It is already the ninth day of the new year. Too late to write the first post of the year. But as they say….

Don’t ask me who ‘they’ are though. Apparently there is a ‘they’ who keep saying things which we, who don’t belong to this elite group of ‘they’ use liberally in our conversations or written work. I am pretty sure the ‘they’ have individual faces, and names too. But for some reason they prefer to hide behind the anonymity of a single word description aka ‘they’.

There I go, ….writing nonsense, being my silly self. Personally though, I feel it is a pretty good start to the new year, this dashing off nonsense. Yes sir, it is. You see, I love being the silly goose. In fact I have actually missed the silly, nonsensical me, the one who writes stuff that make her laugh more than her readers.

Funnily enough, the goofy me does not really exist in real life, except in my own home of course. Thankfully the L&M and the sons are all on the same page (whether they be the outright mindless kind of jokes or ‘sophisticated tongue-in cheek type) as is evidenced by some of the things I have shared about them.

My jokes, whether the slapstick kind or the tongue-in-cheek (or even the subtle and sophisticated variety) have failed with ‘real life’ connections. Case in point, being accused of misdemeanour of the worst kind for jokingly calling someone a Rip van Winkle for forgetting something for years together. Yes, that’s a true story I am never going to forget.

There are the ‘serious’ types out there who think I am frivolous for not sticking to serious matters. Writing nonsense when you can join the forces to bring a positive change in life! Their snort of disapproval gives me sleepless nights. Not. I can almost hear their ‘You can do better than this Shail!’ and it sends shivers down my spine. Not.

It is not as if I don’t want to rain fire and brimstone on the nasties of the world. Believe me, I do, I really, really do. I abhor injustice and unfairness. I don’t like the way women are treated. I hate that there are racists and fascists and the rest of the kind in this world. I die each time I have to smile and talk normally to people who think it is perfectly okay to wipe those that belong to another religion off the face of earth. The list is endless and I feel helpless.

What I do is more on the lines of not entertaining conversations that veer in the direction of hatred of a class, religion or nation. There’s a saying in both Tamil and Malayalam which goes, ‘Everyone knows what’s going to happen when a bull raises its tail…’ (Hint: Its about to urinate)

When a conversation veers in a certain direction, I can see what’s coming (Hint: sh*t) and so interrupt and tell people I don’t want to hear anymore. It doesn’t always happen that way of course. Sometimes I am left grinding my molars to a pulp to the delight of my dentist. (More ceramic caps, more moolah!) But then I try my level best to keep my home a safe zone from people who are bent on abusing my hospitality by bringing their hate-filled agendas into it.

Anyways…. Where am I? And how did I get here to this particular point? Egan, I have absolutely no idea. Let me go back and check.

Aha! There it is. ‘But as they say…’ I wrote in the very first paragraph and then wandered off the straight and narrow path. Let me dutifully complete that sentence. But as ‘they’, whoever ‘they’ are, say, Better late than never. This here today is me being better late than never on the ninth day of the new year.

Happy Twenty Twenty-Four people! Wish me luck that I get to wander off the trodden path through all of this year. There’s nothing I like to do better than that. Thank you, in advance 😉

©️ Shail Mohan 2024