My hobbies and their status.

Since childhood, encouraged by my parents, on my own or the influence of friends, I picked up innumerable hobbies. I take great interest in each of them and enjoy them. Some of these hobbies have been a part of me from a very small age; some are picked just a few years ago and Blogging for instance just now - 4 days back. Some have been with me for years and then faded away for one reason or the other. I recollect my hobbies and their status here:

Stamp collection: While in 6^th Standard and on a School excursion to Madras, I saw my friends buying stamps and bought a packet of 100 world stamps. On returning home my father showed me his huge collection of stamps which I have not seen before and his collection became mine. My contribution to the collection is less compared to my father’s. By virtue of his position in his company, every department in the Head Office collected stamps from Indian and foreign postal covers and passed them on to my father. Then, there are many stamps and First day covers we have bought from Postal department and authentic philatelic dealers in Bombay. With my DXing hobby I collected considerable stamps from various world radio stations. Exchanging stamps with friends was done very carefully. The collection is in thousands, it is invaluable and expanding at a very low rate now.

Coin and Currency notes collection: Fairly good collection. One large coin album and one medium size currency album. Mostly collected from my three trips abroad, my nephew Bablu’s trips abroad, brother’s foreign patients and bought from local Numismatic dealers.

Magic: While in middle school, started learning some tricks from books, tricks with glasses, coins, hankies and numbers but mostly with playing cards. My sister Hemalatha was my partner in demonstrating these tricks to friends and children all around and we loved their admiration. Later, after growing up I bought a number of books and video CDs mostly on playing card and coin tricks, bought a variety of card decks and practiced a lot. I know more than 100 card tricks and a few coin tricks. Most tricks look the same and all of the family, friends and acquaintances have already seen me performing at outdoor picnics or parties at home. Now I perform mostly for small children. Brother’s grand-daughter Sudhiksha and sister’s grandson Akhil are my regular audience and fans.

Reading: Started in school with story reading classes and books as gifts from daddy. Then the comics craze, Enid Blyton books, reading daddy’s collection of Perry Mason Novels, James Hadley Chase, Alistair McLain, Arthur Hailey, Somerset Maugham and read every novel that came my way. All this slowed down once I got a job. Then it got restricted to reading while traveling on official trips or when friends recommended a good book, gifted one or loaned one. Now it is plenty of magazines and three newspapers a day.

Entertaining: I consider most important dates, happenings and meetings in the family apt for small or large cerebrations. I ensure that such events occur often and in the best way possible. Invitees are normally appreciative of the care we take for the all round success of these parties.

Cooking: Took to this hobby after marriage. Enjoy preparing a variety of Indian and International dishes, once or twice a week. I have a good collection of cookery books and many downloaded cookery ebooks & recipes. All my preparations are with proven recipes and with assistance from my wife Lalitha handing over the ingredients & other preparatory work. Apart from normal cooking I am quite successful with baking, grilling, microwave cooking, vegetable carving etc. At every party I have a few preparations of mine; which are sincerely appreciated.

DXing: I have pursued this hobby for 5 years while at engineering college where we had a communication receiver set and during vacations from a 5-Band Jhankar Radio at home, with a special outdoor antenna built by me. Established contact with over 60 International radio stations after listening to their programs. Once out of college this hobby came to an end. As certificates; I have QSL Cards, membership cards and letters of correspondence from all these Radio stations.

Photography: Have been handling cameras from a young age and was interested in collecting family photographs, and arranging them in albums. Grew up handling a Kodak box camera to Auto-focus camera to SLR/Digital cameras. As you know; with digital cameras the hobby is easy and inexpensive. It has become a regular activity for me now.

Gardening: With a large portion of our garden lost to the Government in Road widening, we are only left with a small area for gardening. There are just about 70 ornamental and flowering plants and 8 trees and a gigantic flowering creeper encompassing the house. I am busy every morning for about half an hour in taking care of the garden.

Games: Played cricket, Table-tennis and Shuttle badminton for about 16 years. Played for KCC (Kothagudem Cricket Club) of Singareni Collieries for 2 years in various inter colliery and district matches. Now all this has stopped. However I love watching all quality sports and games on TV.

Computer activities: Spending too much time on this activity now. Even when I am not at the computer the poor thing is downloading something for the entire family round the clock.

Walking : A short, 5-day routine every week but at times I skip for days with childish reasons coming from me or my wife who accompanies me.

Other hobbies are watching TV – mostly News and English movies, listening to music, shopping, eating out, long car rides and annual short outstation holidays.

However one hobby that became an obsession of my sons Srikanth and Srinath from their childhood to their college and even now when they are employed has never interested me. You can easily guess! As children it was initially video games on TV, then Computer games and now PlayStation games!