She was beautiful, doe eyed and South Indian, and every time, we met after college, and I recounted something I’d been through during the day, she would exclaim, “Aiyo!” Aiyo, covered all her emotions, from ‘Oh dear!” to ‘’Oh no!” in sadness and even in joy, could ‘aiyo’ be used….


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.