A few years ago, maybe it still happens today, transport and traffic police in Mumbai, met taxi drivers to tell them to be present near bars during the Christmas season up to the New Year period at night so tipplers could be dropped home I picture a tippler leaving the…
Robert Clements is a journalist and newspaper columnist. With an estimated 6 million readership, his column, Bob’s Banter is published in over 30 newspapers and magazines in nearly every state in India, as well as in the top newspapers of Bangladesh, London and Dubai and is also translated into Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.
Feel Alive through Silence..!
A few years ago, my wife and I had been to Chicago during winter, and stayed in the basement of a house for over a month. I loved the place, for the very reason many hate basements; it was a deep silence that reigned there. The world today hates silence:…
Choose Good Friends..!
In my book, ‘DARE’, I have a chapter, ‘Dare to Make and Keep Friends’, but today I’m not going to quote from my book but about choosing friends! As the old adage says, “A Man is known by the company he keeps” and so it is prudent to choose your…
The Neem and the Peepal..!
Ever so often, I hear a branch of the Neem tree outside my window rubbing against the metal awning, and a little farther, the sound of the Peepal tree doing the same. I wondered whether the sounds were a conversation between the two, the Neem tree with its sweet voice…
Trust the Director..!
Something I loved doing and still love, is directing some of the plays I’ve written. But even as I directed the same, I would always see a difference in how members of the cast treated my directional skills. Those who I had directed before, would be like putty in my…
Not Celebrating Christmas..!
Yesterday I sang a quartet piece with a family, who’d just lost their father, a strong powerful bass. The three, the mother, son and daughter invited me to sing in his place, and as I sang along, thoughts went through my mind. How easy it would have been for them…
Choirs, Christmas, and the Conductor..!
Have you ever heard choirs, whose melodious voices bring tears of joy into your eyes? As if the windows of heaven have opened and you get glimpses of pure glory and supreme ecstasy! Well, it’s the Christmas Season and choirs all over are producing these wonderfully ecstatic moments. Moments produced…
Forever Worried Mothers..!
Something that keeps my wife from having a good night’s sleep is when she hears that one of our daughter’s is not well. Initially, I used to think it was the doctor in her, trying to find a medical remedy, but now I think it’s all about being a mother….
Why a Disabled Child..!
It was many years ago that I landed at the hospital where my wife practiced, to meet the mother of a baby who had been born with a physical deformity. The mother was not there but the grandmother was. “Why?” she sobbed, “did God do this to my daughter. Hasn’t…
Call Discouragement a Liar..!
There were tears in her eyes when I entered the room many years ago. I knew she had been on the phone and I wondered who had made her cry. “Dad,” she asked, “am I a failure?” “Are you?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said, her eyes brimming with…
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.