Gerald D'Cunha

                                                             “Your thoughts are the architects of your destiny.”                  David O McKay         “T houghts are things.” This is mentioned in the very first chapter of Napoleon Hill’s famous book, ‘Think and Grow Rich.” I came across this book in my early twenties and grasped the message clearly: Everything that we create, we first create in our thoughts, then outside, as a physical reality. That’s why our attitude – the thought process – matters. For positive results, we need to think positively... As simple as that.  I met this man, today. He seemed to be in his mid-fifties. During the course of our discussion, I learnt, that he had lost his job at the outbreak of the Pandemic. Money was needed badly to r...

  “You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.” Abraham Lincoln   T here is a thin line between helping someone and spoon-feeding him. When you help someone, you empower him – by providing the know-how and tool-kit to carry out a task… You enable him to stand on his own feet… walk on his own… find his own path. You make him independent… a Man. On the other hand, when you spoon-feed a person, you smother him… all in the name of love, concern and care. You take away his strength and self-confidence… You make him psychologically cling to you, use you as a crutch. Yes, you make him dependent on you by being always around him at his beck and call and doing the task he could be and should be doing… I am in the field of coaching college students and help them succeed in their exams. For more than for decades, I have been doing this work. There is a great satisfaction for ‘helping’ most of my students – by igniting ...

  “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” Old Proverb   M any years ago, I had a poster displayed in my classroom with the above message. Young boys and girls, would get puzzled… “If you love ‘someone’,” they would understand it that way. So, the advice to set him or her – who they were madly in love with – free would not go down well with them… Detachment is for the old and the sick… This was their (Young ones’) age – the age of attachment. So, after some time, I stopped displaying this message… “Let them enjoy life… Detachment can wait,” I concluded. Attachment mercifully comes in many forms: Attachment to wealth, people, beliefs, ideas, ideologies, opinions, places, creations and so on. I don’t think, it is possible – rather practical – to rid of our every attachment. Yes, as an ideal -   as a philosophy - detachment is very sublime. But, every one of us is a mortal here on earth; therefore, attached ...

  “Every child comes with the message, that God is not yet discouraged of man.” Rabindranath Tagore   M y wife and I have just returned after visiting Hardeep’s house. Hardeep is a friend of ours, who got married quite late in life. After marriage, she moved to Gurgaon where her hubby had been living. Presently, she is in Mumbai for a few weeks with her three-month-old baby-girl. So, my wife and I wanted to see both, the baby and the mother… The baby was fast asleep, with her tender hands raised the way the smiling/ laughing   Buddha did. In fact, in her sleep, the baby was smiling! For a while, I stood there mesmerized, reflecting over what Lish McBride had said: “You know what the great thing about babies is? They are like the bundles of hope… Like the future in a basket.” How I wished the baby in this basket remained a baby in the future, too! If alone the wishes were horses!!! You and I have been once babies like this little bundle of joy is… We,...

  There are two tragedies in Life: One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.” George Bernard Shaw   A hungry man doesn’t need fasting to please God… He is already fasting. He wants desperately some food to eat. Therefore, Swami Vivekananda said, “A hungry man’s God lives in his cooking pot.” It’s one of the contradictions of life. The contradictions are ironies, paradoxes… and, they are not only amazing, but, they can be, also, funny, at times… Just look at these contradictions of life. A dear friend of mine had shared them with me the other day…   CONTRADICTIONS OF LIFE Author unknown 1.     Inspite of so many colours, white is considered class. 2.     Inspite of so many voices and sounds, silence is considered ultimate. 3.     Inspite of so much to eat, fasting is considered healthy. 4.     Inspite of so much to travel and explore, meditation under trees and on mountai...

  “Why should I cry for not being an apple, when I was born an orange; I’d be crying for an illusion. I may as well cry for not being a horse.” Donna Williams   L ast night, after I ended my long, intense and impatient conversation with one of my students – a 17-year-old boy - my wife, who had overheard the entire conversation, started her own ‘lecture’… “Why do you show your irritation and impatience like this?” she, being my dear wife and conscience-keeper, asked me, “Look, it doesn’t work with today’s young boys and girls.” Today’s young boys and girls?  Well, my wife was referring to the ‘owls’ who remain awake the whole night… Who wake up from their beds straight for the lunch… Who think Pandemic is a long, happy holiday etc., etc. I was having tough time convincing this 17-year-old, that 9, 10 and 11 in the morning were not ‘too early’ to schedule an online session for him. He was trying to convince me, on the contrary, that I had to ‘bend according to h...

  “Past three weeks have put a spring back in my step.” Captain Tom Moore   I was invited to conduct an online session on ‘Self-confidence and Communication Skills’ for students of first-year Architecture at a premier institute. The session was held this morning. I, always, tell the young ones my own story: how I went about developing my own self-confidence and communication skills. It is easy to tell my own story – because, it’s true to me. The events were real… My killing inferiority-complex – what we today call as ‘social anxiety’ – was a real thing to me when I was these students’ age… I suffered from a crushing feeling of worthlessness, which showed up on my body and mind both… Despite my ‘good-boy’ image, I endlessly felt undeserving and worthless… It had affected my academic performance… I wasn’t clear about what I had to pursue in life… My dream box was empty… Enthusiasm and motivation, which are, always, linked to our dreams, obviously, had forsaken me. And, ...

  “When you don’t have resources, you become resourceful.” K. R. Shridhar   I must’ve spoken to, or chatted with, at least a dozen people today. Invariably, all of us have checked with each other by asking -   “How are you?”, or “All is well?” And, invariably, all of us have replied by saying - “I am good”, or “Yes, all is well.” Now, all of us were not honest here: All has not been well for all of us during last several months. For most of us, the primary worry and anxiety has been our drained resources. But, despite this reality – and despite an uncertain time ahead – almost all of us have learnt to wear a brave face and say – “I am good”… “Yes, all is well.” Not having enough resources and not being enough resourceful are as different as a day and a night. Complaining about our tough times makes us even weaker. On the other hand, doing whatever is possible, with whatever we possess, and, importantly, from wherever we stand… yes, this is what being resou...

  “To win the people, always cook   them some savoury that pleases them.” Aristophanes, The  Knights   S ome months ago, when I first came across a YouTube video by the name ‘Village Cooking Channel’, I instantly fell in love with it. Village-cooking videos on YouTube are not a novelty… There are thousands of them. But, this one was distinct and special in many ways. It was brisk, it was authentic… and, it filled the viewers with energy and joy. So much so, one felt like not only visiting such villages, but settling down there, permanently.       I remember watching a couple of videos from this YouTube channel some days ago… It was late night, and I was feeling extremely low. These guys brought a smile back on my face, and fired energy back into my heart! The very night, I wanted to blog about them. Somehow, the night passed and days, too, without a blog on them. And, just a while ago, I watched this one, their latest… S o many of us ...