The other day I was humming “Abide With Me” under my breath—yes, just quietly, reverently, in my usual out-of-tune baritone—when someone at home (I won’t mention who, but she’s usually quite fond of my ‘music’) wrinkled her nose and said, “Could you not sing that? It sounds… mournful. Like you’re…


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.