Gerald D'Cunha

"Talent is like a flower; you have to fully tend to it, if you want something beautiful.” Marinela Reka N ow that we all have enough time in hand, right? “No time” has, always, been our favourite excuse… We hid behind it. But, now, there is no way we can hide… The truth is wide in the open:   All of us have excess time in hand, yes, to do whatever we wanted to, but couldn’t… complaining - ‘No time’! The sunnier side of this lockdown is, that so many are using their time to showcase their talents: they make interesting videos to showcase their talents – songs, dance, music, poetry, drawing, painting, cooking, yoga, fitness, motivation, blogging, mentoring, coaching etc. And, what a way to make the most of these, otherwise, gloomy days at our disposal! “Every adversity brings with it a seed of equal or greater opportunity.” Heard it before? You have to, in deed, believe in it. Else, the adversity becomes even a bigger excus...

“No pain, no palms; no thorns, no throne; “No gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” William Penn M y dear friend Reema* lives in London with her husband and two little girls. Her brother’s family, too, lives in another part of London. And, they have been living there for years. Back home, here in Mumbai, live their elderly and sick parents along with Reema’s mentally-challenged brother, who is in his late forties. Mother, too, needs special attention due to her own prolonged mental-illness. The maid, who was taking care of the house, due to her own reasons, abruptly stopped coming to work the day the lockdown was announced. Reema and her London brother, weren’t able to come here. But, having gone through situations like this, almost, all her life, she handled it with lots of grace and grit. The neighbours, here in Mumbai, found a full-time lady to look after the house. It was when the lockdown was announced… that’s, some two week...

“No man, without trials and temptations, can attain a true understanding of  the Holy Scriptures.”  John Bunyan M y mom, 85, lives with my eldest brother’s family. We are five brothers. One is in Kuwait, two (including me) are in Mumbai and two are in our hometown, Mangalore (Mangaluru). In these difficult times, we four brothers feel so relieved and reassured – if those are the words, I can use to describe our feelings – that mom is in safe hands! Here in Mumbai, the very night when our PM announced the 21-day lockdown, both my wife and I packed our bags and moved to my in-laws’ place, with whom our 27-year-old son had been already living. My father-in-law is 85 and mother-in-law is nearing 80. The health has not been good and, now, the maids had stopped coming. Thus, we had to take a prompt decision, that very night… which proved to be the right one. On the surface, these things seem very ordinary. But, when...

“ That charity, which longs to publish itself, ceases to be charity.” Eliza Cook T here is this temptation in almost all of us to tell – and tell it as loudly as possible – how generous, how helpful, how noble we are… Yes, because of our charitable work. Top to bottom – from our Prime Minister to the man on the street - yes, all of us seem to love the optics. When we help someone, we want the world to know about our generosity. That means, we do not want any of our ‘noble’ thoughts and deeds just go like a ship by the night… We want to cash on it… We want to trumpet it, flash it as loudly and as brightly as possible… And, get some strange ‘kick’ out of it: “Wow!” … “Kudos!” … “Great Work!” … “GBU!” … and so on. These are times of distress for all of us… Distress of one kind or the other. Many of us have food to eat, but, no helping hands, perhaps. Our once helping-hands have no food to eat, perhaps. Some of us are in distress, because our aili...

“An intellectual hatred is the worst” William Butler Yeast T he first thing I happened to see on my mobile screen, this morning, was a set of two hate-messages from two of my friends… both Hindus, highly qualified, with teenaged children, living in decent housing societies. I have known these two friends of mine for over fifteen years, and observed, that they bore a deep dislike for each other. Interestingly, today, when I read their messages on social media, I could make out what made them look alike - their chronic hatred for the Muslim community! I unfollowed both of them, instantly! No, there is no vaccine for this virus. Corona may come and go – maybe, taking with it countless lives away, without checking on their class, caste, colour or creed. But, this virus – stemming from human bias of discrimination and hatred – will never, ever go from the system of many of us… many are our own, dear and near ones! Sad! Sad! Sad! All our so-called e...

T ime to pause… Time to press the re-set button… Time to reflect… Time to slowdown… Yes, as Charles Dickens opened his famous tale – ‘The Tale of Two Cities’ – these are the best of times and these are the worst of times. And, as I quoted Mark Twain, in my last Post, “There is no security in life, there is only opportunity.” Maybe, the Poet wanted to say, “There are only ‘opportunists’!” And, I am already hearing the voices of protest: “What’s wrong with that – i.e., in being ‘opportunists’ in these hard times?” You see, Life has to go on… and we have to somehow survive. How many days can one sit at home doing nothing… Sorry, earning nothing? Yes, a guy like me, who always depended on a classroom set up to teach my students, now, is desperate to find an alternative method of teaching – online, sitting at home. Well, for me, it may be an ‘alternative method’; but, not to those who had been doing through that route for years. Now, suddenl...

“There is no security in life;  only opportunity.” Mark Twain “I f you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost,” said Henry David Thoreau, “That is where they should be. Now, put the foundation under them.” Do these words make sense, today? I do not know about you; but, yes, they do make a lot of sense to me… When all that I did – for nearly 62 years of my life – suddenly appears to me as just those castles in the air! Suddenly, someone has shaken me very hard and made me realize, that my castles still lie suspended in the air, without any foundation at all! So, what should I do, now? Let my castle-building work, of over six decades, go wasted? Or, start focusing on the foundation work? “Man proposes, and God disposes.” How casually we have all said these words! And these, too: “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making your other plans!” Yes, what’s that you and I were busy doing all th...