junk-food habit has crept into our eating system, over a period of time, the habit of junk-thinking, too, has crept into our thinking system, slowly, over a period of time… All of us, by now, are these junkies… endlessly surfing those useless videos and forwards… one after another then another and then another. We do not need the idiot box anymore… We do not need the ‘hall rooms’… Even the toilet will do… Even the holy places and the grave yards! Many of my friends have begun to realize what this frantic addiction to social me...

“I am exhausted from trying to be stronger than I feel.” –Unknown “I t's a good thing that when God created the rainbow, He didn't consult a decorator;” said Sam Levenson, “or, He would still be picking colors.” Yesterday, during the lunch break, I asked one of the trainers (who headed the primary section of one of the Vibgyor schools in Mumbai, “Ma’am, how do you pronounce your school name?” Now, I knew some students who studied in this well-known school. I, also, knew some school counselors and parents associated with this school. Moreover, I have been a teacher for over four decades… and, here I was: asking, with all my innocence (please do not call it ‘ignorance’!), this lady trainer, “Ma’am, how to you pronounce your school name?” So kind on her part, she never made me feel, that I was a dumb idiot… “VIBGYOR’ She said. “Those are the colours of rainbow.” Explained, happily, another male trainer, “...