Gerald D'Cunha

I was at a friend’s place last morning when his wife served us some hot rava idlies with spicy pudina chutney. He saw me eating in a hurry and said, “If you eat like this, you will miss out on the glory of this food… Eat slowly, mindfully.” I instantly slowed down… His wife had prepared the food with loads of love. She had served it, too, with loads of love. And, how was I treating it? Maybe, I never meant to hurt her or my friend… But, No… I had no business to treat food the way I did – ‘mindlessly’. “Mouth alone cannot offer us the complete experience of relishing the food,” my friend said, “our eyes, nose, hands, hearts – all do.” Then, my friend said an interesting thing. “One reason why we do not pay attention to the food we eat is, because we are overloaded with information…. The mind is constantly disturbed. We need to throw out the garbage that we load in our minds.” The garbage? “Do we need so much of information that we...

L eo Buscaglia, the author of ‘Living, Loving and Learning’, says: “What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.” Most of our miseries – dare I say ‘all’ our miseries? – yes, most of our miseries are ‘self-created’. Hard to believe? Hard because, we are not ready yet to see and accept the reality – what ties us down to our misery. Are they the conditions (the circumstances we are in), or are they the ‘choices’ we make to respond to them? I think, this is the plain truth, which, Leo Buscaglia is trying to convey. Often, we hold on to things we should have long ‘dropped’. In life, certainly, there is a time to hold on… try hard to change our conditions. But, when misery comes to rule our hearts, it’s not worth holding on… It’s time to let go… simply ‘drop’ what causes the misery in us. Once we choose to value ‘peace’ more than the ‘turmoil’, it’s easy to make those so-called ‘hard choices’… ...

L eo Buscaglia, the author of ‘Living, Loving and Learning’, says: “What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.” Most of our miseries – dare I say ‘all’ our miseries? – yes, most of our miseries are ‘self-created’. Hard to believe? Hard because, we are not ready yet to see and accept the reality – what ties us down to our misery. Are they the conditions (the circumstances we are in), or are they the ‘choices’ we make to respond to them? I think, this is the plain truth, which, Leo Buscaglia is trying to convey. Often, we hold on to things we should have long ‘dropped’. In life, certainly, there is a time to hold on… try hard to change our conditions. But, when misery comes to rule our hearts, it’s not worth holding on… It’s time to let go… simply ‘drop’ what causes the misery in us. Once we choose to value ‘peace’ more than the ‘turmoil’, it’s easy to make those so-called ‘hard choices’… ...

T here is nothing that we cannot accomplish if we really want to accomplish… and, if we consistently work towards it. There is one more thing: We need to have a very strong reason for accomplishing it. That has been my experience. And, I think, it applies to all of us. My school medium of learning was not English. So, as a young boy, I, always, had this nagging anxiety about communicating in English, which had brought in me a killing inferiority complex. But, when Prof. B.S. Raman came to teach us in F.Y. B.Com, I started admiring him so much, that I desired to become like him – a good teacher and a writer. The reality was, that I wasn’t able to make a sentence in English, leave alone writing an essay. I was, also, terrified of the stage! Those two ‘problems’ of mine were enough to paralyze me completely. Yet, because my desire to become a teacher and a write was so strong – and so important to me – that, I was ready to do anything for it… including overcoming my ...

I s the playful, curious and enthusiastic child in us responsible for our zest for life? I think, he is. The moment that inner child in us ceases to be playful, curious and enthusiastic, we all cease to live zestfully… Last night, like millions all over the world were, I, too, was hugely impresses and inspired watching 87-year-old Mrs. Charulata Patel cheering for India from the packed stadium in  Edgbaston… She was wheelchair-bound… We learnt later, that she had undergone a bypass surgery of the heart twelve years ago, had a pacemaker planted inside her chest, had got her hipbone broken and fixed -   but, all this had not stopped her from   ‘participating’ in life like a young kid did… blowing horns, clapping, cheering, waving Indian flag. As much as the Indian team won our hearts, last night, Mrs. Patel won our hearts, too.   Yes, age is just a number. Zest for life is everything. Some people live long, but they...

B efore Jaya Bachchan assumed her husband’s famous surname, she was already a superstar. Her husband was nowhere near the superstardom. But, once she married to him, she chose to focus on her family… “That’s where I am needed now,” she said, “That’s where I belong.” Well, those were not the days of Twitter and social media. Even TV was just a toddler in India. So, mostly through some film magazines and the word of mouth, we all came to know that our favourite ‘Guddi’ would not be seen in the films anymore… at least, not in the near future. It took some eighteen long years for Jaya Bachchan to come back to films. By now, of course, she couldn’t be a heroine. But, she acted in a movie here and a movie there… M eanwhile, her famous husband was going through his own inner churning… Following Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s assassination, her son, Rajiv Gandhi, had become our Prime Minister. It was an emotional moment for Amitabh Bachchan. Who was a close friend ...