T’was just this morning I opened the paper and found a pretty model showing her dainty self on a dozen different beds. Bewitching, she looked beckoning newspaper readers to glance at different rooms of a hotel she was advertising for: The Arabian room, Chinese and Polynesian, French and English, Mexican…
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.
Distracted on Life’s Highway..!
Once while driving down the highway I thought, “What a drive!” As I drove I noticed tire marks that crisscrossed the road. “Burst tires!” I realized. Tires of motorists who had not checked their air pressure before venturing onto the highway. I noticed that these tire markings veered onto the…
Boiler Size, Bullying and Bluster..!
While others play badminton, watch Netflix, or read a book for ‘timepass’; a term I find quite cute, I’m caught very often watching steam engine videos. I believe there is no ferocious, powerful, robust, beast, like the steam engine of yesterday. Even now whenever I want to imagine something more…
Your Family Dies With You..!
One day while sitting on the bench on the platform of a station, I saw the railways had put up a signboard picturing two ghosts talking to each other, with one saying in bold letters, “I CROSSED ONLY ONCE!” That got me thinking that once was enough wasn’t it, for…
Fooled by the Coffee Smell..!
In the last decade or so, I’ve become very conscious of the coffee I drink. It was not so always, as most of my lifetime I drank the cup that cheers in whatever form or brand it was. But seeing both my sons-in-law particular about their coffee, I realised how…
Enthusiasm Starts with Appreciating Others..!
“Enthusiasm makes ordinary people extraordinary…” … Bruce Barton A man had died and the whole city mourned his death. At a club everybody discussed his life and also reminded each other of one characteristic or other that had made the departed one loved by his friends. Finally a…
The Kamala-Trump Debate…!
It was a jaded old man called Donald, spewing the same mouthfuls of hate and anger against immigrants and foreigners, I’d heard during his tenure as the President. He’d divided the country with his rhetoric on building walls, both physical and mental, and had finally been thrown out by the…
Happy, Without Too Much..!
A few years ago I was invited to a prestigious business group. They wanted me to give them a presentation about the small advertising company I owned. I did and a few days later got a call saying they’d decided to invite me as a member, “You will have so…
Cultivating Stillness..!
Yesterday I had written on ‘pressing the pause’ button, but how do we press ‘pause’? How do we cultivate the habit of stillness? According to Karin Lawson, a psychologist, you can even cultivate stillness while walking on a busy street, even while chaos swirls all around you. Some spots could…
The Power of ‘Pause’..!
It’s been nearly a year since I walked into a plane to Goa, sat next to someone who was busy on her laptop, and then heard her say, “We both are speakers for the same event you know!” Ridima Wali, the same leadership consultant and communication coach it is, who’s…
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.