Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Usha Prasadh T wo people were to call me by 9 this morning. They both had agreed to do that. The first one is a gardener, with bare-minimum education. The other one is a substantially big businessman, with good qualification, and, whose children are being educated in one of the ‘top’ schools around. The fist one called me ten minutes before nine as he had promised. The second one did not. So, I started calling him on his mobile from five minutes before 9. It was switched off. It is 10 now, and all efforts to reach him have gone in vain. P arents of two of my 12 th Standard students were to pay me fees. The first student, a girl, lived in one of the slum areas around; she had never been to any classes for the simple reason that her parents (father was a daily-wage worker and mother was a housewife) could not afford to pay her fees. But, this girl was such a committed and hardworking girl, that she always topped in her class. Being a Board exam, ...

  Time doesn’t heal…   My burning desire to for peace, does. If Time should heal, Then, God should rule only through miracles, I should wait till another Salvador comes! I forgive someone, Not because he seeks for it, But, because, I will for it! I forgive for my own self, For my own liberation… And, knowing very well That, I have nowhere else to go!    Trust doesn’t come along the golden clouds, It comes along the deep silence of ocean-bed! If Trust should come Through my pleading and my demanding, Then, I must wait for eons to end, For the ocean-bed to be violent, My heart to be a rock! Forgiveness happens now, Healing happens now, Trust happens now, Peace happens now…   Yes , it is now… or, never! GERALD D’CUNHA Pic.:Hariprasad

A couple of days back, I had sent off my final-year B'Com students. It being the last day, I had spoken emotionally and wished them well in life. They had stayed back in the class even after I had left, and, I wanted them to be with each other there in my class, one for the last time. After an hour or so, all of them had left. Just before that, they came to my office to thank me, once again, and bid the final good-bye. Later on the day, when I had walked into the class, I was surprised to see the white board filled to the edge with messages from my students. Most of them were my own pet phrases… dozens of them.  Yes, they were my pet lines… I would use them in the class, every day, over and over again… to make my point, to motivate them, stir them, to make them think, to make them amend, to leave on them the impact. And, I would do it through out the year… and, for some of them, for years! Yes, the same words, the same phrases… and, the sa...

Every morning, I receive, on my cell-phone, a short passage from the Holy Bible. A dear friend of mine - who lives hundreds of miles away - sends it to me, regularly, every morning. And, it feels good! On every Christmas day, right when the Sun comes out in the East, I receive a lovely bouquet of flowers. Gauthami and Hetal were my students, more than fifteen years ago, when they were in their final-year B’Com. Ever since then – yes, for all these years – they have made sure that I – their sir – should receive the most exquisite bouquet on Christmas-day morning!  “Please. Please don’t bother,” I keep telling them, every year.  But then, they do bother, do send.  “Sir, there are only two teachers in our life to whom we do it,” they tell me. “To one, we send it on his Birthday. To you, we do it on Christmas.” Yes, they have been doing it, without a break, for more than fifteen long-years! Both Gauthami and Hetal are married and settled in two differ...

D o circumstances in our life ‘change’ us?  I remember reading in some book, “They reveal us.” Yes, as they say, the only thing that is ‘constant’ in our life is ‘change’, our circumstances. Everything - from our financial condition to relationships, from our physical condition to our spiritual inclinations – yes, everything undergoes a constant change. And, with this change, we change, too.  Yes, circumstances in our life do change us. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes, for the worse. But, we do change. Yesterday, I met someone after many, many years. He was not able to recognize me at all; nor was I. After a while, both of us succeeded. “You have changed completely… I remember your ‘Sai Baba hair… Your tight jeans… You were so thin,” this man told me. “All gone, sir; now this is me,” I expressed light-heartedly. “And, this is me,” he showed me his pot belly.  Just a couple of days before that, I happened to meet a lady after, again, several years. “You are t...