Gerald D'Cunha

A gentleman shared this wise thought in one of the WhatsApp groups I belong to: “Quarantine the media for 14 days and 80% of our problems will go away.”   Instantly, a dozen fellow-members in the group responded with thumbs-up. Of course, that statement made pure sense. But, then, I wondered: How many things can we quarantine from our life? Every WhatsApp group or other social media group I belong to, is bombarded with forwards, and about 99% of them is utter rubbish! The members who had greeted the statement with instant thumbs-up were the ones who have been blindly forwarding the rubbish stuff, round the clock, and round the year! So, which ‘media’ have we to quarantine for 14 days?   Obviously, the statement is referring to the relentless TV news! But, when we shut the TV, the ‘crap’ still comes from our own li’l mobile screens, you see… Therefore, just as we shut the windows before the night falls, so to keep the mosquitoes away when we go off to sleep...

  “Worry pretends to be necessary; but, it serves no useful purpose.” Eckhart Tolle   I n life, some things always remain constant. One such thing is our tendency to worry over the ‘missing planes’ in the far-away skies… and groan about kissing couples in the local gardens. We get a strange kick when we stand on the roadside and watch, holding our breaths, those endless cock-fights, the bull-fights and, yes, the Arnab Vs. Lutyens or Kangana Vs. Shiv Sena freestyle wrestlings! Today, looking at myself and my fellow-beings, I was compelled to pull out this Blog which I had posted on 25 th March, 2014… More than six-and-a-half years since that date, some things have remained – and will remain – constant… Hope, you enjoy reading about this everyday amusement… BOSS, GO AND SLEEP QUIETLY A ll of us have our ‘pet’ and ‘pests’. But, if two of my ‘pests’ are fighting, I have this tendency in me to root for that pest who I detest less. Like last night, while I was...

“I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. I laugh when I hear that people go on pilgrimage to find God.” - Kabir T here is a universal human weakness – and it dates back to the days of fallen civilizations – and it is: to place people on pedestal and trying to be smothered by them, feel loved and protected in their company… worship them as mentors, heroes,  gurus, Mahagurus and Satgurus… Make these mortals larger-than-life cut-outs, worship them as flawless, pure and give one’s all… And, then, ‘take’ everything from them blindly as divine… Give everything to them blindly… Eventually, what happens is:  one more dangerous bondage… What was supposed to free you now becomes a new prison… It’s sad to see this happen! T his room, where I am writing this Post, has no image of any deity. I have no image of any Guru or Master around me… My question is: “Am I not able to feel close to Almighty God?  How ...

Pic.: Pradeep Nanda M y grandfather - dad’s dad – was an extremely shy and private person. As a farmer,  he worked in our paddy fields, in the hot sun, all day long, which made his skin intensely dark-brown… and, yes, he wore on his body a piece of cloth just enough to cover what was necessary in a village like ours! The grandma, on the other side, was exactly opposite… She was fair and lovely… exuberant… loved singing and dancing… had lots and lots of friends…. She loved to attend all the events and functions that were happening around… The grandpa shied away from the crowd… Even with his olden-days’ bare-minimum-literacy, he was able to befriend books and magazines which were published in Konkani and Kannada… I saw him lying down on his bench, during his free times, and reading his favorite books (Konkani translation) by St. Augustine. He was, particularly, influenced by Thomas A. Kempis’ ‘Imitation of Christ’… He was fond of reciting the age-old proverbs and ...

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...

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...