Gerald D'Cunha

  “If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.” Buddha   T o help someone who is needy, we need a heart that contains empathy. And such a heart, normally, wants to stay anonymous. The moment the heart feels the need to broadcast about the help just done, the help ceases to be a genuine act of giving. I know of this middle-aged man, who, always, pays the school/college fees of two/three needy students, every year. He has been doing it for years, and quietly. As Jesus said, this Good Samaritan gives with his right hand without his left hand coming to know about it… This morning, the gentleman reached out to two needy college students by paying their full year’s fees. Not a soul, other than he and me, came to know about it… Why do we do such quiet acts of kindness towards the needy? This man is an ordinary man with an extraordinary heart. He knows, that he cannot solve the poverty of this world… that he cannot reach out to each and every nee...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty 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. I like this story and keep recounting it when people try to tell me with cynicism, “Friend, this world has so many problems out there… What difference does it make if you do what you are doing?” The only way to solve the problems of this world is to do ‘what we can’… what is within our reach. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? PAST: O n one hot afternoon, a man was walking along a beach. The water had receded due to low tide and thousands of tiny starfish lay there on the hot beach-bed. As he walked, the man bent down, picked a starfish, took a f...