Welcome to the New India the hobbies-are-what-my-mom-had generation. Okay before you jump at me and show me all that empirical evidence of the various hobby courses that are blossoming in every nook and corner of all of our neighbourhoods (this so that our children morph into multifaceted talented individuals and what not), stop! These are not really hobbies.
The child is thrust into it (with very little say in it). It is usually another one of those classes that he/she must attend and it becomes as painful as going for Sanskrit tuitions. Hobbies are meant to be fun no?
It is something that you do because you want to (even at the risk of getting disapproval from others). It is something that you would want to spend a languid Saturday afternoon with. It is something that you want to talk about with your friends.
It is something that you want to show to others (if it can be shown) and it usually stays with you for a longish period of your life Like the dictionary definition says, An activity or interest pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure. The key here is the pleasure. The inexplicable joy that the right brain perceives that the left-brain can never really articulate.
I am your regular 80 s child, having spent some of the most impressionable years of my life in this period. Forget all the political turmoil of the decade (including the Sikh riots, Indira Gandhi s assassination, Thatcherism, Reganism, Russia, Iran-Iraq war), it was the decade when we won the World Cup, when Aamir Khan made his debut, when ET smashed box office records, when Batman, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Friday the 13th etc became cult movies, when John Lennon was shot dead, when designer stubbly dudes became a fashion statement, etc. In spite of / because of / no connection to all of these macro factors this was a good period to grow up in - enough amount of free time to pursue hobbies and not enough of technological advancement that could come in way of such hobbies.
So if my interest was, Collecting Stamps it was possible to do that because people who lived across the globe would indeed send you snail-mails. So collecting stamps [the process of extracting the stamps was itself a laboured task, I remember my dad would ask me to soak the envelope (after removing the letter naturally) and slowly pealing of the stamp. The trick was to soak the envelope for the just-right amount of time], collecting coins [more tougher as people needed to go to someplace and come back for you get coins but I knew this boy who used to have many coins by virtue of having a large number of relatives in the Middle East.
So he used to trade his coins for Indian currency, and we followed our own exchange rate depending on the size of the coins. So if he had a coin that had a diameter similar to the Indian 50 Paise, I would get two such coins for a rupee! Heh!
I think, I got the better deal], collecting something, anything were all what broadly fell under the category of hobbies. But now all of that seems to have gone out. Those happy days of seeking immensely simple pleasures Not to say that people don t have interests.
They do. But the way I understand Hobbies - that almost obsessive streak that it demands, is perhaps missing. Someone asked me recently isn t reading a hobby?
Or listening to music? Or even Blogging? I am not too sure.
Somehow I associate some amount of collection and creation with a hobby. So may be collecting every live recording of the Beatles might still be a hobby (though, it still does sound a bit strange to call that a hobby). Blogging is closer to a hobby (you are usually not paid to do it and it is fun as well).
Yet it is not something I can keep in a cupboard and take it out on a day when I am feeling low, I can t hold it in my hands, and it won t age and fade away It looks the same every single day. If at all with technology, it can only get better So I am a hobby-less person too. I mean, I wouldn t know how to answer that if someone asked me that question.
And I would be most embarrassed (apologetic even) to tell someone reading and music are my hobbies. However, there is one place where hobbies still exist. I have been doing some content analysis of matrimonial websites profile adverts as a matter of academic interest.
My quest for WMD (Web Made Dulha) has met with mostly comic results, which you don t even want to know. But since I was helping an aunt put up a matrimonial profile for her son (aka Psycho Cousin No. 15) I did check out a few of those sites.
Yes, the irony of the situation is not lost on me. Basically I wanted to check, what it is like out-there now and come up with a profile for my cousin that will beat all the other boys (after all, blood is thicker than water). I noticed so many things, which deserves a post in itself actually, but I will spare that ordeal for self and others.
Welcome to the New India the hobbies-are-what-my-mom-had generation.
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