Gerald D'Cunha

  “Don’t fill life with struggles - fill it with joy. A flower always struggles to survive; but, it never forgets to bloom with joy.” Debashis Mirdha   O ne late evening, while commuting in an autorickshaw, I struck a conversation with the auto-driver… He looked quite old, but very courteous and enthusiastic. On my prodding, he started narrating his story: He had come from his village in UP when he was barely a boy… The odd jobs he had done… How hard it was to find a place to live… The responsibility to fend people back in his village – his parents, grandparents and younger siblings… How, eventually, he started running others’ autorickshaws, till the time he could manage to buy one of his own (through a bank loan) … How, after his marriage, his wife and two children lived in their village, while he continued to work here… His son, after completing his graduation, was working in Noida and daughter was married and settled in a nearby town in UP… Now, the man owned a sm...