One day while it was snowing in New York, I happened to glance outside and saw a young girl. She walked on the pavement opposite mine, and I stood transfixed! She went at a gait that left everybody else behind, and in this city where time is a major factor,…
Listen to the Other Stick..!
Once upon a time, there was a man who had many sons. The sons, on the other hand, were always fighting with each other. As the man became older and weaker, he became worried that his sons would ruin themselves if they continued to fight. He begged them to live…
Start Getting Young..!
Have you ever thought that when we are young, we are so filled with trying to make it high in the world, to pass our exams, getting a good job, then working hard to get the next promotion and a better designation, that we really don’t have time to look…
Coming Full Cycle..!
“Watch out!” I shouted as my driver swerved to avoid the cyclist then jumped out of the car and ran to pick up the fallen man. That’s when I saw his bicycle. It lay old and rusty. I looked down at it and it seemed nearly a half century was…
Raise Your White Flag..!
There are two acts of surrender I’m going to portray below: By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion. And on July 16, a new option became available to the Allies when the United States secretly detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in the New…
Losing Liberty ..!
’Tis not often Liberty Island ferrymen around New York show agitation. Yes, some hundred odd years ago they were a tad perplexed to see the Statue of Liberty hoisted up and made to stand all by herself on what was once an old fort island, but after that, through storms…
Getting Rid of Our Dead Parts..!
He was a brilliant conductor, but I soon found out, one, who could not handle authority. Every time he was asked to speak with the committee about music or concerts, he felt he was being insulted or humiliated. “They need information about costs and funds,” I told him, “they are…
The Twins Are Leaving..!
Today, as the six–year old twins and their mother, my daughter, leave my home for New York, I found what I’d written when they first visited India, and left five years ago: ‘The twins are no longer with me; they’ve returned! Yet, in the quiet of the day, and in…
Stoking ‘Remembrance’ Fires…!
What about having a ‘Forgiveness Day’? What’s that, you ask, what d’you mean by such? Well, since this government seems to be blessing us with days to remember atrocities and injuries, what about a day to forgive and forget each other for the same? Not just you and me, but…
Uniform Eating Code..!
Since the powers at the center are intent on a uniform civil code, which could lead I’m sure to a Uniformed Eating Code my friend from Russia who was on a visit and who was a diehard non- vegetarian decided she would become a veggie for the period of her…
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.