“Papa, how do you know this news is true?” My friend looked at his twelve-year-old son, then at the WhatsApp message he had just forwarded to his family group, school group, building group, prayer group and one bewildered plumber. “It was sent by a very reliable person,” he said. “Who?”…
Silencing a Fifteen Year Old..!
A fifteen-year-old girl uses abusive language while speaking about the Prime Minister. Immediately, the machinery of power allegedly swings into action. Threats are made against her and her family, and soon the child appears before the public saying that she was forced to use those words. Perhaps she was. Perhaps…
Walls That Build…!
As this government insists on building walls between people, here are two walls worth mentioning. The first belongs to an old hospital building in a Karnataka village. For eighty years it had watched people come and go, until one day it looked sadly at its cracked walls and sighed. “Once,”…
Controlling Death and Life…!
One of the smallest organs in the body is the tongue, and yet there has been so much that has happened in the world because of it. In Proverbs 18:21 it says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its…
Ours, Not to Reason Why..!
A poem that fascinated me in my school days was Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade. “Forward, the Light Brigade!” came the command, and six hundred British soldiers galloped courageously into a valley surrounded by Russian cannons. There was only one small problem. The order was wrong….
Harmony Gets Softer..!
Choral singing has a habit of opening doors in the most unexpected places. Sometimes it opens the door of a concert hall. Sometimes it opens the door of a church. And sometimes, as I discovered in Chicago, it opens the door of your own rather oversized ego. I saw an…
The New Cockroach Spray..!
The White Bearded Chief and his deputy, the Bald Round Head, walked solemnly towards the edge of the village. “We have a serious problem,” whispered the Chief. “I know,” said the Deputy. “Your latest talk to the nation had hardly any listeners. Heard you are blaming the teleprompter!” “Not that…
March on dear Antinationals..!
“Oh dear,” I whispered as the news came in, “the antinationals have won!” A gentleman sitting beside me nearly dropped his teacup. “Which border have they crossed?” he asked. “Should I hide under the bed? Should I forward patriotic messages on WhatsApp?” “No,” I said. “It is much worse. The…
Paying for Their Misdeeds…!
Many years ago, as a youngster, I watched a powerful priest praying in church. His eyes were closed. His hands were raised. His voice trembled with devotion. Anyone watching him would have imagined that heaven had reserved a special seat for him. But many of us knew another story. Church…
When I Is Enough For Me..!
My neighbour bought a robot vacuum cleaner. “It cleans the house all by itself,” he announced proudly. The next week he bought a robot lawn mower. The week after that he proudly displayed a smart refrigerator that ordered groceries without speaking to a soul. A month later I asked him,…
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.