Gerald D'Cunha

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work… It’s already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” Michelangelo O ne of the amazing mysteries of life is the beauty of what we create. It’s said, “Everything that we create in life, we create twice: once, inside the mind, and once, outside.” This means, that everything is already there in the thin air… everything – beautiful buildings and beautiful books… movies, poems, songs, music, software, machines, automobiles, clothes, commercials, every product and every service on this earth. Yes, it’s all there… just like the simplest solution to the toughest mathematical-problem… Just like a continent, even God! Everything is there already concealed; we just need to ‘uncover’… The beauty of this uncovering is called ‘Creation’! Well, if a mystic is to read what I have just said, he may simply laugh at my ignorance. I hear him shout, “My friend, in life, yo...

“Risk, then, is not just part of life. It is life. The place between your comfort zone and your dream is where life takes place. ” -       Nick Vujicic A ‘Certificate of Learning Disability’ (LD) can do more harm to a student than good. Well, that’s my take. As a Commerce teacher, I get to deal with college students. When parents of some of these students tell me that their young ones have been ‘certified’ to be ‘slow learners’, I literally choose to be deaf. This modern vocabulary has crippled more young boys and girls than illiteracy and poverty have done to them. For whatever reason, and under whatever circumstances, the Certificate of Learning Disability (LD) may have been given to your child, my take is this: ‘Let it not be a permanent label or a chain of confinement for your child’. The old story about the 'Baby-elephant Syndrome’ perfectly fits in, here… When a baby elephant is born, it is tied w...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty "If I were to say, 'God, why me?' about the bad things, then I should have said, 'God, why me?' about the good things that happened in my life.” -        Arthur Ashe S ome people can charge you with energy, life. Kannan, who must be older than I am (I am 57), is one of them. You can feel he is coming from yards and yards of distance… You can feel his energy. And, he can regale you with his stories – most of them revolve around his countryside adventures… “When it is pouring, I get into my car… and drive for miles,” he told us this morning in our Tai Chi class, “I love the interiors, the rustic landscape… simple life, simple people and simple pleasures. You shouldn’t plan too much, just get into your car and go… Let the road take you!” I loved the last line: “Let the road take you!” Kannan had to battle Prostate cancer. He had started Tai Chi as per his doctor’s advice. Yes, he has immensely benef...