Before my readers (I am sure there are hardly any that don't know me well) jump to any conclusion of me pursuing some rare intellectual challenge for a past time, I must honestly admit that I have exhausted more grey matter finding a hobby than actually pursuing one. Happily for me there is a whole club of people who are just like me spending more hours pondering on suitable hobbies than pursuing one.
Having created (rather failed to create) sufficient drama around something as simple as a hobby - with the 2 para intro style that I was taught for my ICSE X - let me plunge into the actual essence of this post which is only to list a recent occasions when I was forced to think..err..actually 'think hard' for a hobby.
Whenever I tried to find myself a hobby, one question that preceeded any other was:
- Can this hobby catch the imagination of peers, superiors and sub-ordinates?
I must also admit that 'catchy' has been a genuine qualifying characteristic that define most of my endeavors. And therefore I prepared a list of hobbies that I could quote (please note - only 'quoted') from. My list included some real fancy and varied activities like F1 racing, studying religion, sci-fi (literature and on celluloid), quantum physics, venracular movies, Keats, indi-pop music, medieval art, world history, world history, trekking, child psychology and what not.
-- A collection of hobbies that would any day give numismatics and philately - their classical counterparts a deep deep rooted complex.
Truth be said, I have done no more than just be a couch potato and no more than give my library that comprises of hardly anything beyond my college notes a rare glance.
- Michael Schumacher, Narain Karthikeyan is all I know about F1.
- 'Merchant of Venice' is the only Shakespearean work I can recall.
- Michael Angelo, Van Gogh are the only artists I ever heard about.
- Digital Fortess by Dan Brown is the nearest I have got to Sci-fi.
- Newton's laws is the zenith of my knowledge in physics.
- My watchman's 3 year old daugther who tore the leather of my bike seat cover is my only tryst with understanding kids.
As a part of his effort to induce comedy to his version of the subject's appearance, the artist dutifully enquired his subject's hobbies and used the past-time to creatively distort the subject. I was comfortably placed with a whole list to quote from. Mowever this time I had the previlege of listening to my predecessors (in the queue) and add. To my fancy, I realized that they belonged to my club with no genuine hobby to quote. Most thought harder than me, and in all genuineness found some really laughable ones.
- Somebody said, he actually raced cars...where I thought..on Bangalore roads.. ???
- Another said, snow-gliding...this guy must have come from Kashmir..a terrorist of some kind i thought. For the next few moments, a train of visuals followed (no wonder i work for the Image sensors division in my company) - pictures of the artist's current subject sneaking the border - all to be shattered completely when the guy spoke up in telugu :)Nah how could a telugu speaking guy be a militant??? ..thats my mother tongue
- The next guy said, he drove horses and blurted out something vague..hahahaha..'driving' a horse..i only thought one could ride a horse - how foolish of me :(
- Somebody said wind-surfing; as if he were bird i thought. The guy looked like he just woke up from a dream. India according to me was no place for adventure sports...
- Someone said he played the guitar, reasonable I thought...that guy was married and with his wife next to him, he did not have a reason to lie...
All the while I was comfortably banking on my exhaustive list of 'catchy' hobbies to draw from.
Tdaang tdaang Tdaang... Came my turn and as i took my seat in front of the artist, i experienced a sudden unease; so far i had only put up claims of 'catchy' hobbies that would catch the imagination of the recruiters during the placement season and was panting for ideas; this one would have spur the creative genius of the artist to produce a 'catchy' my caricature. I suddenly wondered if I could actually 'bajao' the guitar, 'drive' horses and race cars 'in Bangalore'.
In this flurry of thoughts, also came in spurts my usual list of hobbies that i quoted from. But how would medieval history, Shakespeare and Keats be of use to a caricaturist that is hell bent on distorting me...I also knew that there was no Escape button for my plight :( The caricaturist was getting impatient in the wait...
Cricket buffs that we Indians are, a group of kids playing the ball game in the park nearby came to my rescue and I blurted out 'cricket'. And hence came out from the artist's brush - the cricketer me. Thus came my realization that 'catchy' is not the adjective that needs to define a hobby; OOH >> Object Oriented Hobby - this is how a hobby needs to be and hence the title for the post.
