Gerald D'Cunha

  Photograph coutesy: Afsar Dayatar/Rediff.com I was in Parel area, yesterday. Life seemed as frantic and as normal as ever… The trains, buses, taxies, posh cars and men in formal attire, the hawkers and   traders, the school children and policemen,   the beggars and slum-dwellers… It never struck to me, even for a fraction of a second, that, barely a stone-throw away from where I was standing, the horrendous crime – the gang rape – had taken place. Nobody was talking about it… Life buzzed as it always did… But, at home, when I opened the newspapers and switched on the TV, it sounded as if this city had gone down in ruins just the way the Shakti Mills compound – where the heinous crime had been committed – had. For a while, my mind believed in the horror story and I saw myself slipping into a kind of depression… Yes, for a while, I failed to see the reality around the ruins of Shakti Mills… I failed to see the buzz...

  Ten years seem to be a long, long time! Today, I had been to the Passport office for my renewal of Passport. Ten years ago, everything happened at the famous Worli Passport office. Getting the work done, then, was a real torture. Now, after ten years, things have changed drastically… and, for good. Mine was Tatkal. The agent had done the initial spade-work. So, in exactly one-and-half hours, I was out. “You will receive by post the Passport within four working days, sir,” I was told at the exit. My wife had been there for the same work in April. Probably, due to the holiday season, it took relatively more time for her to come out. But, she received the Passport within two days! I, too, may… Efficiency in service is the key to customer satisfaction. Elderly, sick, small children and, even just-born babies are brought to the Passport office… The authorities have done a great job by outsourcing almost the entire Passport-issue process to smart private agen...

Last week, one of my T.Y. B’Com students, Pritvi, was hospitalized for Dengue. When I went to see him, I carried two books – ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho and ‘Anyway – The Paradoxical Commandments’ by Dr. Kent M. Keith.                  . Pritivi lives, here in Mumbai, all alone as his parents are away in the Middle East . His elderly Maharashtrian maid and her family take extremely-good care of Pritvi. I was touched when I saw this. Dengue makes you very depressive. Pritvi was feeling very low when I had been to see him. I had been to the hospital with one of his batch-mates, Pooja, and we spent close to an hour cheering him up. I knew Pritvi loved reading; but, looking at his condition, I gently told him, “Pritvi, just go through a few lines… whenever you can… You will feel nice.” Two days later, when I called to enquire about Pritvi’s health, he sounded much better and reliev...

“In the end, only three things matter: How much you loved, how gently you lived… and, how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” - Buddha I had promised my friend, Sherry, that I would be writing on the above passage in a day or two. He sends very inspiring passages every day to his friends; last morning, he had sent this one… It had caught my attention, immediately. Love, as the saying goes, is the elixir of life. It is love that sustains life… Integrates, draws us close to each other, holds us together… Brings to us the hope of a tomorrow… Gives us reason to work with diligence and passion… Inspires us to accommodate… respect and honor our differences, show tolerance, forgive and reconcile… It is love that makes our hearts long, express, promise… and, it is love that helps us beat the odds of fear and insecurities, of betrayal and meanness… Love alone can cure so much… Give us so much… We...