My Interests.....
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I have a bad reputation of being
fickle-minded and as a result its kind of tough to organize this
section. My interests change with time. I do have problems sticking to
any one thing in particular and this has turned me into a sort of 'Jack
of all trades'. Still I'll be trying to give a somewhat organized
account of my interests as far as possible.
Living in
India, you just can't stay away from cricket. I was no exception. Yes,
cricket is my first love. Watching Sourav play I used to dream of
donning the blue colours one day. My idols were Sachin, Sourav, Dravid,
Kumble and Wasim Akram. However my interests in the game also changed
with time. Initially I wanted to be a fast bowler dreaming of
bowling at over 100 mph to a Pakistani batsman trembling at the
other end. I was quite a renowned pacer in the local ('muhalla')
circuit. Didn't really bowl with fire but the pace was enough to york
even some of the batsman from the under-17 team in the local coaching
camp. But slowly I realized that fast bowling was causing way too much
strain on my shoulders. Add to it my height which had stopped
increasing. So I slowly shifted to slow medium and began to focus on my
batting which was nothing short of appalling before this. And before
long my batting prospered. I had developed a very sound defense and
local bowlers were finding it hard to dismiss me. I was not used to get
the place on fire with my shots but if anyone wanted someone to bat for
their life, I was the one they'd be turning to. Of course, that's quite
an overstatement but that was the way I wanted to think of myself.
Slowly I began to devote more time to batting and had to be content with
bowling the sweet juicy off-spinners.
But all this amounted to nothing as my parents were
averse to me playing for more than two hours a day and frankly speaking,
that was just not enough. They wanted me to focus on my studies and so
away went my 'first love'.
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Music was another of my interests and it continues to be
so even today. When I realized that I wouldn't ever be able to pursue a
career in cricket I turned my attention to vocals. However like cricket
I didn't get any formal training. I badly wanted to learn Hindustani
Classical but just who would listen to me? I loved ghazals. Mehdi Hassan
was my favourite followed closely by Jagjit Singh and Talat Aziz. Ghulam
Ali was also okay for me. I remember playing the cassettes and taking
down the lyrics. I couldn't understand half of the words (which were in
Urdu) and you can well imagine how embarrassing it would be for me to
turn to someone for help. It was followed by humming the tunes in the
bathroom and shouting them aloud when there was no one around. I'm not
playing my own trumpet but honestly I didn't use to sing too bad really.
But as fate has always had it for me, a
nasty bout of tonsillitis destroyed my prospects as an upcoming singer. My voice
became very nasal (which happened all the more when I was singing Hindi or
Bengali tunes but my voice as such and also the English strains were
surprisingly okay, though very gruff) and so I had to give up vocals and started
to try my hand on instrumentals.
The first attempt was on a mouth-organ. I
don't remember ever hearing any musical note from it and with my parents always
at hand to discourage me in whatever I did outside my studies I was a miserable
failure till the guitar arrived. But we'll talk about it later. For the
time-being music took a back-stage.
It was Class 8 when I realized that I had
a passion for the English language. I was writing quite a few short stories and
they weren't too bad (at least I think so). And after a few brief interactions with some
local media-men I suddenly wanted to become a journalist. But again my parents
got in the way and since I was 'destined to become an engineer' the idea didn't
get the opportunity to develop any further. But if I ever get a chance I won't
really mind doing a little bit of correspondence.
Since we were introduced to Physical
Sciences (Physics and Chemistry rolled into one) from Class 7 I had fallen in
love with Physics. I can't really boast of too good marks in my school tests but
nevertheless I had a passion for the subject. I wanted to do a B. Sc. followed
by M. Sc. and Ph. D. in Physics and then become a teacher.
But the dream was shattered when I ranked
quite high in the state Joint Entrance Examination for engineering and was
forced to join the tide of aspiring engineers. Can't say that I was too dejected
for the prospects of an engineer (read: the fat pay-scale) is much better than
that of a Physics teacher. And it was quite a blessing in disguise as when the
board exam results came out, I saw to my utter dismay that my marks in physics
were really not enough for getting direct admission in any of the leading
colleges in the city.
College is invariably associated with an
unusual love (a craze more often than not) for rock music. Most of my friends
became overawed with the local rock bands on display and picked up the guitar
aspiring to become the next Slash. Though rock music didn't really hit me on the
face I began to appreciate Western music. My outlook became broader and I began
to look beyond Hindustani Classical. I was trying my level best to get the hang
of the harmonium (and wasn't really as bad as people expected me to be) but
suddenly one fine day I bought myself a guitar. I'm still trying to get the heck
of it and seems to be really making a mess out of it. But this is one thing that
I have to master. I've got a lot of points to prove to some people.
I've told you before that my interests are
wide and varied. That's by no means an understatement when you come to know that
at one point of time I wanted to become the best chef in the world. To think of
the hours I've spent sitting in front of the TV watching those cookery shows. I
know how to make the pizza, pasta, chowmein, lots of chicken and mutton
preparations (ranging from Chinese to Mughlai and Goanese to Italian) and even
steaks. Unfortunately most of my culinary skills are theoretical as my mother
won't allow me into the kitchen as often as I'd want to. Its not a man's thing,
she says. I ask her why do you work outdoors? Is that a woman's thing? And all I
get is a stern look.
Now let me finish with my biggest
interest. Ah you must have guessed it by now. Its computers. They really
fascinate me. I've been hooked on to them from the time when even Windows were
not there. I used to draw houses in a software called Autosketch in the DOS OS
even before I had learnt to write properly. The came the first colour pcs and I
was delighted with the colours in a game called Test Drive 2 after playing it
for over on and a half years in black and white.
Net apps used to fascinate me so much that
I decided that I would pursue a career in Internet Applications. Also I was
interested in network security (hacking, to be a bit more particular, though I
can't boast of more than limited success). Now the focus seems to have shifted
to Web-designing.
Being a budding Electrical Engineer it
would be difficult for me to move into professional web-designing. But an
electrical engineer with more than a working knowledge of computers would be
quite a good bait for the employers I guess.
to be continued as new interests crop
up...