Gerald D'Cunha

  “There is always a door, no matter how dark the rooms is... Find it and get out.” Shafqat Bashar   W e have heard the saying, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein had said this. Let me paraphrase it this way: “We cannot solve our problems from the same place where we find them.” It means this: From the place we find our problems, we see everything through a smoky screen… The mind is cluttered, confused, scared … It is in pain and anger. How can we find a way out – a direction – unless the smoke gets cleared, and the visibility comes back? So, in the statement above, we are encouraged to step aside from the place where we find our problems – calm down, be patient, drop the blame and self-pity, our anger. And, this is that ‘new place’ from which we are able to think clearly, see clearly, and act wisely… Yes, every solution emerges from this place… a ‘new place’! F or quite some time, a dear young-man ...

  “There is always a door, no matter how dark the room is… Find it and get out.” Shafqat Bashar   W ho doesn’t have problems? There is a lot of truth and bluntness packed in this statement. Doesn’t it sound familiar? I must’ve used it to hundreds of people around me – particularly my students – whenever they tried to cite a problem or two to cover up their small lapses. “Don’t use your problems as your excuses,” was what I wanted to tell them, “Who doesn’t have problems?” On the other hand, dozens of people have used this statement to send across the same message to me… “Look, we all have our own problems in life.” T his year has been the year of problems. It has spared none of us… The employers and employees, the rich and the poor, the doctors and the patients, the hospitals, worship places, educational institutions, hotels and the transporters – all had, and still have, their own problems. I had mine…   the parents of my students had theirs… the maid, wh...

Pic.: Amit Ganguly E ssentially, we have two kinds of people around us: Those who curse the darkness and those who light a small candle. Unfortunately, the ones who curse the darkness – the habitual cribbers – outnumber those who quietly light candles – the doers. “We should do this and we should do that… That is not right, this is wrong… and, this should not be that way and that should not be this way...” They know why the country is in doldrums… they have great suggestions… even instant solutions. But, then, ask them to get up and do something, they will take the backdoor! Finally, this world has survived - in whatever manner it has - only because of that minority – the quiet doers… Those who quietly light the candle and do away a little of darkness in this society… “If you are not the part of the solution, you are the part of the problem.” I firmly believe in this old saying. I consider, the cribbers and fault-finders ‘are’ the part of the problem, a...