What I love seeing in the U.S. is the Friday afternoon traffic. No, not the angry honking, or the rush-hour jams we see here—but a parade of joy! Cars streaming out of town with bicycles hanging on their back
Thursday, 9th October, 2025
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Bob’s Banter
Today, the Prime Minister lands in Navi Mumbai to inaugurate a gleaming new international airport. Cameras click, drones hum, and television anchors shout themselves hoarse describing how “under his leadershi
It was a quote that made me smile this morning. “We have to find 'landing ground' for our trade discussions,” said our External Affairs Minister, reported The Times of India.Now, in my vivid imagination—o
It’s not the United Nations or NATO that’s in panic this week—it’s the world’s cricket boards! All over the globe, from Melbourne to Manchester, from Kingston to Karachi, political leaders have been r-
It was a tragic evening in Bautzen, Germany. A twenty-seven-year-old trapeze artist, flying through the air, missed her hold and fell to her death in front of horrified children and their parents. The big top w
The bus was supposed to arrive at 6:15. It turned up at 6:23. Eight minutes late. Eight minutes in which I transformed from a calm citizen to a pacing tiger outside a zoo cage. I looked at my watch, scowled at-
It’s been a strange spectacle, isn’t it?Eleven men in blue who carry the hopes of a billion people on their shoulders, but when they walk the field in the Asian Cup, their behaviour reeks not of victors, bu
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This morning, as I sipped my coffee and scanned the news, I nearly spilled my hot brew. There on the world stage, strutting about and shaping the destiny of millions, are three young men: Donald Trump at sevent
The newspaper headline stared at me like an unblinking eye: “Boy with 99.99% ends life on day of departure to medical college.” A teenager from Chandrapur, Maharashtra, bright as a shooting star, ended his
Today nothing serious okay, just a fictitious tale!Ruby and Jai met in New York.Ruby’s country couldn’t care less what he said; Jai’s country counted each minute he spent with the other man. Finally, Jai-
There’s something about the word Swadeshi that makes the chest swell and the voice quiver with patriotism. We picture Gandhi at his spinning wheel, khadi clothes fluttering, and villagers proudly making salt.
I sat this morning and saw headline after headline of India and Indians being targeted abroad.In America, Trump’s tariffs, visa upheavals and deportations hit businessmen and students. In England, placards sc-
Many years ago, my secretary, who used to travel by the good old suburban trains of Mumbai, told me stories of the strange therapy sessions that happened on the rails. Total strangers, wedged together on a wood
Let’s start with an imaginary neighbour of mine. One week she was treating patients with tiny sugar globules wrapped in tissue paper, the next she was prescribing antibiotics strong enough to bring down an el-
“Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”There you go — I’ve just started a conversation that would have gone down well two decades ago. Today, if you try that line, the fellow beside you will either
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It was just a month ago, I stood at the memorial of the Twin Towers in New York. People streamed in quietly, many carrying flowers, placing them tenderly over the engraved names of loved ones who had perished i
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I opened the paper this morning and there it was—big, bold headlines telling me that Salman Khan had stretched his muscular arms all the way to Punjab. Not to beat up another villain, but to rescue flood vict
Today’s headline in a major newspaper screamed, ‘Many Indians are treating AI as a doctor. And turning critically ill’. I chuckled—and decided to bring three people out of my imagination, one, my neighb
Last week I wrote about people who played second fiddle and changed the world, but alongside that had written another about many who pretend to play second fiddle and find it convenient to remain doing so, beca-
I am inside the Chicago aquarium; one step inside and I am five years old again—nose to glass, palms flattened, dignity floating away like a bubble. A ballerina-jelly swirls past; a moody grouper regards me l
