This is ridiculous. What do they mean hounding me like this? What happened to all the playing hard to get, revealing only faint outlines from behind curtained windows, being just a shadow flitting from pillar to stone pillar, hiding behind closed doors and jumping at me at odd hours only to disappear again, emerging into light and then swiftly merging into darkness, and most of all, appearing out of nowhere and vanishing into thin air?! The games some play! But now it seems the thingamabobs have changed their tune, and are vying with one another, trying real hard to get me to notice them. They have in fact been crowding me these last two days, waving their tiny fists (some huge ones too) in my face and yelling, “Me! Me! Look at me!”

Don’t worry. these are not the ravings of a lunatic, nor am I hallucinating. I am perfectly in control of my senses, thank you. The ‘thingamabobs’ I refer to are *ideas* for blog posts. Earlier, that is before my decision to go rambling in February, they were all coy, refusing to be enticed into the open, rejecting my open-hearted welcome and instead receding when approached, like will-o’-the-wisp. When I thought I had had enough, I said, “To hell with you lot, I am going to go do my own thing. Ha!” And soon they were like, “OMG Shail, Long time no see and all. Where had you been? Are you free today? I have this excellent idea you know which I’d like to share with you. How about it? Shall you and I get down to it and together make a blog post happen?”

Me? I remained tight-lipped and noncommittal for a while. Then the clamoring for attention got stronger, annoying me. I was damned if I was going to give in to their whims and fancies. First they play games with me, showing a face here, a little uncovered head there, a bejeweled hand, sometimes just the sound of disappearing feet, or that bit of a song echoing…. How tormented I was, pulling my hair out trying to get the ‘whole picture’ from these partials! “Come back!” I had wailed many a time, begging them, “Reveal yourself in full. Please!” But no, they would go hide in the nooks and crevices of the traitor brain. Mine, of course. When I finally decided to go ahead without them and babble, sorry, ramble, they were back and now are really creating a terrible din trying to woo me.

The rejection seems to have been like a clarion call to the playing-hard-to-get ideas lurking in the folds of the *whatevers* of the brain. Or may be it was the brain, rounding them all up and telling them, ‘Enough of teasing Shail. We have gone too far. She is going the Bohemian way and has decided to write whatever comes to her head. Can you imagine what that means? We definitely can’t have that happening. Our reputation is at stake. So go forth (and multiply if you so wish, that’s up to you), but get her attention at all costs, present yourself in your Sunday best, do not hide anything , tempt her by revealing all, force her to give up babbling, sorry rambling and write proper posts.

Tchah to you, thingamabobs. So you think you can come along and flatter me into acquiescing? No one, just no one, manipulates Shail. So I took a broom and swept them all aside with one swipe of my hand. I had decided to babble, sorry, ramble this month, so ramble I shall. But, pssst… let me tell you that I have been real smart for a change and made a list of all those who had been clamoring for attention. Perhaps I will babble ramble about them yet. I’ll have the last laugh after all.

©Shail Mohan 2015