A few years ago a friend came to me with a brilliant idea which required him resigning from his job and setting up business. The scheme seemed well thought out and it was some years later we met again and I found him still plodding on in his old job….
Full Steam Ahead..!
Many decades ago, on long train journeys, my father would take me to the end of the long platform and show me the mighty steam engine which pulled us. “Do you know how it works Bob?” he asked once. I shook my head, “Pressure!” he said. “The steam builds up…
A Head Covering and Sweet Voice..!
In the gigantic auditorium in Manila, in the Philippines, her voice richer than that of a nightingale filled the hall. We singers stood behind her. We were the choir she sang for, and felt proud, as the audience in one accord rose and gave her a standing ovation! There were…
Lone Slipper on the Railway Track..!
He had decided to end his life, and the place he had chosen was the railway track just before the last station, and just after the level crossing. He had given it careful thought, but decided he couldn’t take it anymore. Yesterday, his wife and little son had sat terrified…
Garbage Hacker..!
The scream came from the bedroom, “Lizard?” I asked casually from the sitting room and found no reply, “Cockroach?” I shouted again, and again hearing no answer rushed to where the wife was, “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Look at this!” she screamed shoving the newspaper into my face, “look what…
Make Me A Match.!
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make me a match Find me a find, Catch me a catch Matchmaker, Matchmaker Look through your books and make me a perfect match. And as the strains of Fiddler On The Roof’s, Matchmaker chorus fades away, I wondered how the local matchmaker was faring what with so…
The Bible and Technology..!
Someone forwarded me a letter from a Mani, who wrote saying the Bible would disappear in the next fifty years if we did not try and save it! It piqued my interest, and I continued reading his words, chewing on what he was saying. He was cleverly not saying that…
A Nobel Prize for Fiction..!
Just two weeks before the budget, a silver haired lady looked up from her writing as her economist husband approached her somewhere in the capital, “What are you writing this time?” he asked. “Giving the finishing touches to my new work!” she said. “Fiction?” he asked as she nodded, “Your…
Don’t Die like the Dead Sea..!
Many friends send me pictures of them floating on the Dead Sea! But the Dead Sea is dying! The Dead Sea’s water level is declining by more than a metre a year, and its surface area has shrunk by around a third since the 1960s. The Dead Sea is really…
Are You a Root or Leaf?
“A man’s rootage is more important than his leafage.” President Woodrow Wilson. What people see are your leaves, the outside, your looks, your personality, your social skills, but what they can’t see are your roots; values and principles that ground you. A happy and fulfilled life grows from a good…
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.