Gerald D'Cunha

  “I am more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world.” Lionel Messi   Y ou see, in my life, I haven’t played any sport, either outdoor or indoor. Basically, it was due to my excessive shy nature and low self-esteem in my growing-up years. I began to get hold my myself much later in life... Yes, I bloomed late in my life. By ‘blooming’, I mean becoming fairly successful in your chosen field. If teaching, writing, training, mentoring are what my ‘fields’ are, yes, I had begun to bloom in these fields – in these gardens – only after I crossed my teenage years. Thus, I was simply bad at sports, elocution, acting, singing and many such conventional fields. Later in my life, I developed interest in sports, music etc. But, my interest was confined to watching some select sports, listening to some select music – I never attempted to play, sing, act etc. Like most around me, I, too, began to idolize some heroes from the fields o...

“Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die.” Gil Scott-Heron   A small piece of agricultural land had come to me after our dad’s death. It was about 35 years ago. The land was used by my grandfather, later by my dad, to cultivate rice (paddy). A highway passed along its side, and the land did not seem profitable at all considering the deserted surroundings and low area which was prone to flooding. By then, I had migrated to Bombay (now Mumbai) in search of better prospects, assuming, that there was where gold grew, not paddy. So, when I needed some money to set up my small coaching centre, here in Bombay, I asked my widowed mom to dispose off my piece of land… Which, mom did, and sent to me the proceeds: Rs. 2,70,000! It was a ransom to one who badly needed it, at that time… Then, I simply forgot about what was once ‘my piece of land’… A simple man, a mechanic, was the new owner of that land, now. He erected a temporary tin-shed and ran his worksho...

“Love the trees until their leaves fall off; then, encourage them to try again next year.” Chad Sugg   I met this old friend, last evening, after over forty years. Those were my initial years in this city (then, Bombay) … I had African bushy-hair on my head, a flat tummy, loads of youthful energy… and, above all, a carefree outlook towards life. Obviously, I was single, and the serious thoughts about my ‘tomorrow’ had not yet sprung inside my mind… From such a state of my mind, I could only hear the mountains calling… I really thought, that ‘Success’ – the proverbial Pot of Gold – could be found only ‘there’; that I had to climb frantically to lay my hands on it… And, once that done, I could shout from the top to the world below – “Hark, I have arrived!” The idea of success has undergone a sea change in me over these forty-plus years… I no more look for the Pot of Gold ‘over there’, at the top of the highest mountain… No more do I feel the need to shout to the world – “...

    “The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.” Charles De Gaulle T hapa is a young security guard in our Colony (where my classes are situated). A Nepali, he lives in a small shelter provided to him by the Society. As he is an in-house guard, almost every person in the Colony knows him… That includes every dog living here, too. Our Colony has several members from the dog family. My heart doesn’t allow me to call them ‘street dogs’, or ‘homeless dogs’. For, our Colony is their home… They live under the parked cars, rest over the benches, play with each other in our open spaces… And, above all, they serve us as additional security-guards alongside Thapa and his associates. Thapa carries in his hand a sturdy stick; dogs rally behind him. There is a fine bonding between him and the canines. He has given a name for each one of them… This morning, I was walking behind Thapa. As usual, a couple of dogs walked by his sides, regularly playing with h...

  “Try not to become a man of success; rather become a man of value.” Albert Einstein   W hen I was a teenager, Rajesh Khanna was the Super Star. If fame, insane fanfare and box-office collection were the yardsticks to measure a film-star’s success, then, one had to stop at Rajesh Khanna… He had achieved all of these and was riding on the crest of success-wave… But, then, a wave is just a wave. More than anyone else, Rajesh Khanna knew, that the wave he was riding on would, soon, crash… Fame and fanfare would, soon, fade away… Just like the stars in the sky did. Apparently, this realization – that success was transient – prompted him to keep repeating, with the desired effect, his own dialogue from the film ‘Daag’ (Brilliantly penned by Sahir Ludianvi)… “Izzaten, shohraten, chahaten, ulfaten… koi bhi cheez duniya mein rahti nahin; aaj main hoon jahan kal koi aur tha aaj main hoon jahan kal koi aur tha… Ye bhi ek daur hai woh bhi ek daur tha.” T he beauty ...

  “But, Life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant to last.” Prince (Musician)   “W here is Jack Ma?” People are asking this question, world over. They are, also, worried. Some say, that he is ‘laying low’; and some   suspect, that he has been jailed by the present Chinese government…If the latter is true, it’s really sad! Jack Ma’s story is an inspiring success story… A simple teacher, who, once, taught English, could go about building such a vast business empire – Alibaba and Ant Group – to be crowned as ‘Asia’s Richest Man’… yes, it’s the stuff straight out of a fairytale book! But, there he was – Jack Ma… A great business magnet and a philanthropist… and, yes, a great icon for millions… Shakespeare,   through Brutus (in Julius Caesar), says this: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we n...

“ Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” -        Bill Gates -          M any years ago – yes, when I was very young and untested – an elderly professor, who had experienced life far more than I had, gave me a hard lesson. He asked me, “What do you mean by ‘the lasting success’? Obviously, my young and untested blood had made me coin that phrase – ‘the lasting success’… That was the last time I used that phrase… The dressing down came to me quite early in life… to keep reminding me of that illusion called ‘Success’… Ever since then, ‘Success’, to me – if at all anything – is a ‘fleeting moment’ of immense satisfaction and joy… Yes, a moment of fulfillment … but, one that comes with a ‘shelf life’… Momentary, fleeting… what the enlightened souls call – ‘Transient’! E verything in life – every success story – comes with a shelf...

T he things that excited me decades ago, when I was much younger in age, do not excite me anymore. What I defined as ‘Success’, then, is no more the definition of that term… Fame looks very fickle and pale in the quiet serenity that I experience, now, in my inner understanding… Laughter and joy, which, sometime, somewhere, seemed buried beneath the weight of misplaced notions of social mirror, resurface when I drop that burden and nurse the child within me… As a child, I laughed effortlessly, I felt the joy… simply… just like that. Yes, just like that! And, now, why this strain? Why this seriousness? As the year 2018 comes to an end, I ask: Did I laugh more or cry more through the year? Did I see more hope or more despair? Like everyone else around me, I, too, have already begun to greet people - ‘A Happy New Year’… And, yes, though it sounds more like an old habit – rather an old custom – I, think, it’s a good-old habit, a good-old custom… I wan...