Walking Shoes and Common Sense…!
“Hello!” The voice came from somewhere near the floor. Now at my age, hearing voices is not something one admits easily. If I told my family I had heard a voice from the ground they would immediately stop discussing my health insurance and start discussing my mental insurance. So I…
No Heatwave In Greenland..!
Around where I live the temperature has climbed to forty-two degrees centigrade. Forty two. The kind of temperature where the sun does not merely shine. It interrogates you. You step outside for three minutes and return looking like a man who has just completed a marathon in a pressure cooker….
The Indian Budget Tamasha..!
The Indian Budget is that annual national festival which arrives with great fanfare, deep mystery, and absolutely no guarantee of happiness. For one week before Budget Day, every Indian suddenly becomes an economist. Your vegetable vendor discusses fiscal deficit. Your neighbour explains capital expenditure. Your uncle forwards WhatsApp messages predicting…
Wrong Questions, Wrong Solutions..!
The municipal elections in Mumbai are over, the banners have been taken down, the loudspeakers have finally fallen silent, and the city has returned to its favourite sport: complaining. I am part of a WhatsApp group of reasonably educated, well read, English speaking citizens who proudly discuss world affairs, stock…
The Lost Uncle and Aunty Generation..!
What troubles me today is watching highly educated uncles and aunties forwarding messages with the same enthusiasm with which they once forwarded marriage proposals and birthday greetings for their children. Take for example the recent message doing its grand parade on WhatsApp. It shows our foreign minister apparently shouting at…
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.