Gerald D'Cunha

  “Don’t tell your friends about your indigestion: ‘How are you?’ is a greeting, not a question.” Arthur Gulterman   I do not know the context in which Arthur Gulterman said what you read in the above quote; but, every time I send greetings to others, or receive them from   others, this quote pops up to make my heart smile… During the Lockdown, like everyone else, I couldn’t go to a barber shop (You may call it a Salon or Studio)… the Urban Clap sent the barber (Hair stylist) home. Mine was this young, enthusiastic man called Saba Ansari… I stuck to him... I never saw a barber shop ever since… Saba was with Enrich before joining Urban Clap. But, he is on his own, now. He has built a strong base of loyal customers, that he doesn’t need the shoulders of Enrich or Urban Clap, anymore… He is not even 25…. Married, has a little kid, and works from dawn to dusk… Yesterday, when our doorbell rang and I opened the door, I was pleasantly surprised to see Saba… He ...

“You never appreciate your anonymity until you don’t have it anymore.” Jason Priestley   I am conscious of the two movements within me… One is a strong desire to be in the limelight – to be more and more famous, recognized, hailed. The other is an equally strong desire to be away from the limelight – to be anonymous, private and quiet… I think, it’s a strange irony in our lives: When we are away from these big cities, we desire to be here. When we are here, we desire to be away from these cities… Poor want to be rich – famous and powerful. When they reach there - and if they are in touch with the two internal movements I just spoke about – I am sure, they, most certainly, desire to go back to their quiet life… Of course, not to go back to the financial poverty, but to go back to the richness of their spirit… O ne of the things, my wife and I regularly do is walk along the beautiful Marine Drive promenade, mostly in the evenings… It’s packed with tens and thousands of pe...

W hat comes straight from my heart, that’s my greatest gift! During this Diwali season, like most around me, I, too, have either received several gifts – from sweets-boxes to exotic hampers – Or, I have given to others some (Just some ordinary ones though!). But, when I look back at all these, I feel amazed, that the finest gifts have, always, been the ones that have come straight from the hearts… with no frills or glamour around them! The thought behind the gifts, definitely, is what makes the gift special! A friend of mine has invited me for a lunch, this noon. He invites me every year during the Diwali season… Something homely with no frills around them…. Just for our friendship sake… and I love that. He doesn’t expect me to turn up with anything. Still, I do not prefer to go with empty hands. So, this morning, as I was picking something simple for my friend’s family at a nearby store, I bumped into another friend of mine there. While leaving...

I n my last Blog, I wrote about two young girls, who found great joy in writing their Notes in their journal. Their writing came in the form of little poems… which I always call ‘scribbling’. Invariably, the young ones scribbled most of these Notes when they were sad, worried, afraid, confused and weighed down by regrets, shame or guilt. Actually, to their age, these moments of sadness and conflict were natural… But, being extremely sensitive and alive to life-situations, these young ones would capture these feelings and express them through their writings… As I, too, had started writings similarly almost at the same tender age, I could easily relate to these young ones… M y last Blog was about the pure joy a young one would derive through the process of self-expression and, how, slowly, the desire to ‘go big’ – publish, monetize, become famous and so on – would creep in. Though such desire also is natural, my emphasis in my last Blog was, that a young one should...

“A smile is happiness you'll find right under your nose.” - Tom Wilson W e miss simple joy of living – call it happiness – when we plan too much. Really, Life is what happens to us while we are busy making our ‘other plans’… For some days now, my wife and I have been ‘planning’ for a short vacation, this summer. We were checking on the Net, talking to our friends and, still, have not been able to take a decision. “Just pack up and go,” a friend of mine told me, “You shouldn’t plan too much.” A week has already gone by, meanwhile! I was to attend an important meeting at Fort area, this noon. It was a scheduled for today more than a month ago and a great deal of planning and preparation had gone into it. I was a bit tensed this morning, and had kept the rest of my work on hold. Around 11.30, I was on my way to the meeting venue… I received a call saying that the meeting was postponed. I couldn’t believe it… and, ...

A friend of mine, who is a consultant in one of the organizations in Mumbai, narrated to me this interesting episode… Some days ago, we got the notification in our office complex (A twenty-one storey office complex), that the server would be down for an hour. The employees, so dependent on their computers, suddenly felt clueless as to what was to be done when they could not use their computers for an hour! They were waiting for instructions from me. Meanwhile, a young employee came over to me and said, ‘Sir, we would like to listen to some motivational things from you.’ A couple of her associates seconded their friend’s proposal. I spontaneously proposed to them something different… ‘We are on the eleventh floor here,’ I said, ‘Any of you has come up here or go down from here using the staircase?’ There was none. So, I suggested, that we walked down the stairs and discover what was there on each floor… They loved the idea. By the time we all landed on the...

W hy do I wear a smile on my face? Why do I wear ‘special’ clothes on some days? Why do I don’t like to leave home unshaven? When our door bell rang at 7 this morning, I thought it was doodhwala who had arrived at his usual time. But, when I opened the door, a brightly dressed woman was standing outside. “Namaste saab,” she beamed. I took a while to recognize this woman. As a house-keeping staff, she would normally ring our doorbell between 7.40 and 8.00 every morning. And, she would appear in her uniform, a light-blue saree . But, today she had arrived almost an hour before and in her bright, shining clothes! “Namaste mausi (That is how I call all of them – young or old!). Aaj kuch special?” Her infectious smile only made mausi shine even brighter! I closed the door, without knowing what made our house-keeping lady arrive so early and in her special clothes… Any festival? Not that I know of… Her birthday or anniversary? She did not tell me about them… But, ...

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” ―  Rabindranath Tagore M y colleague and friend Sonia tells me that her brother, who works for a multinational company, follows a daily ritual. After coming home from work, that is post 9 at night, he goes to the nearby Gurudwara to do seva (service) for an hour or so… A simple – and humble – service of handling the footwear of the devotees. What brings smile on my face is when Soniya describes how her four-year-old nephew (brother’s son) waits for his dad to come from office, with his little pagdi tied by his mother, all excited to join his father in doing the seva… “My brother has been doing it for years,” Soniya tells me, “It is something that keeps him happy and fulfilled.” All around us, so many people do similar things. Many spend time in temples, Gurudwaras and churches by scrubbing the floor. It keeps them grounded, peacef...

T here are many people in my life – some of them live thousands of miles away – I genuinely wish them to be happy and joyful. Right now, that’s happening… some of these people come before my mind… and my heart simply wants them to be happy and joyful… I may not convey this feeling to these people… I may not meet them for years and years… But, I genuinely wish them to be happy and joyful… For, I know I do. If that’s true, it is also true that there are so many people out there who must be genuinely wishing me to be happy and joyful, always. Aren’t there such people? My college-days friend, Joe, who lives in Mangalore, sends me amazing Good-morning messages. Some of them, as the phrase goes, make my day… Some of them tickle me, some of them make me smile or laugh, some of them make me soar high and touch the stars… and some make me cry in joy. Whatever the effect, I see it this way: If my friend sends me a message every day, he must be thinking about me every morning...