“Shout ‘HOW!” “How!” I shouted. “It means good!” “How” means ‘good’ in Chinese?” I asked with a smile. The young man smiled and nodded and we both went back to watching the program. He was Song Yumin, the Deputy Consul General of China and what we were watching was a…
Run It By Jesus..!
We are so lucky aren’t we that most of the words Jesus spoke here on earth have been recorded by his disciples and written for everyone of us to read? Listen to Him speaking calmly and tenderly to the woman at the well, harshly and angrily to those who used…
Lost in Mere Rituals..!
When I saw Biden taking his oath on an old family Bible that looked like it hadn’t been opened for years I wondered whether it was on the words inside the Bible he swore an oath by or did he feel the old book was a good luck charm? A…
The Cavity and the Tongue..!
A patient told his dentist, “I can feel a huge cavity with my tongue,” The dentist examined the man’s teeth and said, “It’ll only be a small filling.” “But why does it feel so large?” asked the puzzled patient. “Just the natural tendency of the tongue to exaggerate!” replied the…
Gangsters and Public Speaking..!
While taking a class on public speaking in the academy I run, I told my class how important public speaking was in life. Many of us I told my students would not get opportunities to speak on podiums or stages, but there were other times it would come in useful…
Not Yet..!
A man who had just lost his job went over to a shop and with the last of his money decided to buy a beautiful teacup for his wife. On the display shelf, he saw the perfect cup and told the sales person to take it down. Suddenly the cup…
Tackle the Impossible..! .
Around the beginning of the last century, polio was rampant, irreversibly paralyzing thousands of children. Immunization programs were introduced and Rotary took this as their major project. In 1988 350,000 children were afflicted with polio throughout the world, by 2013, the number had dropped to just 416 cases and India…
You’re Only A Woman..!
As I read about rapes and sexual assaults in our country, I imagine one of our men, not necessarily a rapist, dying and walking up the steps towards the pearly gates, but a pretty angel stops him, “Not this way sir!” “But its written ‘Heavenly Gates’ up there?” “For those…
Hurry Up and Be Patient..!
I remember before the lockdown taking a long drive with a friend of mine to check out a problem with a trust in which we were both trustees. I enjoyed the drive and the comfortable car he took me in. He wasn’t driving, his driver was, and when we got…
Move On..!
One of the saddest sights seen is when a husband or wife dies and leaves behind a partner. You can literally see the one left behind asking silently, “Why did you leave me here? What will I do alone?” And though the question is silently asked, it’s one that is…
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.