Gerald D'Cunha

“The empathy for the characters has nothing to do with their story. I did not want to go through the dialogue, tell the story of my characters… The problem is not who they are, who they pretend to be or where they come from. The only question I was interested in was: Will they get out of it? Will they be killed by the next bomb while trying to join the mole? Or will they be crushed by a boat while crossing?” — Christopher Nolan on the main purpose of the film ‘DUNKIRK’ S ome days ago, I watched the Christopher Nolans’ latest movie, ‘Dunkirk’ on the IMAX giant screen. As most of us know, the movie is about the greatest military evacuation during World War 2. It is a tensed and heart-wrenching depiction of how nearly 3,30,000 troops of the Allied forces were evacuated from the Dunkirk beaches… I wasn’t there when World War 2 happened. Even when our Indo-Pak war happened in 1971, I was a little school boy and lived in a remote village in Mangalo...

A while ago, a young girl – a non-Christian student of mine - came to me excitedly and stretched her hand to say, “Sir, a very happy Ash-Wednesday!” “Wish you the same, dear,” I said stretching my hand, too. “Sir, but…” another non-Christian young-girl wanted to remind us that such ‘happy’ greetings are not supposed to be exchanged on a solemn day like an Ash Wednesday. “Wish you a Holy Ash-Wednesday would have been appropriate,” perhaps, she wanted to remind us this. Why can’t a ‘Holy day’ be a ‘Happy day’? It is tough to resist the temptations of the world we live in…! Yes, it is a solemn day for us, the Christians… Lent – the forty-day period of prayer, penance and fasting - starts today… We are supposed to look within us - contemplate, repent… and strive to be worthy of the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ ‘for us’. So, on this day – ‘Ash Wednesday’ –   as the priest places a sigh of cross on our foreheads with holy ...