This post is not about food, although my blog is mostly about that. Well, in a way, since I do love cooking, and this is a hobby for me, the underlying theme is food. But, as the title says: this is a blog about living. So, in a way to enhance your life, each one should discover, research, adopt and then nurture a hobby that has nothing to do with one's normal field of work.
I am proud to say that I have not one, but many hobbies. Sometimes, I wonder how I ever find the time to do my normal work!
My earliest hobby was to collect stamps. I did this from my early childhood to some time around the age of 10 or so, then gave it up as I hardly received stamps from overseas. Next, I took to collecting matchbox covers. Since the paper labels were stuck on thin wood boxes, I would soak the tops in water till the labels came off the wood, then dry them and stick them onto the pages of a special notebook. It was a time-consuming exercise, but as I went on searching and cataloging covers, I realised these had price denominations just like stamps! A branded box cover sold at different prices over the years, so, for example, I had a "SHIP" brand cover for 5 paise, then 10 paise, then 20 paise and then 25 paise! This would all go on a separate page!
The hobby died out as my life became more and more complicated. From adolescence to the dawn of the internet age, my next, all-consuming hobby was reading books. I have read comic books, children's books, love stories, James Hadley Chase, detective tales, Enid Blyton, classics from Charles Dickens to Jane Eyre, and, as I grew in age, I have devoured Wilbur Smiths, Arthur Hailey, Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Ludlum, Colin Forbes, and so many others.
Reading inevitably led to writing my own books. During my school years, I wrote a series of adventures of four kids and their dog who go out and form a boys' club, then solve mysteries - exactly as Enid Blyton's Famous Five or Secret Seven did. I even wrote a full-length Hindi novel, a short biography of a fictional author, a full-length English novel, and poems galore.
My writing hobby has continued, although I blog much more than write novels or poems. Readers who wish to read my work are requested to click HERE.
Sometime around 2007-8, I turned to photography, I purchased my first digital DSLR camera, my Canon 550D. I have played around with it over the last decade. I amalgamated my interest in photography with my newfound interest in birding. I now go out birding, using my Canon camera and my different zoom lenses to record and save my sightings for posterity.
Birding has been a very rewarding hobby insofar as it gives me peace, immense satisfaction and happiness of a very high order. I will write about birding in another post elsewhere.
For this post, suffice it to say that for a fuller life, do have one or two hobbies. Discover the talents inside you, adopt the hobby and then nurture it over the years so that it takes you further and further in the territory ...
I am proud to say that I have not one, but many hobbies. Sometimes, I wonder how I ever find the time to do my normal work!
My earliest hobby was to collect stamps. I did this from my early childhood to some time around the age of 10 or so, then gave it up as I hardly received stamps from overseas. Next, I took to collecting matchbox covers. Since the paper labels were stuck on thin wood boxes, I would soak the tops in water till the labels came off the wood, then dry them and stick them onto the pages of a special notebook. It was a time-consuming exercise, but as I went on searching and cataloging covers, I realised these had price denominations just like stamps! A branded box cover sold at different prices over the years, so, for example, I had a "SHIP" brand cover for 5 paise, then 10 paise, then 20 paise and then 25 paise! This would all go on a separate page!
The hobby died out as my life became more and more complicated. From adolescence to the dawn of the internet age, my next, all-consuming hobby was reading books. I have read comic books, children's books, love stories, James Hadley Chase, detective tales, Enid Blyton, classics from Charles Dickens to Jane Eyre, and, as I grew in age, I have devoured Wilbur Smiths, Arthur Hailey, Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Ludlum, Colin Forbes, and so many others.
Reading inevitably led to writing my own books. During my school years, I wrote a series of adventures of four kids and their dog who go out and form a boys' club, then solve mysteries - exactly as Enid Blyton's Famous Five or Secret Seven did. I even wrote a full-length Hindi novel, a short biography of a fictional author, a full-length English novel, and poems galore.
My writing hobby has continued, although I blog much more than write novels or poems. Readers who wish to read my work are requested to click HERE.
Sometime around 2007-8, I turned to photography, I purchased my first digital DSLR camera, my Canon 550D. I have played around with it over the last decade. I amalgamated my interest in photography with my newfound interest in birding. I now go out birding, using my Canon camera and my different zoom lenses to record and save my sightings for posterity.
Birding has been a very rewarding hobby insofar as it gives me peace, immense satisfaction and happiness of a very high order. I will write about birding in another post elsewhere.
For this post, suffice it to say that for a fuller life, do have one or two hobbies. Discover the talents inside you, adopt the hobby and then nurture it over the years so that it takes you further and further in the territory ...
