‘Namaste!’ she said, as all of us in the New York church turned to greet whoever was sitting by our side on Christmas Eve. For a moment I was startled. I was thousands of miles away from home, and the last thing I imagined I’d hear was a ‘Namaste’! She…
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.
Driving On Life’s Highway..!
I remember once zipping down the highway: 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 barricades…
Freedom, Beyond the Door..!
Met a friend of mine a few days ago and we spent some time chatting with each other. He had done pretty well for himself, with a business going great guns. “You know Bob,” he said, “I grew up in Ahmedabad and when I told my family I was going to…
Let’s Celebrate a Violent Christmas Today..!
There are no Christmas celebrations I heard in the Palestinian Bethlehem as they mourn the death of innocents, especially children killed in Gaza. But maybe that’s because we celebrate Christ’s birth thinking wrong thoughts or doing the wrong things. Because violence also marked the birth of the Lord 2000 years…
Your Christmas Gift..!
I walked by a crib on Christmas Eve. There was a lone tear in the eye of the plastic Babe in the Manger, “They aren’t celebrating my birthday Bob. Nobody knows what Christmas is about at all! They lay my wax figure in a plastic manger, put in some donkeys,…
A New Peace On Earth..!
Just a hundred years ago, wars fought on battlefields, left men physically scarred, as even if they were fortunate to come home alive, they came wounded with either the loss of arm, leg, or even a mutilated face, plus horrors and traumas which sometimes never went away as night after…
The Heavenly Choir..!
Somewhere in the realms of Heaven two thousand years ago, the angel with the beautiful voice heard the gong struck thrice. “That’s the choir practice bell!” she cried excitedly to her friends, flapping her beautiful wings and running down the heavenly corridor to the choral hall, where the heavenly choir…
The Opposition and Christmas..!
There’s a lesson this Christmas for the Opposition! Especially seeing their futile efforts to be heard, rendering them more speechless, through suspensions or corruption charges. Two thousand years ago, a once powerful Jewish people lay powerless under a Roman Empire, which left them longing for their messiah or the…
An ‘Intolerant’ Santa..!
Santa climbed gingerly from his sleigh onto the roof of a home in Mumbai, “These Indian chimneys are stupid!” he cursed loudly to Mrs Santa Claus who was holding the reindeer while Santa went down to unload his gifts, “Why can’t they make them like we make them back home?”…
A Humble Spirit..!
As a child, something that used to puzzle me was why Jesus was born in a humble cattle shed? Why couldn’t he have been born in a palace? Later, in that lowly birth, I realized what humility really is. I like the story of a young woman who wanted to…
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.