Saturday 20 December 2025 ,
Saturday 20 December 2025 ,
Latest News
18 March, 2016 00:00 00 AM
Print

My small stage..!

ROBERT CLEMENTS

Very often in the course of writing my column, I take Modi, Obama or the Queen of England and fit them into a small space; newspapers give me to banter! Maybe it's the playwright in me that feels to emphasize a point I need to dramatize. I'd like to say today to these worthy leaders, I mean no harm to them, I've just borrowed you for my stage for a short duration of five hundred or odd words and will return you intact when my readers are done!
Thank you sir, ma'am, thank you for bearing with the sharpness of my pen!    
The phone rings and an angry voice lashes out, "How dare you!"
"Ma'am," I say startled by the attack, "How dare I what?"
"How dare you make up a conversation between the Queen and her husband to make out they are racist and unintelligent? I find it extremely offensive! Do you think the Queen is racist?"
"As much as we all are ma'am! That beneath our veneer of tolerance, smolder embers of distrust and suspicion for each other! Embers that flicker and burn quietly, waiting to be ignited by anyone clever enough or articulate enough to know where to hold the match!"
"But why the Queen?"
"Would you have listened if I'd talked about Mr Smith or Mr Clements?"
"Who are they?"
"Ordinary people, you wouldn't have recognized on the stage I place my characters on every morning! But when it's the Queen or Obama saying or reacting to everyday normal things you and I face, then we sit up don't we, and react!"
"Like me?"
"Yes," I dare whisper, "like you! But look farther ma'am, look past the queen, past Shilpa Shetty or the Prince, and see the rot that lies within! Rot that makes us look at brown or black skin with wariness, that creates discomfort when you see a bearded man like me boarding your aircraft, that makes us suspicious of a burkha clad lady!"
"Why do you call it rot?"
"When I look at another being and can't recognize a brother or sister, when religion or nationality cloud my vision, blur my thinking, make me start riots that lead to wars then something is rotten in the state of me isn't it?"
"Yes," she whispers at the other end, "what nationality are you Bob?"
"Does it matter?"
There is silence, till finally I hear her say, "No it doesn't really!"
"Ah!" I tell her, "today your Queen did a queens job, she's got you thinkin' different!"
I could have sworn I heard her chuckle and as I pick the Queen and her Prince from my lil' stage and return them to Buckingham Palace, I know one more smoldering ember's been put out, much before it became a raging fire..!   
    [email protected]                      

 

Comments

Most Viewed
Digital Edition
Archive
SunMonTueWedThuFri Sat
010203040506
07080910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031
More Op-ed stories
Russian geopolitical strategy in 
the mediterranean Russia has several different geopolitical interests in the Mediterranean Sea basin. Some of these interests, though, conflict with one another.  After reviewing what Russian geopolitical interests…

Copyright © All right reserved.

Editor : M. Shamsur Rahman

Published by the Editor on behalf of Independent Publications Limited at Media Printers, 446/H, Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1215.
Editorial, News & Commercial Offices : Beximco Media Complex, 149-150 Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1208, Bangladesh. GPO Box No. 934, Dhaka-1000.

Editor : M. Shamsur Rahman
Published by the Editor on behalf of Independent Publications Limited at Media Printers, 446/H, Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1215.
Editorial, News & Commercial Offices : Beximco Media Complex, 149-150 Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1208, Bangladesh. GPO Box No. 934, Dhaka-1000.

Disclaimer & Privacy Policy
....................................................
About Us
....................................................
Contact Us
....................................................
Advertisement
....................................................
Subscription

Powered by : Frog Hosting