Watching movies centred around old kingdoms, kings and courts, one is intrigued by the role played by courtiers who surround the king, or the ladies in waiting, bowing and curtsying a queen! But, their role was not just in looking after their monarch and his wife, but they played a…
Harassment, Laws and Courts..!
Laws like sedition and abetment to suicide are used conveniently by the police to harass the public. And because cunning people know such laws can be used to land you in jail, they threaten you with them. “I am going to commit suicide!” “What? For this small amount of money?”…
Car Fun..!
What part of the car causes the most accidents? Ans: The nut that holds the wheel! Opened the newspaper this morning and found a whole supplement devoted to cars so I said, well if you can’t beat them, join them and decided to devote today’s column to car fun! When…
The Helpful Sounds of Silence..!
A wise old bird sat on an oak- The more he saw, the less he spoke, The less he spoke, the more he heard, Lord make me like that wise old bird.-Anon For two weeks I’d stopped carrying my phone. My friends thought I was crazy. “Bob!” they cried, “we…
Position, Power, but NO People..!
He was the Bishop of the local churches and also Chairman of a charitable organization of which I was a board member. Pompous and plump, he quite enjoyed chairing the meeting, especially after the general secretary had fallen sick and he had the attention of everybody. We discussed matters at…
Colonial Sedition and Democracy..!
Even as I hear the Supreme Court calling sedition, a ‘colonial’ law, I also hear that a hundred farmers have been slapped with the same ‘colonial’ law for protesting! I agree, nobody likes his car stopped on a highway, especially a Speaker! But that’s democracy! Just as a government is…
Those We Touch Everyday..!
This happened on Valentines Day, a few months ago: I had just finished my jog and was sitting on a bench in the park, when a young girl, who had also been jogging came and sat next to me. “Happy Valentine’s Day!” she said and I politely wished her the…
Peeping Out of the Window..!
There’s a big difference between looking out of your window and peeping out, and generally the difference lies in the attitude of the person at the window: Does he or she want to be seen? If she doesn’t want to be seen she peeps, if she or he couldn’t be…
God At Your Window..!
When we were kids I remember how my younger brother once used a word he shouldn’t have said, and how cleverly I blackmailed him to do many little tasks for me, by reminding him, about it everyday. Many of us have done something in the past which always makes us…
Visiting Mahabalipuram! Visiting Spain! To See What?
A moneyed friend of mine had just come back from a holiday he’d spent at Mahabalipuram, the temple town a few kilometres from Chennai. Since I’d been there a few times, I’d told him about the carvings, the sculptures and the temples, and was quite eager to hear his own…
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.