Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Pradeep Nanda M y good friend, Manjeet, loves to say this: “We are a copy-paste-and-send generation… We have lost our thinking ability.” Obviously, Manjeet is amused by the way we blindly, mechanically… dumbly… forward whatever stories – the crap – that  comes to us… The maximum effort we might take is to copy, paste and send! It is so easy to fall prey to this epidemic… that, I have taken me off the WhatsApp and every group on my phone… At home, the TV is off for months now… The only reason I am on FB is for my daily blog. Else, it is an utter dumb-thing to be spending our hours and hours on… Manjeet is off even FB. Dr. Kalam was truly a great soul. But, the posts that we were getting to read – in the pretext of inspiration - so many of them were just dumb forwards, unexamined. Like the one which said: “For the first time in history, the American flag was brought half-mast atop the White House to honor Dr. Kalam.” I got it on FB from an over-enthus...

The other day, another friend of mine, Mr. Mustafa, was talking to our young-ones. He had only five of his pet ideas to share. The ideas which had helped him along his journey and now he was keen to share with any young one. MTNL – R. This was how he had codified his subject. Mentoring. Time-management. Net-working. Listening. And, a pause later, Reading.  When you codify your subject matter, it always becomes easy to present it and, it also becomes easy for your audience to retain it in mind. While all the five ideas were interesting and valuable, I, personally, liked the ‘N’. Our young-kids needed it badly… “How many of you are on FB?” Mr. Mustafa asked our kids. He should’ve asked the other way around – “How many of you are not there on FB?” So, all hands went up, including mine… “How much time do you spend on a day on an average?” Some had become tired and bored with FB… They had been there, seen that, do...

When I was in school/college, there were no mobiles and internet. At our residence, we did not have telephone, even. But, we had an active Post Office. The local post man was really the local 'hero'. He was invited for every function in our families... For many families, he was indispensable: he read out their letters. And, the Telegram postman was someone 'special'... a man on a special mission. When he came to the village, the whole village would come around him. For, he came to deliver a one-liner:  "Grandmother serious; start immediately!" "Uncle Thomas passed away; funeral tmro at 5!" And, even as he was still there getting your signature or thumb impression on his roll, the ladies would start wailing hysterically! A post card and an inland letter were our constant companions. For longer letters, we used postal envelopes. There was an 'Express in-land letter' and one special for the foreign corre...