I have always been bad at reading. Rather, horrible. Even at writing. Not to mention, speaking as well. Though, I do have written some beautiful Hindi poetry, but rest aside, nothing puts a slightest bit of gravity to my persona. School life essay competitions had been rote based, which pretty much sucked. No body cared to tell me that I should read some good literary pieces. In fact, no body around ever did that, so I never even got to know that there is something apart from school learning, and the two-three odd Hindi newspapers we used to get. A television came to my house, when I was in 7th grade. And, then I got to watch some news or whatever movies Doordarshan would air on the weekends. My sporting life never came out of playing gully cricket, and as my parents or others would say, it was the reason I never grew taller :P. I really sucked at sports. Once there was a sporting event organized at my school, (and yes, that was the only one in the 10 years of my precious childhood I spent at that school) and one of the events were high jump. I remember that I ran from the mark and as soon as I reached near the rope, I couldn't dare to jump over. I stopped, took a breathe and slid under the rope :P. I should have been disqualified, but they forced me to try again, this time, lowering the rope a bit. And, yours truly reached the rope, stopped and hopped over. Yes, I was that bad in sports. Until, I was done with tenth grade and moved out of that small village I grew up in. Then, I started seeing a bigger world. I started broadening my horizon. Yes, I had missed a lot. But, I don't regret that. There is no point in doing that. My parents have done wonders for me to give me a blessed life. You wouldn't believe me, when I say that, my father has taken me on his bicycle 12 km to and fro, to my coaching place, when I had started preparing for engineering entrances. I never dared to even learn bicycle. Even today, I don't know how to ride one. Yes, that really sucks, and I should regret that. But I don't :P. I was a timid child, and very shy. One more funny incident I can share here. One day in school, one of the girls in my class was giving chocolates to everyone because it was her birthday, and I ran out of class, because I was too shy to wish her happy birthday. Yes, that also sucks, but probably the environment I grew up in made me this. In school, we boys were punished to sit beside girls, so that we don't disturb the class decorum. That was one reason, I started getting alienated from girls. And, added to that came three years of all boys schooling and then, further at coaching place, all boys group. Though, the seniors from my coaching institute, who had already joined some good institutes, had felt that we should also be given a chance to broaden our extra curricular skills at the coaching place. Then started UTSAV, an annual fun-filled event with lots of great opportunities to learn. There was the first time, I participated in a debate competition. I remember I was so freaked out on stage that for the first one minute I just mumbled and then I started reading the hand out I had prepared for myself. I probably was the sole weak point in my team and the reason for us to lose. But, I tried. Seniors were smart. They had realized that kids like me would try anything to avoid participation, so we were forced to participate by the fear of expulsion from the coaching place. I had tried to participate in extempore once, and I went on stage fearless. Stood before the microphone, and as I started my first sentence and glanced over the audience I was addressing to, my heart just sank. Not a single word came out of my mouth for next two minutes. I was just standing there, silent. There are few other incidents like these too. Only good thing I could get from those that slowly I was overcoming my fear to give it a try. But, that was the place which started shaping my persona. I made some truly great friends, two of them I can indubitably call my best friends, who have always been there for me however stupid I become. It's true, I do stupid things too often :P. There I started to read something other than the text books. That was the time when I had written my first Hindi poem, though I don't have any record of that, and I don't even remember any lines from that. Though, during my undergrad, I didn't explore much of that area, I did start blogging, and kept writing few poems now and then. I was very fortunate to have some really good friends who have been awesome in literary skills. So, that exposed me to some good piece of blog posts, some wonderful movies. But, after getting done with my undergrad, I kind of stopped following blogs or even posting myself.
Recently, however, I have come across a few amazing personalities, which has brought out a sudden urge in me to get back to follow their blogs, write my own. I hope I will start doing some justice here.
