Jay Rege’s Blog

After a long time, recently somebody again asked me “What are your hobbies?” As always, I fumbled while answering it. But after the initial “Oh Hobbies, well…aaa, ummm…”, I decided against making up something silly for an answer. Instead with a sly smile, I confidently answered “Actually, I don’t have any hobbies.” My smile vanished when I heard the follow up question “Then how do you pass time?”, Now that was a tough one to answer. How did I pass time? “Well I don’t pass time. Time passes by itself. Sometimes it passes with great speed; sometime it just lingers around and drags itself ahead. But even in those slow, dull moments, where time just doesn’t pass, I rarely volunteer to help it gain pace. Instead I just shamelessly wait there, letting it drag its own weight and let it pass on its own. Sometimes I just sleep off.” Now this is what I should have said, but unfortunately I didn’t. To be able to think of the perfect thing to say, and actually say it too, requires an ideal combination of presence of mind, vocabulary, courage, and confidence. The combination didn’t work out for me then. So instead I just said “I pass my time somehow”.

I don’t have a hobby. Most people don’t have one either. Yet ‘What are your hobbies?’ somehow has emerged as the most frequently asked question, especially by people who don’t know you that well. The hobby haunt starts at an early age, when your teachers in school make you write essays on ‘My favorite hobby’. That’s the first time you realize that you are almost good for nothing. Then during interviews, online chats, dates, business networking events; everybody is interested in knowing about your hobbies. Nobody is bothered how you spend most of your life. But what you do in that little spare time of yours, is matter of great interest to everybody. I was even once asked about my hobbies by a co-passenger on a flight. Now unless the guy ran a hobby store, which he didn’t, I didn’t see the relevance of that question. But he still asked it. I don’t remember what I said then, but after I got off the flight I thought I should have said “As a hobby I get on flights and strangle my co-passengers. Yes it’s an expensive hobby, but I still cherish it”. But like always the moment has passed and I couldn’t say it.

As a kid I used to collect stamps and old coins. (I also had a collection of stickers). So for many years I would say that collecting stamps and coins is my hobby. I don’t say that anymore, because I don’t collect them anymore. (I still have my old collection lying around somewhere). Then for some years I would say that ‘reading’ is my hobby. I was told that saying so would make me sound sophisticated and intelligent. People then started asking me on what do I like to read, and I answered ‘Anything. I read anything’. I soon realized that I don’t read because I like to, but I read because I have to. I read because I am literate and if anything ‘written’ flashes before my eyes, I can’t stop myself from reading it. It’s a habit and I can’t get over it. I read newspapers (even as I am eating bhel-puri off it); I read all signboards and billboards on roads; I read emails and forwards; I read subtitles during movies (in Hindi movies, just because I find the English translations amusing, and in English flicks because I find it difficult to follow Bruce Wills’ kind of mumbled accents); I read ingredients and calorie contents on food packets; I read stuff written on other’s t-shirts (and hate it when they walk away before I finish reading); I even read ‘Directions of Use’ on shampoo bottles which says ‘Apply on wet hair. Rinse thoroughly’ followed by a recommendation stating that for ‘best results’ use their brand of conditioner as well. But how much ever and whatever I read, I don’t think reading qualifies as my hobby.

I have seen people mentioning about their hobbies on their resumes too, and some interesting ones as well. While the most common ones that you get to see on resumes are reading, watching movies/TV, playing some sport, listening to music, cooking, net surfing, and so on. Off late I have seen ‘gymming’ (which apparently means going to the gym regularly), emerging as a hobby. But the most uncommon and one of its kind hobbies that I have ever seen, was the one listed on the resume of an ex-colleague. He had actually listed ‘Observing people and making leg pulling remarks’ as his hobby. Now that’s a Hobby. I had known this guy for three years while we worked together, but had never seen him practicing his hobby. When asked he explained that he avoided doing so at work, and did it only during his spare time. He also added that these days life kept him busy and he wasn’t able to devote much time towards the hobby. I just said OK, and wished him luck with his hobby.

Having a hobby is a nice thing. All those who have it, please pursue it. All those who don’t, “Welcome to Club Hobbyless”.

India voted, many Indians voted, and I voted too. I was amongst the 43% of the adult Mumbai population who exercised their voting right in the 2009 elections. Apparently the ‘Jaago Re’ campaign, with all its fanfare and star appeal proved unsuccessful. Their attempt to awaken the masses and drag them to the polling booths, proved futile. I am not surprised. I think the campaign itself was flawed. Their problem was they tried to correlate ‘not voting’ to sleeping; and like many of my fellow citizens, I couldn’t figure out what’s wrong with sleeping. I love to sleep, and I am sure the majority of Indians who decided not to vote love it too. Thus trying to brainwash a nation that’s a big fan of the ‘I want to sleep for five more minutes’ club, didn’t work. But that’s Ok. I am happy with the candidates that we 43% of us elected for all of us.

My biggest surprise on polling day was the list of candidates contesting from our constituency. There were 23 candidates in all, of which 3 belonged to political parties I was aware of, 14 were nominees of political parties I never even knew existed, and 6 were independents. What was even more surprising was that most of these candidates were not even residents of our area. A few of them, including a few independent candidates, were not even from Mumbai. I mean what were they thinking when they filed for nomination? Now I am no political pundit, nor do I understand or follow exit polls and predications, but isn’t it a no-brainier that these non-local, non-popular candidates, had no chance of winning. Then why were they even contesting? Why did they even bother to nominate themselves? I wonder if they even get the minimum number of votes to get their deposits back.

I am not against independent candidates contesting elections, nor am I against the smaller local parties. What I am trying to assess is the thought process behind these small parties and independent candidates filing a nomination from a constituency they didn’t belong to and where they are almost unheard of? In a city like Mumbai where even both candidates of Professionals Party of India (a party of educated professionals only) lost, and the much hyped independent candidate Meera Sanyal (the ex head honcho of ABN Amro), contesting from south Mumbai did not gather enough votes to even get her deposit back; should be enough food for thought for those over optimistic independents and smaller parties to rethink their election strategy. Jaago Re !!

Well with the elections over, so are the ‘Jaago Re’ campaigns. I am sure they will resurface again five years later (and hopefully not earlier). What’s riding the popularity wave in India now, are the Vodafone Zoozoos. While the Zoozoo’s, no doubt, have become very popular; wonder how much have they helped boost sales? Wonder how many viewers switched over to a Vodafone on seeing Zoozoo being swallowed by a crocodile?