Share five things you’re good at.

The piece reflects on a nostalgic childhood filled with creativity and exploration, despite societal disdain for artistic pursuits. Over time, the narrator developed hobbies like reading, photography, paper craft, sketching, and enjoying films and music. This journey highlights a shift from self-doubt to appreciating personal talents and passions in a changing world.

---

Reminiscing their childhood days, he became nostalgic. The past instances became lively. Lost in his memories he was trying to enliven his current moments. Floating in the illusory world of the past, he sometimes reached his basic classes, sitting in a classroom or sometimes to his intermediate class when he was a teenager. He was oblivious of his qualities as in his time, it was treated as arrogance and viewed with disdain to talk about self. It was supposed to be others’ domain who would give the certificate of his talent.

After decades, while remembering his old days, his face lit up with a smile. His saggy face blushed as he chuckled. In the school, the children were given the task of making clay models of fruits. During his time polymer clay was not in fashion. Children had to procure clay and make a smooth but tight dough to craft the desired item, let it dry in the sun and paint it with desired colours. He was clueless about the start. Thinking about it for a while, he started work and prepared models of watermelon, muskmelon and banana. It did not win a prize, though the teacher was satisfied.  On another occasion, he created a cardboard model of a house.

He did not know about his qualities or, in modern parlance, “talent”. It was very tough or rather impossible to get an appreciation of such works, which was considered a waste of time and an entertaining activity. Creativity was the tertiary and useless thing that did not give employment. In those days employment meant government service.

He was a novice. He had no help but imagination; he tried to construct a thing that would earn a reputation as an art piece. He enjoyed watching people crafting things. He would watch a potter creating clay pots. The way Potter would move his spinning wheel and make small saucers or pans amused him. He enjoyed watching craftsmen create wooden spinning tops, artistic bedsheets, or tanning leather. Unconsciously picking up ideas to make small things for his amusement.

The sound of handlooms, the occasional call of a bird or the whirling sound of a moving wooden cylinder converting into a pot or spinning top gradually became his permanent companion. The atmosphere used to be comparatively quiet, and words like “Pollution” were unheard. Cities were not congested. The craftsmen used to be busy in their work, producing musical sounds with their tools.

On the occasion of Deepawali, he imagined creating a “Kandeel”, collected a bamboo stick and painstakingly trimmed it into small pieces to make a skeleton of his creation. He made eight squares of bamboo sticks and tied them together to make a skeleton of the candle. After pasting a colourful cellophane sheet on it, he would create a moderate-looking “Kandeel”. It gave him tremendous satisfaction. His effort gave satisfaction. Despite not getting noticed, his self-satisfaction was enough for him.

He was not a craftsman. What he did would give him pleasure. He never thought more than that.  While drawing figures of biological objects during studies, he realized that he draws well, though not like an artist. His sketches used to be clean with bold lines. Sketching and drawing gave him pleasure. He often helped his friends and peers with their project drawings. The enjoyment he experienced while watching people work sparked his artistic talent, enhancing his ability to draw and create objects. It amused him to see the emergence of a picture on the sheet of paper when dipped in a solution. He watched, working his relative in rapt attention, who, with the help of a box-like instrument, would click and spend an hour in total darkness, emerging out with a waving gelatinous roll in his hand. Accompanying his relative in a makeshift darkroom, he would watch in utter amazement as images emerged from a gelatinous sheet to white paper. Later, he learned that the box-like device was a camera, the gelatinous roll was a negative, and the final image was a positive photograph. This aroused an intense liking for the art known as Photography. He never imagined that photography would someday become popular. This interest in photography eventually transformed into a cherished hobby.

With time he grew but remained ignorant and impassive. Yet, his hobby of observing people at work remained and he continued to enjoy watching them. As life progressed his behaviour started changing gradually. He grew mature and sombre, but the urge to make things did not fade. More often than not, he tried to create one thing or the other to keep himself busy and involved. This helped him focus on things of importance and do it diligently. This habit paid him in his job, which was a white collared job.

Words like hobby, creation, skill, and talent have become frequent. He saw people boasting, self-praising and exaggerating their achievements. It seems ludicrous and loud. People make loud and hyped estimates about themselves. He finds it gaudy and foolish. He felt a change in an atmosphere where the cacophony of garrulous self-praise had become a positive thing. People have started thinking in monetary terms. Self-happiness, time for self and self-pampering are frequent catchwords.

Taking care of oneself and desiring to look and do good has merits. It is proper to look after and tell others about one’s achievements, but it needs to be decent.

After a long gap, “He” has transformed into “I.” The narration shifts from the second person to the first person. After sharing a brief story, I need to tell my readers about five things that, based on my evaluation, I excel at. Here are those five things:

• Reading I like reading, especially literature about life sciences, the environment, historical accounts, philosophy and novels. I am not a fast reader and take time to finish reading.
• Photography Picture taking is my hobby to the level of passion. Holding a camera, viewing in its viewfinder, composing a scene and adjusting its aperture and shutter speed in old-fashioned SLR cameras used to give me a feel of the art. Modern digital cameras have drastically shrunken in shape, size and weight. More fast and convenient, modern mirrorless cameras and the ones fitted in mobile phones have added extra comfort and enjoyment to picture-taking.
• Paper Craft and Origami: As I mentioned in the earlier paragraphs, it feels organic to me. In my leisure time, I used to create origami objects and various everyday items.
• Sketching and Doodling Drawing and sketching relieve me. I am not an artist and can’t make paintings by my imagination. Line diagrams and doodling are my likes.
• Watching Films and listening to good music Watching films, especially old classics enthrall me and force me to cogitate. Old is gold. Listening to old film songs, and Indian classics (though I do not know the intricacies of classical music).

Before concluding, I want to take this opportunity to remind my readers about my other blog on hobbies that I wrote some time ago.

-END-