Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Vincent D'Souza Y ears ago, when I had decided to do something about my poor English, one of the things I did – and found it very useful – was telling a nice story in two tenses… Past and Present. Over the years, I have helped hundreds of people who were earnest to improve their English with the same method… Yes, write a nice story down in both the tenses… and tell it to someone. Well, don’t tell me “I know this story.” WHO WILL BELL THE CAT? PAST: T here was a grocer’s shop where a large number of mice resided. The mice feasted on fresh cheese, biscuits, wheat, rice and sugar and lived there happily. But, the grocer was a worried man… He worried about his losses and thought of putting an end to the mice menace. Thus, he brought a hefty cat and placed it in his shop. The cat began to catch and eat mice one by one… The mice were so terrorized that they dared not to come out of their holes. Then, one day, when the ca...

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...