Gerald D'Cunha

  “ A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” Henry David Thoreau   I remember feeling the strongest, the most confident and secure – when I had decided to knock on strangers’ doors, telling them, “I want to teach young boys and girls.” That’s when I was just 20-something… I was a newcomer in this big city… consumed with the desire to teach… and restless. I was jobless and penniless, too. The earlier evening, TC had caught me ticketless at Mankhurd railway station, which, in those days, was the last Harbour-line station. The next local arrived only after 45 minutes… and the fine for a ticketless passenger from VT (now CST) to Mankhurd was a ‘princely’ sum of ten rupees and fifty paise! And, I had nothing in my pocket to pay the TC and get off his hook. Nor did I possess a wrist watch or a ring to pledge as security till I could arrange the fine amount. But, that evening, when I went through some forty-five minutes of embarr...

Pic.: Vivek D'Cunha “E ver since I was born, there's been one person who has fed me, loved me, taken care of me and mostly guided me. It's you – my one-and-only granny!  And, today is your 80 th birthday…  Happy birthday Mai… I miss you loads. Come back soon. Much love. Muwahhhhh !” Well, the grandson, who is saying “I miss you… Come back soon” and who is blowing his ‘Muwahhhh’, is my 22-year-old nephew, Sherwin, who lives in Mangalore. You can see him in the picture with his dashing granny, my mom! She turns 80 today. She has gone to Kuwait, my bother Rony’s place, on a holiday. I called, a while ago, to wish her… and learnt that they were in church. So, I am yet to say to her, “Happy b’day mom.” This Post is for all my young nephews and nieces. When we, the five sons of our mom, were of the age of our nephews and nieces, our mom was young – in her early forties. She was energetic, optimistic, hardworking (back-breaking is...