The mundane is my forte. So said my readers way back in 2006 when I started blogging. The blog’s salient feature was write-ups about everyday things. With a humorous twist. True. My topics were/are not earth-shattering. Nothing anywhere about the world economy or politics or issues that plague humanity.

Well, may be now and then I have touched/do touch upon the problems women face in my country, but such posts are few and far between and are purely rants with sarcastic undertones. They are not scholarly undertakings. They don’t drip facts or present figures to corroborate those facts. I embark upon these rants with only commonsense, powers of observation and a natural empathy for fellow beings as my assets.

You see, my time has been spent mostly with the pots and pans. Hence my expertise starts in the kitchen and can be said to extend up to what the L&M and the offspring have said or done, imagining what the cats and dogs I have known or own are probably telling me, also to the trees, the sky, rain, birds, butterflies, raindrops, frogs, flowers, dried leaves and such other unimportant stuff that surround me.

Sometimes though, I wonder. What am I doing writing silly, mundane stuff day in and day out?

Much is happening in this world. Everywhere you look there is injustice, racism, misogyny, hunger, authoritarian governments, bigotry, violence against women/minorities/the downtrodden.. Yet here I am ignoring serious stuff, writing almost exclusively on nonsensical stuff. Stuff that doesn’t matter in the least to anyone. Stuff that doesn’t change the world for the better in anyway. Apart from the fact that it makes ME happy, is any of it worth anything at all?

Then I answer (console?) myself: The world doesn’t need causes and purposes and seriousness alone from everyone. It needs some to be clowns too, for those lighter moments, to make people laugh. It needs some to show things so ordinary and silly in a new, funny light as to brighten, albeit briefly, an otherwise bleak existence. And I hope I am doing that. At least.

© Shail Mohan 2020