I have always been a man devoid of hobbies. The only things I have enjoyed in life other than work and sex has been cricket, reading, cigarettes, beer and whiskey. Work I do still enjoy a lot whenever I get in the groove but with the other hobbies, if you can call them that, I have had to do a major rethink.
Smoking is something I no longer indulge in, having given up the filthy habit (11/June/2008). Digressing from the topic a lot of smokers with a hint of ridicule have asked me "why" I have quit. When the real question has been "How". In all the cases, on further probing I have been proved right. These are the people who wish to quit and have made multiple attempts and failed but hate to admit it. they do eventually come down to the actual question of "How'. A honest answer elicits a look of disbelief. Well a lot of you will also be shocked when I say that reading a book helped me to quit. Yes you read it right. Well to top it, I quit smoking after reading a "quit smoking" book. Am not a big fan of self help books, though I do admit to having quite a collection, but this book by Allen Carr "The Easyway to Quit Smoking" helped me to finally kick the butt. For those who want to try it out, here are a couple of links.
http://www.allencarrseasyway.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Way-Stop-Smoking-Non-Smokers/dp/1402718616
Playing cricket was a big pass time in school and college, but as all of us have experienced, a time comes when the spirit is willing but the body protests. The protests grow louder in the form of aches, pains and injuries, till they reach a point when the enjoyment of the game no longer outweighs the pain. Slowly the field looks intimidating, the pain feels like a monster, the sun saps energy faster than you can say cricket, the recovery time after a game becomes a couple of days and slowly the passion for playing the game manifests itself as the time spent in watching the game be it at home or in bars. But (my English teacher would have glared down at me) now I don't really watch the game with as much passion anymore. probably due to the fact that there has been an overdose of cricket. I remember the time when we as kids used to not sleep through the night (an alarm would wake up the whole household) to watch the matches being played in Australia. There was no cable TV in India then ( yeah that was a really really long time ago) so, thanks to Doordarshan ( I still remember the montage that used to play signifying the beginning of transmission, 24 hours transmission was a luxury a socialist country like India could ill afford, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfOQ-JvRG9k&feature=related ) we could only watch matches in which India played or triangular series in which we were participating. We would sit right next to the television, so as to not disturb anyone at home, to listen to the commentary in English by Richie Benaud and turn the knob to zero (we didn't have mute buttons then) when the like of Sushil Doshi came on for their Hindi stuff. How the times have changed. With 24 hours satellite television and an explosion in the number of matched being played, we just have to switch on a sports channel to watch a match, live or recorded. In short cricket is no more the passion it once was.
Don't really have to elaborate what happens to the allure of sex to most people after marriage. I do enjoy it most of the times, though with the novelty, i seem to have lost the all consuming passion with which a school boy pursues sex. It has become more of a physiological necessity.
Now coming to the things that I still do enjoy, a mugs, lots of mugs of chilled beer or few pegs of good scotch whiskey. An evening with close friends and an unlimited supply of beverages of the alcoholic kind is something that I still do enjoy and look forward to, but its the morning after that I have come to dread. I wish someone would come up with a "morning after" pill for the debilitating hangover that follows with a frustrating regularity. I have devised my own mechanism of dealing with the condition, but still haven't perfected the art of not having one. There are four things that contribute to an enervated morning after, extreme acidity, acute dehydration, hypoglycemia and severe sleep deprivation. Have managed to control with some degree of consistency three of the four factors combining to make me get up in the morning and swear to myself that I will never ever consume alcohol again, a promise I generally forget the very next day.
Dehydration is easy to control by consuming copious amounts of plain water before, during and post the session before hitting the sack. Similarly hypoglycemia ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hypoglycemia) can be handled by having a complete meal during or post the drinking spell, with an added dosage of dessert in the form of ice creams or milk chocolates. For acidity normally a couple of Ocids (antacids) suffice with another one in the morning if required. What I have really not been able to get rid of is the sleep deprivation. My ability to have a good nights sleep is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol in the system. I have gone through nights where I have had three hours or less of sleep due to the effects of alcohol, normally I cant function if I have anything less than eight straight hours in the night. A very simple answer pops up in the head, can pop half a Restil or some other form of tranquilizer to help me sleep. I have a friend who does that every day, every single day, but am too scared to mix alcohol and sleeping pills.
Reading is something I do really enjoy. Used to read a lot of fiction, beginning with Enid Blyton, Hardy boys and Nancy Drew graduating to Sidney Sheldon, James Hadley Chase and finally to the likes of Jack Higgins, Alistair MacLean, Robert Ludlum and Louis L'amour. Fiction is something that doesn't engross me anymore and have shifted my attention to nonfiction. Richard Dawkins, Dorris Kearns Goodwin don't write page turners.
Post a lot of thought and mental noise I decided to develop some hobbies that would make my free time more enjoyable than sitting in front of the idiot box and channel surfing for some inane serials. The list that follows is a bucket list more than a hobby list, but something that I would love to accomplish in the near foreseeable future. The list that follows is not in any particular order, some of it can be long term hobbies while some of them are one time activities that I may have an opportunity to develop into long term hobbies. Only time will really tell.
