This happened exactly seven years ago: I still shudder as I remember that early morning call, “Bob, your mother just passed away!” “Ma!” I’d screamed, and my cry echoed in my empty house, empty because my wife and children were abroad, “Ma, can’t I just phone you like I normally…


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.