Don’t Want to be a Doctor..!
The newspaper headline stared at me like an unblinking eye: “Boy with 99.99% ends life on day of departure to medical college.” A teenager from Chandrapur, Maharashtra, bright as a shooting star, ended his own story before it had even begun. His suicide note said it all: “I don’t want…
When Two Bullies Fight..!
As I watch the US and Russia’s ongoing tiff, and India scampering between them like a schoolboy carrying notes between two brawling seniors, I’m reminded of a golden rule I follow in life, and very often in the housing society I live in: When two bullies fight—move out of the…
They are Not Weak..!
There’s something about silence from a smaller person that emboldens the bully. Gives him a sense of victory. Makes him think his sticks, fists and false cases are powerful. With growing disbelief I’ve seen nuns—yes, those gentle, sari-clad sisters who’d sooner cradle a child than carry a protest sign—being bundled…
Hugging the Wrong Curve..!
It was a line I read years ago, tucked away in a traffic police safety article: “He crashed because he was hugging the wrong curve.” You see, he wasn’t steering into the curve on the road—he was busy canoodling with the curve beside him. Yes, that’s right. One hand on…
Air-Vents All Clogged Sir..!
The AC in my bedroom conked out in the middle of the night. Not sputtered. Not whimpered. It just gave up, like a resigned bureaucrat on a Friday afternoon. One moment I was wrapped in Himalayan bliss, the next I was drenched in Sahara sweat. And so I tossed and…
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.