Smoking is something I no longer indulge in, having given up the filthy habit (11/June/2008). Digressing from the topic a lot of smokers with a hint of ridicule have asked me "why" I have quit. When the real question has been "How". In all the cases, on further probing I have been proved right. These are the people who wish to quit and have made multiple attempts and failed but hate to admit it. they do eventually come down to the actual question of "How'. A honest answer elicits a look of disbelief. Well a lot of you will also be shocked when I say that reading a book helped me to quit. Yes you read it right. Well to top it, I quit smoking after reading a "quit smoking" book. Am not a big fan of self help books, though I do admit to having quite a collection, but this book by Allen Carr "The Easyway to Quit Smoking" helped me to finally kick the butt. For those who want to try it out, here are a couple of links.
http://www.allencarrseasyway.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Way-Stop-Smoking-Non-Smokers/dp/1402718616
Playing cricket was a big pass time in school and college, but as all of us have experienced, a time comes when the spirit is willing but the body protests. The protests grow louder in the form of aches, pains and injuries, till they reach a point when the enjoyment of the game no longer outweighs the pain. Slowly the field looks intimidating, the pain feels like a monster, the sun saps energy faster than you can say cricket, the recovery time after a game becomes a couple of days and slowly the passion for playing the game manifests itself as the time spent in watching the game be it at home or in bars. But (my English teacher would have glared down at me) now I don't really watch the game with as much passion anymore. probably due to the fact that there has been an overdose of cricket. I remember the time when we as kids used to not sleep through the night (an alarm would wake up the whole household) to watch the matches being played in Australia. There was no cable TV in India then ( yeah that was a really really long time ago) so, thanks to Doordarshan ( I still remember the montage that used to play signifying the beginning of transmission, 24 hours transmission was a luxury a socialist country like India could ill afford, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfOQ-JvRG9k&feature=related ) we could only watch matches in which India played or triangular series in which we were participating. We would sit right next to the television, so as to not disturb anyone at home, to listen to the commentary in English by Richie Benaud and turn the knob to zero (we didn't have mute buttons then) when the like of Sushil Doshi came on for their Hindi stuff. How the times have changed. With 24 hours satellite television and an explosion in the number of matched being played, we just have to switch on a sports channel to watch a match, live or recorded. In short cricket is no more the passion it once was.
Don't really have to elaborate what happens to the allure of sex to most people after marriage. I do enjoy it most of the times, though with the novelty, i seem to have lost the all consuming passion with which a school boy pursues sex. It has become more of a physiological necessity.
Now coming to the things that I still do enjoy, a mugs, lots of mugs of chilled beer or few pegs of good scotch whiskey. An evening with close friends and an unlimited supply of beverages of the alcoholic kind is something that I still do enjoy and look forward to, but its the morning after that I have come to dread. I wish someone would come up with a "morning after" pill for the debilitating hangover that follows with a frustrating regularity. I have devised my own mechanism of dealing with the condition, but still haven't perfected the art of not having one. There are four things that contribute to an enervated morning after, extreme acidity, acute dehydration, hypoglycemia and severe sleep deprivation. Have managed to control with some degree of consistency three of the four factors combining to make me get up in the morning and swear to myself that I will never ever consume alcohol again, a promise I generally forget the very next day.
Dehydration is easy to control by consuming copious amounts of plain water before, during and post the session before hitting the sack. Similarly hypoglycemia ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hypoglycemia) can be handled by having a complete meal during or post the drinking spell, with an added dosage of dessert in the form of ice creams or milk chocolates. For acidity normally a couple of Ocids (antacids) suffice with another one in the morning if required. What I have really not been able to get rid of is the sleep deprivation. My ability to have a good nights sleep is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol in the system. I have gone through nights where I have had three hours or less of sleep due to the effects of alcohol, normally I cant function if I have anything less than eight straight hours in the night. A very simple answer pops up in the head, can pop half a Restil or some other form of tranquilizer to help me sleep. I have a friend who does that every day, every single day, but am too scared to mix alcohol and sleeping pills.
Reading is something I do really enjoy. Used to read a lot of fiction, beginning with Enid Blyton, Hardy boys and Nancy Drew graduating to Sidney Sheldon, James Hadley Chase and finally to the likes of Jack Higgins, Alistair MacLean, Robert Ludlum and Louis L'amour. Fiction is something that doesn't engross me anymore and have shifted my attention to nonfiction. Richard Dawkins, Dorris Kearns Goodwin don't write page turners.
Post a lot of thought and mental noise I decided to develop some hobbies that would make my free time more enjoyable than sitting in front of the idiot box and channel surfing for some inane serials. The list that follows is a bucket list more than a hobby list, but something that I would love to accomplish in the near foreseeable future. The list that follows is not in any particular order, some of it can be long term hobbies while some of them are one time activities that I may have an opportunity to develop into long term hobbies. Only time will really tell.
- Cooking
- Carpentry
- Playing the guitar
- Modifying an Enfield Bullet in to a low slung mean machine in the true cruise mould.
- Making a model plane.
- Getting Paragliding pilot's licence ( I don't know if i would really be able to accomplish this since I have a morbid fear of heights. May not be as severe as to induce fainting spells but my legs do sure start to shake when am at any height above 25 - 30 feet without the protection of a railing or a wall of some kind. Hell even if the railing is anywhere less than waist height I begin to get the shakes).
- Sailing
- PADI Open Water Diver Certification
- Long distance cycling
- Wind surfing
- Travelling to Leh Ladhak on a bicycle or motorcycle.
- Have a British girlfriend, I just love their accent.(This actually is sacrilege, I am married, but this is also a bucket list, so what the hell)
- Have a website on for having animations about the political life.
- Running in the half marathon in 2013, and subsequently the full marathon in 2014
- Angling
- Photography
I do of course have grandiose plans to keep on updating the site and write about my experiences to anyone who cares to read. If a particular activity develops in to a long term hobby, might also create sections in the blog dedicated to it.
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