Gerald D'Cunha

  “A goodness you do by waiting for a return is not a goodness, but just a cunning investment in the future.” Mehemet Murat Ildan   L ife is short… It gets even shorter through our complaints. When our complaints occupy our major mind-space, it is difficult for us to notice and appreciate the beautiful gifts we are blessed with… Complaints make life look like a bottomless pit… No matter how valuable gifts God puts into it, they all go down into this pit with no bottom! Our complaints breed our unhappiness – our disappointments, hurts, sorrow, self-pity and pain. A major complaint, which many of us carry in life, is, that we do not find people reciprocating our goodness towards them... Sounds familiar? Let’s see it from both ends… We complain, saying, that those who we have helped are ungrateful to us. On the other hand, others who have helped us complain, saying, that we are ungrateful to them. Thus, just as we feel hurt and angry, there are others feeling ...

    “With life as short as a half-taken breath, don’t plant anything but love.” Rumi   O ne of the things I have been poor at – and blissfully ignorant about – is how to make the best use of changing technology. I used to write   my daily notes in dairies. There was an office   assistant, and hence, I never learnt to turn on and off the computer. Then, one day, he quit to join a better job. I decided to turn on the computer… So, since, 2008 or so, I have been directly typing my daily notes. I began to call them my ‘Blogs’. That’s, also, when I decided to join FB, with the sole objective of sharing my Blog posts through this platform. A couple of my students had helped me to start my Blog, while my son had helped me to join FB. I remember his words: “Dad, you are joining Facebook when our generation is quitting it (to join Instagram).”   Well, I did not know what that meant… It’s about fourteen years since I joined FB… and, I still continue to ...

  “Some of us are busy doing things; Some of us are busy complaining.” Debasish Mridha   I t was late in the night… around 11 to be precise. In one of the WhatsApp groups, to which I belonged, the Admin made the sad announcement of the demise of   a fellow-member’s father. The deceased was a senior citizen, who had some health issues. But, he was an affectionate soul. As is the case in such situations, the members of the group instantly started posting RIP’s and Om Shanti’s… from all sides. Not even ten minutes had gone by, the Admin made one more announcement… This time, about the shocking demise of a 43-year-old lady. She and her husband were in a critical condition battling Covid. She succumbed. The group members, once again, started posting RIP’s, Om Shanti’s “Shocked!”… “Cant’ Believe”… “Sad” and so on. Not even another five minutes had passed by. A young member, who is a chronic cribber in the group, came out with a very trivial complaint… Instantly anothe...

“Even the Gods love jokes.” -      Plato M y Guajarati friend, Bipin bhai, is very particular about how he spends his money. For instance, he never wastes his money on films with melodrama, that is, with lots of rona-dhona. His logic is simple and straight: “Pagal hoon kya?” he counters, “paisa de ke kyun roneka?” Kyun bhai?   Yes, why to pay and cry? This Gujju friend of mine has been fitted with a funny bone by default. Everything he utters from his mouth, he does it, putting his funny bone to full use!     Some men and women are born to tickle our funny bone, through their own! Yesterday, two of my brothers sent to me this holy crap! A man caught a thief at night in his kitchen. Just when he was about to raise an alarm, the thief said calmly, “Do you remember what I said in the Scriptures? That, behold! I will come like a thief in the night. I have come again, blessed are you ...

I am a massive fan of Cristiano Ronaldo. But, I feel, I am not a blind one in that. Only ‘stars’ – legends, icons, heroes – yes, only those who have made name, fame and achieved something significant in life deserve to be admired with loads of fanfare… I have my idols, and one of them, certainly, is Cristiano Ronaldo. Along with phenomenal fame and success comes social responsibility to these idols. Mercifully, many of these idols quietly do their bit to the society at large and for the causes dear to their hearts, in particular. Cristiano Ronaldo’s charity work has been talked about a lot. Most of it revolves around the children affected by terminal diseases like cancer or those affected by wars, as in Syria. Today, a friend of mine sent me this video… I am not sharing this video, here, because I am a huge fan of Cristiano. Even if I wasn’t his fan, I would have saluted him for doing this noble work. To be honest, Cristiano and legends and ce...

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” ―  Marcus Aurelius ,  Meditations T he ability to remain calm and composed in all situations in life is called ‘Equanimity’. Well, I have a long way to go before I can reach there! But, I am trying my best… Along my way to this place called ‘equanimity’, I have recognized some of my roadblocks… At times, I tend to take others’ problems on my shoulders… At times, I worry about ‘outside situations’ which are beyond my control – wars, earthquakes, plane crash, hurricanes, riots, gang rapes and gang wars, elections, political and religious discord… At times, I take praise to my head and abuse to my heart… I take them personally… At times, I fall prey to propaganda… It makes me take sides, become biased...

W hat is happening outside happens for all of us… Yes, so many things happen outside there – good ones and bad ones, happy ones and sad ones… some gruesome, some glorious… some tear our hearts some make us soar high with hope and peace… Outside is volatile place… all people are not trustworthy, and, at the same time, all people are not mean either… Everybody is selfish, thankless and greedy? No, never, ever. All events are tragic and hopeless? No, never, ever. There is nothing to cheer about, smile about, laugh about hope about, rejoice over… deeply thankful for… celebrate over? At least, we do not live here in Nazi Concentration Camps, you see. When I watched the 1997 movie, ‘Life is Beautiful’, which is a story about a Jewish family – a young husband and wife along with their little son – caught in Hitler’s Concentration Camp, it had a profound effect on me. Those were extreme situations in life… And, ours? Now? Right when we wake up in the morning, our cell-phon...

T here is, always, an inspiring story behind every journey we embark upon… every mountain we resolve to climb… Like a little child, I am perennially curious to hear this story… the story behind why people climb mountains and why they sweat through the deserts… and why they brave those storms in the rough seas!  Pic.: Shaping Yin I   had taught Chetna more than twenty years ago. She was in her final year B.Com. I got in touch with her only a couple of years ago, when we got connected on FB. By now, Chetna had permanently settled in the US with her family. Just as my thirst for blogging makes me visible on FB - and invariably everything I do on FB revolves around my blog posts – I could sense quickly that Chetna’s reason to be active on FB was her hunger to journey through the mountains in the beautiful land called America… Barring her occasional pictures of her adorable daughter, Sana, and vivacious sisters – yes, barring those occasional ‘other stories’ – Ch...

“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 ...