Gerald D'Cunha

  Any work which we do, driven by our own self-motivation, assumes a different beauty about it. It belongs to a different league! I was teaching my eleventh-standard students, this morning. All of them came from educated and well-placed families. All of them belonged to the best Commerce colleges in our town. Incidentally, about half of them were children of my own students, whom I had taught years ago... Life had come full circle, in a way! It is always like this: every generation wants to give the best to the next… in terms of everything – education, comforts and even values. My own parents hardly went to school. But, they wanted me to study well… They had no means… But, they wanted me to be better off… And, now, I do the same with my own son: give him even better education, comforts, inculcate in him even stronger values… Yes, give him better than what I had received from my own parents… This is how it has been, always, for everyone… A...

“I find them boring, these days,” my wife said this morning.  She was talking about my Blog Posts! I smiled and said, “It means, you should take a break; stop reading them!” “But…” she wanted to say something! I have been writing like this for over three decades now… Anything and everything that touches me… small or big, one line or ten pages… happy, sad or mad. Whatever comes along my way, which my heart feels, soul wants to celebrate… I call them my ‘notes’… I used to write them anywhere – in my dairies, on the used-envelopes, on torn sheets… anywhere… Sometimes, I would read them for my friends… All my books came from them, and will come from them… I turned them into my Blog Posts about five years ago… began to root them through FB since this March… Yes, I have been writing like this just the way I have been eating my ‘staple food’ – rice and curry or sabji and chapati s… Just the way I have been taking bath or jus...

There   is an old story. For some days now, it has been coming back to my mind… and, each time it comes, I find myself a lot re-assured, a lot hopeful. It is 6 in the morning, now. The story was there just waiting, as soon as I opened my eyes! A   farmer in a village had a donkey. One day, this donkey fell into an empty well. As the donkey began to cry hysterically and endlessly, the farmer struggled hard to get him out of the well. However, as the well was deep, the farmer’s efforts were going in vain. Finally, the farmer gave up. “The donkey is old, anyway,” he reasoned, “and the well has no water.” Saying so to himself, the farmer gathered some passerby’s and asked them to help him in filling the worthless well with mud and dirt. So, each of them got a shovel and started dumping mud and dirt into the well. As the muck started falling on his head, the donkey couldn’t believe it, first! “How can my own master, who I had served so loyally for ...

  Like others, I too did not leave home yesterday. Yes, our TV was on right from 7 am till late in the night! It is really unusual in our house. We watch less TV, a few programmes here and there. In fact, there was a time, we managed without a TV for close to ten years! Life went on smoothly… We did not miss anything! So, yesterday, when our TV was on, and we were glued to the live telecast, like that, I found it quite unbelievable! Well, this Post is not going to be about our addiction to TV or sensational news or about Balasaheb Thackrey. Even if I write a word on him, it might seem an overdose… So much is said, written and shown about him. I think, that’s enough. Some days ago (on 2 nd November), I had written about Balasaheb in my Post – ‘The Lion And The Sunset’. I had written in that Post, that, though, like so many, I too did not like or approve his kind of Politics, I had admired the Man for so many things. My...

God took six days to create the Universe. On the seventh day, He took rest! Every time I reflect on this Biblical story of creation of the Universe – which we Christians call it ‘the Genesis’ – I smile. Why? Because, like all of us, the mortals, even the Almighty God had to ‘work hard’ – sweat it out – back-to-back everyday of the week! Then, like we humans, He too needed rest. So, He chose the ‘seventh day’ as the day of the rest. Just to be by Himself… to rejuvenate… recharge His batteries. Just do nothing… Let go. Relax… looking at and appreciating His creation…  Ever since then, the last day of the week – the Saturday – has been considered as ‘Sabbath’… the day of the rest! So far so good! But, what God indented, Man distorted, corrupted. The hardcore Hebrews stretched it too far. They did ‘no work’ on this day. I said, ‘no work’ of whatsoever nature claiming that it was sacrilegious - an offense to God! Yes, they fana...

  “You can't judge people and touch their souls at the same time.” ― Tama Kieves , Inspired and Unstoppable: Wildly Succeeding in your life's work Often, I wonder: Why do I judge others? Where is my judging behavior coming from? Yes, it is extremely difficult to judge another person and love him at the same time… It is extremely difficult to judge him and listen, truly, at the same time… It is extremely difficult to judge him and touch his soul at the same time! I wonder, therefore: Why do I judge him, then? I was talking to an elderly gentleman, this morning, on this subject. And, because I admire this person immensely, I found myself listening to him with rapt attention… I noticed that I had completely suspended my judgment… Acceptance was just happening, so naturally… I had no defenses to throw, no points to prove… Nor did I sense any threat from the other person, who, at this point of time ...

When another person has hurt me in the past, he has hurt me in the past!  What causes pain in my heart, even now, is my unwillingness to forgive him! Who is supposed to heal my wounds? The other person?  He never comes… as long as I like to hold on to my past! When I am stuck in the past, it is difficult to notice the other person who has come to reconcile, mend, heal… And, even if the other person has not come forward to reconcile, mend relationship and heal my wounds, it is still in my own hands as to how to deal with the situation: I can wait for years on, for the other person to come and heal me… or, I can heal, right now, my own wounds. The other person, always, operates from his level of awareness, at the given point of time… as I myself do from mine. When I cause him hurt, I do it from my own state of ignorance. If I knew I was hurting another person, I would have abstained from doing so.  Now, the person, who...