Musings for a responsible society




Amidst the dark and grey shades increasingly engulfing, invading and piercing deeper and deeper, let me try to enjoy the little smiles, genuine greens, and the gentle breeze. Oh! Creator! If you don't exist, my life...in vain!
All contents in this blog are subjected to copy right and no part of any of the articles may be reproduced in any media without prior written permission

Search This Blog

20140929

Strange Hobbies: What is your hobby?

People usually ask this question not just inside the interview chambers but also outside. ‘What is your hobby?’

Though the rational man has enough freedom to do what he wants, he is tied up many times with work that he dislikes. He is forced to pursue the choices he made (whether they are later proved correct or incorrect) for the sake of bread and butter and to fulfill his commitments. Principles like ‘Work is Worship’ could make him altruistic and the material rewards like financial incentives or promotion could give him the impetus to perform. Except in the case of a proprietary business or a profession, one could rarely find real passion in the performance.

Hobbies provide people positive energy. Studies have shown that people who picked up  hobbies and pursued them passionately had less mental stress.

In most conventional CVs one could find a column about the hobbies. Bio-data prepared by many students who are potential candidates for jobs contain the usual ‘cut and paste’ entries such as  ‘Reading’, ‘Travelling’, or ‘Listening to music’. Once an interviewer asked a candidate to tell the titles of two recent books he read since he has given ‘reading’ as his hobby in the bio-data. Poor fellow could not tell the name of any book (not even the books he studied in school or college as part of the curriculum).

There are thousands of hobbies from which one could pick up. Some of them are cooking, gardening, knitting, painting, sculpturing, games, horse-riding, photography, instrumental music, creative writing, travelling, blogging (which I am doing!), fishing etc. They are stress-busters. 

Let me introduce today, two persons who pursue hobbies that are different from the routine ones. 

Gangadharan

We have seen people collecting stamps, coins, antiques, bottles, cameras, comic books, cell phones etc. But have you come across a person who collects bookmarks? Here is Gangadharan, whose main passion is to collect as many diverse bookmarks as possible. He visits the book fairs, book shops, and literary fests in search of unique bookmarks. He could find some very rare types of bookmarks while searching old books shipped from various countries. He has more than 2500 bookmarks in his possession right now.

He gave a very interesting answer when I asked him how and when he started this: “I am a book distributor and closely connected with many academic institutions. On a business trip abroad in 2008, I read a news item that Hitler’s bookmark was stolen by someone. That news made me think a lot about bookmarks and I started looking for them at various places.”




He has a variety of bookmarks made from leather, metal, and different types of hand-made papers. Bookmarks in his possession contain writings in Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and in many Indian languages.

Mr Gangadharan received an award from the India Book of Records in the year 2012 for his achievements. He continues his passion vigorously and aims to enter the Limca Book of Records by collecting as many bookmarks from whatever source. He can be contacted at geedee.65 (gmail).

Joseph Vannery

Most of us write personal diary. But very few persons write a daily diary on whatever happening in the world. Meet Mr Joseph Vannery, young and pleasant at 82, who pursues a very interesting hobby for last several decades. He not only maintains the newspaper cuttings of important events, but also writes his analytical views on the happenings very neatly and systematically.


When I visited his house in a unique small residential colony called ‘Aranyagiri’, designed by him and his friends (Though it is in a metro city, you would feel as if you are in a beautiful dense-green village.), I was amazed to see cupboards full of diaries he wrote for decades. I picked up a few old ones at random. They are treasures of knowledge about the culture, society and events of a world beyond the reach of any encyclopedia or Wikipedia.  





When we write about Joseph Vannery, who was a Surveyor with the Survey of India, we cannot forget to mention one of his important contributions to the city of Bangalore. After reading books in the British Library about decongestion of cities in America and England with connecting roads, he conceived a concrete plan for an Outer Ring Road (connecting Magadi-Tumkur Road and Mysore Road) and suggested it to media and authorities. It took shape precisely years after as suggested by him.

Pick up a hobby


If you feel that you don’t have a hobby, start picking up something that you can pursue passionately and happily. Add one more hobby, if you already have a few. Hobbies can recharge your energy, reduce your stress, bring happiness and make you love yourself and others.


  Views are personal                                          © Sibichen K Mathew                   

Read below more about ordinary people with extraordinary lives. Click the links below

6 comments:

  1. interesting article. Mr. Joseph and his passion to maintain diaries and Mr. Gangadharan who collected so many bookmarks! I used to collect stamps in school.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why not start gain the passion for stamps you had in school? That will be interesting and challenging in the e-communication world!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sibi! I am the conventional reading, listening to music and, now, blogging type :) Though I CAN list book titles endlessly :) Did I forget trekking? :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Suresh, that is the secret of your ever-smiling face!

      Delete
  4. My hobbies --some like reading,writing and music are constant but many others too intervene.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Indu, hobbies really make our life colourful and satisfying.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your valuable comments. The comments may not appear immediately. It will appear in the blog shortly after posting.

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...