Mumbai: Advertising, actors, theater personalities and activist Gerson da Cunha (92) died in Mumbai on Friday after a brief illness.
Starting as a journalist, he moved into the world of advertising, spent 25 years and continue to head Cross, among the most powerful names in the industry.
Da Cunha, who served with UNICEF, is also associated with several platforms involved in civic activism, including AGNI, help people understand the issues of citizenship and motivate them to get involved.
Gerson da Cunha and I are friends and our family was born a month apart.
I was born in May 1929 and Gerson was born in June of the same year.
He was a few days younger than me.
I have known since my school days, even though we went to a different school.
He went to St Mary’s in Mazagaon, close to his home.
I went to St.
Xavier in Dhobi Talao.
But we know each other since a very young age.
We are Goans Bombay, because they called us in Goa.
His family probably settled in Bombay before me.
My family has been here for 200 years.
We came in the days of the British.
I think his family came here during the Portuguese era.
They have settled in Mazagaon.
Gerson and his brother, Sylvester, both at St Xavier’s College.
Gerson has been in the theater since her college days.
Then, I remember, he graduated with a higher form of theater and he used to be good friends Alyque Padamsee.
They were both in the theater and then, working together at an advertising agency Lintas.
Gerson interest in the theater brought him to his marriage to Uma, which is a film critic.
Gerson used to accompany him to the Cannes Film Festival every year.
Then, we were told that the Gerson heart pumping at a rate much slower, but he will not let it haunt him or made him go abroad every year.
Gerson also perform tasks outside of India to the United Nations in Brazil.
He was sent there because he speaks Portuguese very well.
He was there for a few years.
Then, we both joined with activism.
Gerson run NGO Agni.
My friend and former City Commissioner D M Sukthankar also involved with Agni since his retirement.
We used to take the cause to ensure that people are not taken up.
Lately, our work has increased but even during the Congress, we used to fight against injustice ditumpuhi government.
The last time the three of us get together was in 2005, when we filed a pill against those who called for a bandh.
Bandh is not allowed and they inconvenience everyone, including small children who do not get their milk and migrant workers who do not eat when they eat at the restaurant every day.
We have been going to court on this issue and managed to get the two political parties that called Bandh fins each Rs 20 lakh.
Every year, I used to go to his home on December 31 at around 19:30 at night.
We used to go to church near his home to remember all the things that happened during the year.
And then, we will go straight to the home of Gershon to imagine new year and disperse around 9:30 pm.
Gerson is not the person you want to forget as soon as you meet him.
He has a personality that is very imposing – with the beard, Kurtas and pajamas and stick he always carried.
His diction is very typical.
We have lost a very towering personality.
The biggest contribution is to make people who are not politicians, but who is really interested in the city, to the City Corporation.
Biggest initiative is to see that people are registered and they came out to vote municipal elections.
He will set up a meeting in the room and a different parish.
In the upcoming municipal elections, the city will miss him very much.
He loved this city.
We were born here and grew up here.
This city has grown on us.
It is part of us.
And so with Gerson.
His main contribution to the city is to fight for it.
Line by the poet Dylan Thomas went: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” That’s what he would do.
(Julio Ribeiro is a former Mumbai Police Commissioner.
He spoke with Sharmila Ganesan RAM)