Gerald D'Cunha

  “The strength of a nation lies in the character of its leaders.” First among equals   L ast year, a young girl was enrolled in our classes when she was in class XI… She was a good student. This year, she was enrolled for class XII, on payment of her part fees, in December itself. Then, in the last week of this April, when we started the class XII, this girl showed up. Almost two weeks into the classes, one morning, the mother of this girl called up, saying, that the girl would discontinue as she had been enrolled at another institute which prepared for Chartered Accountancy entrance alongside class XII. Well, as it’s said, ‘I am only informing you, not consulting you’, this mother had picked up the phone only to ‘inform’ me… I felt bad for the young girl… Having observed her aptitude and attitude for more than a year, in my mind, she wasn’t the material for Chartered Accountancy. “Sir, it’s her dad’s decision… He was quite adamant,” the mother tried to clarify… I...

  “Kids don’t remember what you try to teach them; they remember who you are.” Jim Henson   T oday is Teachers Day… As usual, the ‘Happy Teachers Day’ greetings start pouring in right since the daybreak… Feels nice. Yes, it does. When your ex-students, current students and their parents shower kind words on you, you truly feel blessed, even humbled. It also takes you back to your own teachers… the ones who you have not remembered enough, thanked enough. The truth is, in life we all are students of many teachers, and we also are teachers of many students… Living this life calls for both these roles… We all keep learning; we all keep teaching… The label, that ‘I am a teacher’ is, therefore, irrelevant… Every teacher is not on a payroll… Many are just ‘honorary’… One of the greetings, early this morning said, “Happy Teachers Day… Miss you, Sir.” I had taught this young man and his twin brother more than twelve years ago. They both gave a lot of heartburns to their...

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” R. W. Emerson in his essay, ‘Self-reliance’.   I was introduced to Ralf Waldo Emerson’s inspiring essays through Napoleon Hill’s books. In his famous classic, ‘The Law of Success’, Napoleon Hill has separate chapters on topics such as ‘Initiative’, ‘Enthusiasm’, ‘Leadership’ etc. What hit me the most, at the young age of 21, when I was reading this book over and over again (alongside his ‘Think and Grow Rich’) was the idea called ‘Initiative’. I learnt, that it’s the personal quality of an individual to do tasks without being told… doing them without looking at the watch… doing them for not money alone… It’s going the extra-mile to do them and, above all, do them with a great deal of self-reliance. As I said, at an age of 21, when one gets to grasp the importance of these personal qualities, one, also, realizes how it helps to build his personal leadership. I learnt, early, that through these qualities, I was in ...

  “If you wouldn’t follow yourself, why should anyone else?” John C. Maxwell   A week ago, a young girl, who was scheduled to face interviews for MBA programmes from some premier institutes, contacted me. She wanted to refer my name to these institutes as her ‘Teacher’. I was more than delighted. This girl, who I had taught for three years during her degree college, had many strengths. One of them was, that she was very ‘dependable’. She was committed, punctual and communicative. I was just a teacher for her. In this respect, her commitment referred to each of her session with me. She rarely missed any. And, very rarely, when she had to, she would communicate with me beforehand, negotiate; sometimes, try to reschedule with mutual consent. She always showed up before time. Again, very rarely, if, for some reason, she found it difficult to be before time, she would call me up and let me know about it… She did her assignments within the scheduled time period… I never had t...

  “It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” Roy Disney   S ometime before the pandemic broke out, my wife and I had been for our annual Tai Chi camp at Lonavala. As it happens at every such camp, this time, too, we got to meet and become friends with many wonderful fellow-learners. One such person was a senior faculty in an engineering college in Mumbai. During the course of our discussion, she narrated to some of us an incident in her teaching career. Apparently, one of the students of our new friend was caught indulging in unfair practice during his exams. Consequently, he was failed. Being the faculty directly in charge, one night, she found at her door the student accompanied by his father. It seemed, that the family was well-placed financially and fairly educated, too. The house visit was to persuade the faculty-in-charge to ‘do something’ and promote the young man. But, our professor-friend, tried her best to explain to the son and t...

  “A graceful heart is a virtue of the meek.” Suzy Kassem W hat happens to my self-esteem and mental well-being if I spend too much time – even little time – listening to and intensely involving with those Primetime TV debates? What happens if I keep involving myself in those endless twitter-wars between people, say, Kangana Ranaut and Diljit Dosangh or Amit Malviya and Kunal Kamra? Sometimes, out of curiosity – and my innate human prejudice and weakness – I get involved, only to come out a lot ‘disturbed’. Then, I regret: “Why did I waste my time?”… “Why did I allow myself to deflate my self-esteem?” “Don’t bring home the filth of the road,” my dad used to, often, scream at us when we were little boys, “What belongs to the road should not come home.” My heart and mind are my home… What goes on at Primetime or on twitter, yes, often, is just ‘filth’… Leave it to the road… Don’t bring it home…   I am strongly reminded A friend of mine has a simple yardstick: “Does...

“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.” Ed Cole I have spent more than four decades teaching college students. In fact, I loved teaching so much, that I started teaching, as a hobby, right since my F.Y. B. Com days.  I have told this many times before… and, I want to tell it again, today: I was hugely influenced by my own teacher, Prof. B.S. Raman, when he came to our class to teach in F.Y. B. Com. Before that, I was clueless about what I was good at. Now, watching my teacher (He was an outstanding teacher, author and, above all, a fine disciplinarian and idealist who believed in utter simplicity), a silent revolution had been set ablaze in my soul… I was restless, I couldn’t wait… and, hence, I started helping (teaching) my own friends after the college hours… just because I was so full and it made me the happiest. When they said, “Gerry, you teach so well,” I was on top of the world! That’s the beginning of my self-confidence jo...

“You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts, You may house their bodies but not their souls. For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”     -       Kahlil Gibran on Children W hen all this Boys’ and Girls’ Locker-room controversy is raging outside, when all and sundry are sitting on their judgement seats and handing out their verdicts on the ‘guilty’… I start wondering if there were ‘locker rooms’ while I was a young school boy… If dirty thoughts passed through my mind and if I and some of my friends chatted our private stuff. Horrible thoughts do pass through my mind even now… The locker room is still there, very much there. Am I alone here? Hope I am not… None of the so-called ‘dirty thoughts’ come in a young one from his parents and teachers. Mine did not come from my parents or teachers. So, let’s stop blaming abo...

“Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but, which none has a right to expect.” Jean Jacques Rousseau G ratitude is a two-sided coin. The front side – the main side - is the obvious one: I need to be grateful for every thing Life has given me – my family, wealth, health, friends, neigbours, country, freedom, clean air and water, everything. But, other side - the rear side - of the coin of gratitude is not a pleasant one… but, is needed to complete it, give full value to it. But, mostly, I fail to recognize the importance of this side… because it’s unpleasant and unpalatable. So, what is this side – the rear side - of the coin of gratitude? It’s how I behave when others behave ungratefully towards me… To the good that I do to them. Normally, I become angry or hurt. So, I react or sulk… Don’t I? I, even, justify my reaction and sulking saying, “I have my right to feel angry and hurt… because, I am human.” But, when I think about it, ...