Gerald D'Cunha

D o we have to agree with everything everyone says every time? The ‘everyone’ may be my best friend, parents, teachers, authorities and the government? My son is 27 and I am 61. When he was a baby, yes, he agreed with whatever I tried to teach him or convey… It’s no more so, now. And, that’s how it should be… I, seriously, think so. The movies, music, icons, leaders and philosophy that I love, my son may not… my wife may not. But, we are not enemies, we are not each other’s conspirators. In fact, I wonder, at times, if my son and wife had agreed with everything I believed in and every time… what kind of mind theirs would have been! Herd mentality… Just think about it! For thirty years, The Dawn Club has been helping young ones and little ones to speak and debate in public. Our senior Sir, Mr. Ramakrishnan, would, often, use the phrase – ‘The Parliamentarian Language’… to convey to us all, that we should be civil, gentle, graceful and, yet...

\ \ J ust yesterday, 11-year-old Yash was reading out this passage from one of our old publications – ‘Late Bloomer’: “Sun shines on every one, Moon smiles at every one’ Stars twinkle for every one, Rainbow appears for every one, Rain drops fall on every one one… Then, yes, then, why should Luck smile at only some?” “Yes, why?” I asked Yash, “Why does Luck favour only some?” What can a 11-year-old say about Lady Luck and her strange ways of smiling? A few days earlier, I had told Yash this popular story… GOOD LUCK OR BAD LUCK, WHO KNOWS? T here lived, in a Chinese village, a wise old-man. He had a great horse and everyone in the village thought that the old man was the most fortunate one.  Then, one day, the horse fled into the nearby mountains. The news spread through the village and the villagers came rushing to the old-man’s house to sympathize with him on his ‘bad luck’. But, ...

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’… ...

“Hands that serve are holier than lips that pray” - An old proverb I am a great admirer of Dr. Devi Shetty, the renowned heart surgeon of our country. He is different… he is extremely sensitive and human… and, above all, he is spiritual. People call him, ‘A heart surgeon with a heart’! Now, I do not intend to write this Post talking about Dr. Devi Shetty… Yes, he has carried out more than 15,000 heart surgeries so far (he is 64), some of which have been most complicated ones… He believes in affordable heart-care and, hence, he has been aggressively propagating this cause by setting up finest health-care facilities across the country… Here alone are carried out more than ten percent of our country’s heart surgeries! He had carried out heart surgery on Mother Teresa and served as her personal physician, in the process, getting hugely inspired by her work… Rightly, the nation has bestowed upon him a Padma Shree and Padma Bhushan… What I intend to conv...