Gerald D'Cunha

  “With every breath, I plant the seeds of devotion;   I am a farmer of the heart. Rumi   S ome days ago, a friend of mine called me. He said, “I want to visit Mount Mary church (Bandra), today… What is the protocol?” Well, my friend is a Hindu Punjabi. I knew about some difficult times he has been recently passing through. So, the strong urge within his heart to visit a holy shrine did not come to me as any surprise. I have, always, gone to Mount Mary during the week days and sat there quietly, feeling overwhelmed with the surge of gratitude, humility and, above all, peace… Peace is what I have come back with. Thus, when my Punjabi friend asked me, “What is the protocol?”… probably, what he wanted to know was: “Can non-Catholics go inside the shrine?” … “Are there specific hours for the visit?” … “Should one keep the footwear outside?”… “Is offering of candles or cash mandatory?”… etc., etc. I said what I believed in: “Go there with your humble heart... Mot...

  “And when the brokenhearted people  living in the world agree There will be an answer, let it be… (From the song ‘Let it Be’ by The Beatles)   S ome weeks ago, my wife and I had been for a wedding reception of one of our relatives. The venue was quite an exotic one – a beautiful resort near Madh Island… It was an intimate guestlist, where one could, literally, notice what each guest was doing. I say this, because, in the midst of good music, dance, drinks and food, one of our relatives came up to me, and leaning towards me, he tried to say this: “Creative people find themselves lost in the crowd.” That’s when I realized, how ‘lost’ I was in that beautiful celebration. The man, who had come to say that statement into my ears, had added this: “My son is a writer; you remind me of him.” I do not know, whether all creative people – writers, painters, poets, every other – ‘get lost’ like this in the crowd… I do not know, if it is good or bad… I do not even know...

T he French philosopher and Clergy, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, said: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are   spiritual beings having a human experience.” Whenever I come across this famous quote, I find it tough to take it in with total conviction. Somewhere, deep inside me, I do believe, that I am a spiritual being – the Godliness is in my bosoms. But, on the periphery, I hear this loud voice: “Come on! This is a harsh, real world… We are all mortals - sinful and imperfect. So, I question: “Are we not human beings having a spiritual experience, yes, here in this ‘imperfect’ world?” Whatever and whichever it is... I have stopped analyzing about it too much. After all, I have to live in this real world, and with its real people… In this world, There will be plateaus and there will be plains… There will be mountains and there will be oceans… There will be deserts and there will be oasis… There will be wars and...