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EVERY CHAMPION WAS ONCE A CONTENDER

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  “The gem cannot be polished without friction; nor man perfected without trials.” Chinese Proverb   M y wife and I had attended the wedding reception of Chandini, who was my student, ten years ago. Her brother Suraj and their father Prakash – all had been my students, particularly that of the Personality Development programme conducted by The Dawn Club. Chandini’s three cousins, Kanchan, Shradha and Sneha, and even Kanchan’s son Kapil – all of them had been students of these programmes. Yesterday, at the reception, I had the privilege of meeting all of them and several more. I am talking about many students who crossed my path over past forty or so years. Almost all of them, are, now, well-placed in life. And, almost all of them tell me proudly, that they keep talking about me to their young children, who, now, go to the ‘finest schools’ around the world. Shradha, who lives in Netherlands, was so excited to see me, that she, oblivious of the guests around her, was a...
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SHALL WE TAKE A RAIN CHECK?

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  “In learning, you will teach; in teaching, you will learn.” Phil Collins   “I heard a speaker once saying, after quoting the poem (No Time to Stand and Stare):   Stand and stare at the toothless smile of a baby, the graceful gliding of a bird, the hue of a flower in bloom, the rippling water, the lashing waves. These words, somehow, stayed in my mind to be reminded through your blog just now. Thanks Gerry.” K amala Parthasarathy ma’am was my colleague in Atomic Energy Junior college when I started my teaching career there, sometime in 1980. She was a senior and popular English teacher, and I was a fresh import from my gaon (Mangalore) – just 20-plus... very raw, nervous and inexperienced. I had carried with me my low self-esteem, which, I would, now, try to camouflage with newly-injected steroid called ‘Positive Thinking’... Courtesy -   Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale and their fraternity. I was so full of this positive psy...
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NO TIME TO STAND AND STARE

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  “What is this life if, full of care. We have no time to stand and stare.” William Henrey Daveis   B eauty is there everywhere... We are surrounded by it. Only thing is: Most of it goes unnoticed by us... Because, we are frantically busy; or, we look for it somewhere far, in grand settings... Beauty around us, therefore, escapes our eyes... Many of us travel to exotic places... Yes, we call it break, vacation, get away, holiday and so on. But, if it is a ‘break’, a vacation – a leisure in true sense -   then, we should not be obsessed with broadcasting our ‘vacation’ live, 24/7 on social media... We miss the point – the very purpose of our ‘get away’ from our frantic schedule in our cities. It is difficult, for many of us, to stay anonymous for a few days during our get aways...   We need someone to remind us, that when we chase big things in life, we miss the beauty of small things around us. Like, I loved teaching as a young man... Teaching, bein...
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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO OUR INNOCENT DAYS?

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  “If a man is to shed the light of the sun on other men, he must, first of all, have it within himself.” Romain Rolland   L ast evening, I was talking to (over the phone) one of my very old students, now a dear friend. He is in his mid-fifties and, for many years, he has been working and living in Singapore. “Sir, I am heading the risk-management team in this global bank. But, every time I address my subordinates, I remind them this: ‘Your fundamentals matter... be them subject-related, or be them values-related.” When I asked him if he was in touch with his schoolmates and friends, my friend said, that he was in touch with all of them for a long time till the emergence of social media platforms. But, when he saw how they – once his close friends - started venting out publicly their polarizing, hate-filled views in the WhatsApp and other social-media groups, he decided to stay away from all social-media groups. “Many of them have so hardened, that they are best le...
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WHEN HOME IS THE MOUTH OF A SHARK

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  “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” Warsan Shire   W hen I was small, almost every young man and a girl from my native place, Mangalore, migrated to big Indian cities or to one of the Gulf countries. A handful of young ones migrated to the West, either to pursue studies and eventually to settle down there, or they went there in pursuance of work. Whatever the reason for one’s migration, one thing is clear: no one leaves home unless the situation he now finds himself/herself in is ‘bad’... I remember, while I was still a kid. Just outside our local, primary school, there used be tents raised by poor migrants from the interior places of   our own state (Karnataka). Imagine this: If we were looking for better pastures in some other cities, these poor migrants were finding better pastures here in our own village. And, this has been the migrants’ story all over the world. Cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Calcutta, Hyderabad are flooded...
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THE UNDELIVERED CHRISTMAS CAKE

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      I am reposting this ‘ten-year old’ Blog with fond memories of an amazing woman... our old neighbour, Mrs. Rohini Bhadekar... And, I am doing it with a reason... “Crippled things are always more beautiful… It's the flaw that brings out beauty.”   Holly Black ,  Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale   O ne of the biggest sources of stress for a householder woman is: Maid Management. Man, though takes this stress indirectly on his head, it is she who deals with this problem called – Maid Management – directly on a daily basis. My wife and I are not spared from this problem and its consequence: stress. They don’t stick… They make fuss… They are unreasonable in their demands… They don’t turn up on the day we need them the most… They speak rudely… They get influenced by other maids… Their work is shoddy… They are  ‘kaam-chors’ … They are not dependable and trustworthy… They should know who is their ‘Boss’… etc., etc… “Don’t look for perfection...
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HAPPY WITH THE RUN SO FAR

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  “Technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master.” Christian Lous Lange (Noble Peace Laureate)     T his man lives in our housing complex. And, I have been seeing him leaving for his small, retail shop every morning and returning late in the evening. This morning, we bumped into each other on our way to our respective work places. “Good morning Sir,” I greeted him, and asked, “How old is your shop?” “Forty years,” he replied. “And, how old are you?” I asked with a smile. “Seventy-three,” he said with an equally clean smile. “Wow! You were 33 when you stared it; and, you have maintained your daily routine of leaving for the shop and returning?” “Yes, I come home in the afternoon for lunch... Rest for an hour and go back to work only to come home late in the evening.” “What were you doing, before you started this shop?” I asked. “I worked in Dubai for thirteen years,” he said, “I went to Dubai for work when I was 20.” “That makes a maratho...
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THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BASE CAMP

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  “When you keep people waiting, they begin to think of all your flaws.” Kevin Kelly   M any years ago, just on the eve of one of my birthdays, a few of my die-hard well-wishers (all of them my ex-students) formed a WhatsApp group to send me birthday wishes. Expectedly, they baptized the group with the name – ‘HBD Gerry Sir’. The group has lived close to a dozen birthdays of mine, since then... One of the recent developments, as an offshoot of these group discussions, was a (turn-by-turn) get-to-gather at each group member’s place,   It started, some time back, with Shankar inviting us for a South Indian lunch at his beautiful complex. The next one was scheduled at Sudha’s Karjat holiday home. The dates somehow clashed and it got postponed. Meanwhile, Kiran and Ravi   invited all of us, along with our spouses and offsprings, to the North Indian (predominantly Delhi) delicacies at the popular restaurant at Andheri West – ‘Delhi Se’. ‘Delhi Se’ was born in ...
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THE WILD, WAYSIDE FLOWERS
There is, always, something extra-ordinary in the wild, wayside flowers...