Gerald D'Cunha

“I am exhausted from trying to be stronger than I feel.” –Unknown “I t's a good thing that when God created the rainbow, He didn't consult a decorator;” said Sam Levenson, “or, He would still be picking colors.” Yesterday, during the lunch break, I asked one of the trainers (who headed the primary section of one of the Vibgyor schools in Mumbai, “Ma’am, how do you pronounce your school name?” Now, I knew some students who studied in this well-known school. I, also, knew some school counselors and parents associated with this school. Moreover, I have been a teacher for over four decades… and, here I was: asking, with all my innocence (please do not call it ‘ignorance’!), this lady trainer, “Ma’am, how to you pronounce your school name?” So kind on her part, she never made me feel, that I was a dumb idiot… “VIBGYOR’ She said. “Those are the colours of rainbow.” Explained, happily, another male trainer, “...

“Every being has flaws; the potential is always there to connect to the light or to darkness.” -         Lindsey McKeon A s a young man, I had struggled constantly with a chronic inferiority complex. I was full of self-doubts and crippled with anxiety. I would imagine distant situations and feel in me the numbness. Comparing myself with others and letting me feel low had become a hardened part of my nature… I failed to notice what was good about me – my talents, skills and strengths. Instead, I only saw what was not good about me - my flaws, my weaknesses. I was filled with self-pity, and my future looked eternally dark! It’s only when I ‘woke up’, one day, to my dream – of becoming a fine teacher and a writer… Yes, it’s only when I saw clearly my hidden talent (of teaching and writing) and started believing in it, that things began to change for me.  My flaws and weaknesses became my greatest...

I f I bump into some of my bright school-mates, today, and if I tell them that I teach, here in Mumbai, college students – I help them in Personality Development and blog every day… publish books and all that – I am sure, they will raise their eye-brows! “You teach college students?”… They wouldn’t be able to believe it… for, they knew how mediocre I was as a student, particularly in school and junior college… “You help them in Personality Development? You blog daily… publish books?”… They are justified in asking these questions… for, they knew how shy and timid I was when I was a young boy… how miserably I suffered from inferiority complex! So, this 58-year-old man – who, as a boy, had everything going wrong for him – has no business to be in the business of helping weak students and students who suffer from low self-esteem? Probably, if I was not handicapped with my own growth issues, I would have landed up somewhere else in life… I really do not know whe...