Gerald D'Cunha

  “Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” Helen Keller   A few weeks ago, I was watching this intense English movie at home, with Harry Connick and Sandra Bullock as lead actors. Though the subject of the story was very intense and heartbreaking, I just loved the title: ‘Hope Floats’... Well, this Post is not about the movie... It’s about ‘Hope’ and why mankind has placed its trust on it so much and for so long... Desmond Tutu said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”... Yes, hope is something that makes sense just because there is this thick smog of darkness around us. Else, why would we ever think of Hope? Why would we ever say – ‘Hope Floats’? Hope does float... Therefore, Martin Luther King Jr. said so strongly , “Everything that is done in this world is done by Hope.” You and I will never be able to comprehend the times this charismatic leader, who fought and died for the c...

  “You will never be the person you can be if pressure,  tension and discipline are taken out of your life.” James G. Bilkey   I  remember what great Albert Einstein once said: “Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing, that it’s stupid.” Well, with the permission of the great scientist, I wish to replace the word ‘Genius’ in this quote with ‘Champion’... T his morning, I was teaching this batch of twelfth standard. Two days ago, one of the students, Maansi, who has been always regular and committed to her studies, had requested me for a leave. “Sir, I will be leaving to Chennai for my tournament (Rifle shooting), early tomorrow morning. I will miss a couple of classes. But, I will try to attend online.” I sent Maansi the zoom link. But, due to a weak network, she had to miss one of the sessions while she was travelling by train. “But, Sir, I will make it up... Solve the sums a...

  “Life is the soil, our choices and actions  are the sun and   rain, our dreams are the seeds.” Richard Paul Evans   “I really don’t care how much you score in your exams;” I keep screaming, with all my temper and passion, each day in my class, “but, I seriously care about the basics of your life... the foundation.” Now, when I scream like this before a young college student, why do I remind him about the ‘basics of life – the ‘foundation’ – now, when he/she is in his mid-teens? In this Post, I wish to touch upon only two such fundamentals: keeping an unbiased mind, and keeping our commitments. And, I wish to single out two of my students... O ne was very close to me when I started teaching here in Mumbai (Bombay) in 1980. This young boy, now is a retired person (from a government organization). He got reconnected with me on FB, some years ago. I have been able to scan the kind of mind he has developed over these years... It’s very, very narrow, extreme...

“We worry what a child will become tomorrow; yet, we forget that he is somebody today.” Stacia Tauscher   H is name is Namoh. They say, he is weak in studies, a slow learner, a tortoise. But, those who are very close to him – his parents and coaches – say, that he is strong in gymnastics... he is excellent, a Champ... So, the battle rages on: People like me, who coach Namoh in his academic subjects, often worry about his attendance... Every time I start a new chapter, Namoh has to proceed on a long-distance tour, often forcing him to miss his classes for weeks... We worry, saying that he is not good in any chapter... “How will he clear his 12 th Boards?” Yes, this is how the world wonders and worries unless it takes notice of the ‘good’ that resides in the young kid, right now... The world is a stereotype... I am no exception... Unless, the young kid is me... Stacia Tauscher’s words come to remind me: “We worry what a child will become tomorrow; yet, we forget t...

  “You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” John Steinbeck   E mpathy, it is said, is not a noun, it’s a verb... It’s a word in action. As a teacher of college students, I tend to get impatient quickly... When students struggle to answer, yes, I tend to forget, that I, too, struggled to answer once; often, I was worse than how I find my students now... Ditto is the case when it comes to parenting. Do you and I expect too much and too fast – and too good – from our young children. And, how cooly we forget, that we didn’t live at all up to our parents’ expectations! And, yes, the same impatience is very, very visible at work place, even. When we be come bosses, we forget our days as beginners... Days as novice, filled with many mistakes... It’s often said, that employees don’t quit their companies; they quit their bad bosses – the ones who lack empathy, if I were to paraphrase that... W hen I migrated to Mumbai in October, 1979, I had carri...

  “Some days, there won’t be a song in your heart...                                                     Sing anyway.”         Emory Austin   F inally, my wife and I decided to watch ‘Kantara – The Legend... Chapter 1’ in one of the local multiplexes. A couple of days ago, our son insisted, that we should watch it in NMACC’s IMAX screen to get the full movie-experience. But, my wife and I were against that idea, and, finally, last afternoon, without pre-booking our seats, we both landed at the ticket counter of a local multiplex. “Sorry Sir, all sold out,” the young man at the counter said. Helplessly, we called our son. “Let me check,” within in minutes, our son booked online at IMAX Wadala (Now, Miraj Cinemas)... We reached there an hour before... When the movie started, it was a full-house! A s I ...

  “There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; two, that you can boast about it (on Goodreads).” Bertrand Russell   A week ago, a friend of mine, who lives in London, messaged me saying, that she wanted to send a good book for my wife to read as she (my wife) was recovering from her two back-to-back angioplasties. Without checking with my wife, I wrote my preference: ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’ by Arundhati Roy (Penguin Random House)... Only after the book arrived home, my wife learnt about what my   London friend and I had agreed upon... My wife was disappointed – not with the book, but with the ‘acclaimed’, 'Bestselling' author and the Booker Prize winner... “Whatever that is, I don’t care,” my wife blasted, “I don’t like her.” Period. ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’ (374 pages) was destined to be my cup of tea. I had already heard about the storyline, through several rounds of promotional interviews. So, it became easy for me to navigat...