Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Chetna Shetty Y ears ago, when I had decided to do something about my poor English, one of the things I did – and found very effective – was telling a nice story in two tenses… the Present and the Past. Over the years, I have helped hundreds of people, who were earnest about improving their English, with the same method… Yes, write a nice story down in both the tenses… and, then, tell it to someone… I had first heard this story from an elderly Christian couple, some twenty-five years ago, in a Marriage Encounters programme my wife and I had attended…The story happily pops up every time my panic button goes up! BEWARE OF DOG  PAST: O nce, a Christian couple, Mr. and Mrs. Fernandes, came to live in a new housing society. Their flat was on the ground floor. Everyday, Mr. Fernandes  left for work early in the morning and came home late in the evening. His wife began to get bored being alone at home. There was another Christian family, D’Souza...

Pic.: Uttam Ghosh I must have been six or seven when this incident had happened. That’s some fifty years ago! But, I still remember it as though it had happened yesterday! My dad had taken me along to attend a wedding function. It was at a place called Kuloor in Mangalore. The Gurupura River (also known as Phalguni or Kuloor River) flows along this place. Today, there is a bridge; we can cross the river to reach the other side in a matter of two minutes! But, when I was a little boy, there wasn’t’ a bridge there… The other side was cut off… The locals would ferry us by their boats… The bus would take us only till the dead-end… the river-bank.  So, going to Kuloor, those days, was like going to Kanyakumari… a big event! That particular afternoon, after the wedding function, we were returning. We had crossed the river by the boat and come to this side… There was some time for the bus to come… And, my dad gently said to me, “Son, just wait here; I will b...