This may never happen but a part of my imagination hopes that one day I will be hospitalised for this, so here goes:
“There’s something wrong!” I shout as I pick up my newspapers from the gate, as I do every morning.
“What’s wrong?” asks the wife.
“I have been cheated, swindled, a fraud has taken place!”
“What fraud?” asks the wife, “you don’t have money, so nobody could have robbed you, your car is eight years old, so nobody would want to take it away!”
“I have been cheated by the newspaper boy, where is he?”
“He just left on his cycle,” says a bewildered wife.
“Call the watchman, tell the boy to come back immediately. I will not tolerate cheating!”
The wife calls the watchman, who hurriedly calls the newspaper delivery boy as he is just beginning to start off on his cycle and complete his rounds. He comes to my house looking scared, “Sahib,” he says, “if I have done anything wrong, please forgive me!”
“You have cheated me!” I tell him.
“No sahib, I have not. Last month you did not pay the bill, but I have added no interest, even when you did not pay last November, I did not add interest!”
“You have cheated me, and I don’t like being cheated.
“What has he done?” asks the wife, “I had no idea you had not paid him last year, what did you do with the money? Poor little fellow, he climbs these stairs daily and you don’t pay his bills?”
“Listen,” I tell her wearily, “That is not the point, this boy has cheated me today. He didn’t give me my correct newspaper!”
“There it is husband, right there in your hand!”
“Yes sir, that is today’s newspaper!” says the newspaper boy brightening up.
“This is not the newspaper!”
“It is!” shouts the wife.
“It is!” whispers the boy.
“Open it and see,” I tell them triumphantly as both of them scramble and open the newspaper, “Do you understand what I am saying? Can’t you see, I have been cheated? Look at the news. Not a single rape, no robbery, no lynching, no journalist murdered, no war in Israel, none in the Ukraine! You expect me to believe it is today’s paper? I have been swindled, do you see what I am saying?”
The ambulance man was rough as he pushed me onto the stretcher, “Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“To the psychiatrist ward,” he said.
“What am I suffering from?” I asked the doctor.
“Breaking news hangover!” he sighed, “With the world becoming a peaceful place, people are growing hysterical with withdrawal symptoms!”
Like I said at the beginning, how wonderful it would be to get hospitalised for such..!
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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.
Overwhelming.
It is indeed heartbreaking that the new(s) trending normal is glorified insane violence.
RIP(rest in pieces).
Bob Sir. Your future thoughts are very intelligent and admirable. All honest human of the world wants peace every where. But how it can come. No one is successful inspite of maximum efforts teachers of great intelligence. Every one has different brains with different types of virus. In the end improvement starts from every individual. Families discipline and many other improvements. Which is very difficult.
Those who love the Prince of Peace will do to others what they’d love others do to them, as the Bible tells them to. God promises to peacemakers, peace. This will unite people to bring in the nation, progress. God’s kingdom will come in the world He created to bless.