Fuel Hike Solutions..!
Fuel prices are rising so often nowadays that I no longer look at the petrol pump display. I turn my face away respectfully, the way middle class Indians avoid eye contact with hospital bills, school fees, or wedding caterers. The other morning my driver arrived looking unusually cheerful. This itself…
Brilliant Wardrobe Management…!
The Mumbai police have decided to issue maroon T shirts and shorts for male suspects lodged in central lock ups. “It’s an ingenious idea,” said a police commissioner from another state in northern India, known for its instant justice. “Ingenious?” I asked. “How?” He looked at me the way a…
The Anti- Conversion Law at Home..!
The Anti- Conversion Law has arrived in Maharashtra, and like all significant state and national developments, I felt it my duty as a responsible citizen to first implement it where I thought I had absolute control, at home. I immediately appointed myself Chief Anti- Conversion Officer. It is a highly…
Short Men and Tall Women..!
Somewhere in the mysterious headquarters where society writes its unwritten rules, a committee must have once met and decided something very important. Men must be tall. Women must be short. In fairy tales the prince is tall, heroic and rides a horse with impressive posture. The princess is delicate and…
Nobody Wants a Silent Chief..!
At the farthest edge of a village, where people once lived in harmony, but in the last eleven years had not, a white bearded chief stood staring into the horizon. His bald deputy stood beside him, polished scalp reflecting both sunlight and loyalty. “The opposition is shouting that you surrendered…
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.