“The ultimate tragedy,” said Martin Luther King, “is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” Yes, the silence you maintain when wrong things happen, is as bad as carrying out those same acts of injustice against the innocent. God…
Do You Dare Ask?
All the change for the better that’s happened in our world, is because people simply asked. Why am I a slave, and not free like the white man? Cried the blacks in America, even as they were aware of a constitution stating, all men were equal, even as they saw…
Stop Thinking, Start Thanking..!
While walking in the park a few years ago I passed an elderly gentleman, a friend of mine, who seemed to be walking a tad slowly and pensively, “A penny for your thoughts?” I asked. “I think I’m getting old!” he said sadly, and at that time his daughter passed…
Home, Hearth and Heart..!
T’was just this morning I opened the paper and found a pretty model showing her dainty self on a dozen different beds. Bewitching, she looked beckoning newspaper readers to glance at different rooms of a hotel she was advertising for: The Arabian room, Chinese and Polynesian, French and English, Mexican…
Distracted on Life’s Highway..!
Once while driving down the highway I thought, “What a drive!” As I drove I noticed tire marks that crisscrossed the road. “Burst tires!” I realized. Tires of motorists who had not checked their air pressure before venturing onto the highway. I noticed that these tire markings veered onto the…
Boiler Size, Bullying and Bluster..!
While others play badminton, watch Netflix, or read a book for ‘timepass’; a term I find quite cute, I’m caught very often watching steam engine videos. I believe there is no ferocious, powerful, robust, beast, like the steam engine of yesterday. Even now whenever I want to imagine something more…
Your Family Dies With You..!
One day while sitting on the bench on the platform of a station, I saw the railways had put up a signboard picturing two ghosts talking to each other, with one saying in bold letters, “I CROSSED ONLY ONCE!” That got me thinking that once was enough wasn’t it, for…
Fooled by the Coffee Smell..!
In the last decade or so, I’ve become very conscious of the coffee I drink. It was not so always, as most of my lifetime I drank the cup that cheers in whatever form or brand it was. But seeing both my sons-in-law particular about their coffee, I realised how…
Enthusiasm Starts with Appreciating Others..!
“Enthusiasm makes ordinary people extraordinary…” … Bruce Barton A man had died and the whole city mourned his death. At a club everybody discussed his life and also reminded each other of one characteristic or other that had made the departed one loved by his friends. Finally a…
Happy, Without Too Much..!
A few years ago I was invited to a prestigious business group. They wanted me to give them a presentation about the small advertising company I owned. I did and a few days later got a call saying they’d decided to invite me as a member, “You will have so…
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.