Many years ago while reading the book, Silas Marner by George Eliot, I remember the way one of the characters, Molly dies in a snow storm. She trudges through the falling snow and finding it increasingly difficult to walk, stumbles, falls, then takes the last bit of opium she carries…
Looking Way Ahead..!
Was sipping tea in the back seat of my car last week, when my driver, a replacement for my chap who had gone on leave, suddenly braked, throwing scalding hot tea from my glass all over me, “Sorry sir,” he said as he looked in the rear view mirror. I…
Make Another Dream Come True..!
Here’s something for all of you who strive to build a career or branch off into business to read the book, “The Other Side of Me”by Sidney Sheldon. In those pages you will see how hard work, persistence and discipline pay off. You will see a boy wanting to commit…
Outstanding Christians..!
The couple stood outside their church as the Sunday mass was celebrated inside. They smiled and frowned, then smiled and frowned again, as they looked at their respective phones. They messaged back, sent pictures, then stared at each other, looked away. They did not see the lone man standing just…
A Marathon Called Life ..!
A few years ago I witnessed the New York City marathon. I heard there were fifty-one thousand participants this year and am sure nearly half of New York was out cheering them as they ran. There was a loud shout as the first runners came into view. The crowd went…
ChatGPT, Chanakya and Compassion..!
They were exceptionally good skits, all done using ChatGPT! I watched the actors working on their dialogues and noticed their lines were all geared towards solving addiction problems. ChatGPT had done an excellent job of giving solutions through clever discourse and rational thought, but as I continued watching, I noticed…
Ah Taj..!
Love transcends religion, caste and other man made barriers! Much prose and an equal number of lines of poetry have sprung from the hearts of writers and lovers expressing this emotion called love! But, the greatest symbol of love is the Taj Mahal in Agra! Millions fly across the ocean,…
Unseasonal Rain and Treacherous Umbrellas..!
Whoever heard of heavy rains in April and suddenly there was a search to find my umbrellas, who I believe go on vacations between one monsoon and another. Looking for them brought back memories of their ancestors who passed through my life ages ago: My first working monsoon in the…
In Pursuit of Happiness..!
When America got its freedom, something that the founding fathers enshrined in their Declaration of Independence was the right of every American to pursue happiness. It sounds good, but what the people found was that the pursuit of happiness wasn’t as easy as it sounded. I’m going to tell you…
Peace during the Bombing..!
A story that has long fascinated me, is that of an old couple in the Second World War. They lived in London, during the time when Hitler decided to bombard the city everyday. Day after day hundreds of German planes dropped bombs all over the city and flattened building after…
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.