There was wailing next door. Not muffled sobs but full-throated, guttural wailing. My wife looked up from her tea, her eyebrows knitted in worry. “Something’s happened,” she said. I nodded. “Death in the family,” I whispered with the air of someone who watches too many crime shows. “Worse,” she said,…


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.