Two tags in One post

Vishesh tagged me to write on what inspires me.

Just being alive inspires me! I am happy to be alive and to be able to feel and touch and see and taste. I love nature and it is nature which really inspires me. The dark night, the humming forest, the mysterious stars, the awe-inspiring mountains, the endless sea, the vast desert…thundering waterfalls, the rustle of a leaf, the twittering of a bird, the sound of the rain, the whistling wind, the racing clouds, the deep blue sky…or the roar of a lion! Even today I would love to retreat to a lush and remote island and spend the rest of my life writing…er…but I need the latest computer and a wi-fi internet connection! And also good plumbing! 🙂

Another thing that inspires me. Men and women of courage. I am in total awe of them. Mostly it is historical figures like Rani of Jhansi or Alexander the Great or amongst mythological characters…Abhimanyu. These characters capture my imagination and set my mind and heart on fire. I guess at heart I am an adventurer. These are my superheroes.

There are many books and authors which have inspired me since my childhood. In a way I always feel that books, particularly literature, has had an influence in shaping my character. There are so many that I cannot list them here…but I whether it was Shakespeare, the Greek plays, stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, philosophers like Socrates or Lin Yutang…I was influenced and inspired. I was immersed in these from the age of about 8 to about 25 and they all had a profound effect on me.

All those whose names (not blog names but personal names) start with A, C, E, G, I, K, M, O, Q, S, U, W, and Y are tagged to this meme.

Axinia tagged me to write about some favourite things I liked to do in my childhood. This is what she said:

And the question is: What are the 7 favourite things you enjoyed doing as a child? I wonder if many bloggers will find out many similarities? Is a childhood everywhere the same, or is it much coloured by the cultural/social background?

So here are my favourite things and I have given 8 of them and I am sure I missed a few! My childhood was inordinately a rich and happy one.

1. Playing games. I remember one very clearly which we called (in Marathi) dabba aispais. Basically it involved keeping an empty tin in the middle of the courtyard. Whoever was the den had to kick it and the others would run and hide. This game used to thrill me as did others like cops and robbers and card (memory) games like Not at Home. There used to be at least a dozen kid (both boys and girls) who would collect every evening and play some game or the other, in the various places where we lived. The high point of it all was if some adult yelled at us for making too much noise or becoming rowdy!

2. Visiting my uncle’s farm in Saswad. This used to happen often during the holidays (at times we cousins would stay overnight or for a few days). We would take long walks through the fields with an uncle(s) or aunt(s) and used to enjoy seeing jaggery being made in the sugarcane fields, pluck chickoos off the trees, pick grapes, suck on raw mango plucked fresh from the trees and look for guavas that were red from the inside as we believed they were more delicious. Wonderful days!

3. Getting together in my grandfather’s house in Pune. We cousins were about 20 in all and it was great fun living in that ancient house together, roaming in the various rooms, playing games, chasing each other and avoiding adults! I remember in that house (rather, wada) there were always locked rooms and we knew one had weapons, the other untold treasures, another was a room without a floor…and all we wanted to get the doors open! The nights were the great fun too. The family retainer would lay down our mattresses one after another in the huge hall which could have accomodated 200 people with ease and we would dare each other to go to the end of the hall which lay in darkness. Darkness which could yield some pretty nasty ghosts!

4. Eating home-made mango ice-cream and ofcourse aam-rus fresh from the farms!

5. Visiting old temples (my mom is a very religious person). This may sound strange coming from an agnostic like me..but frankly I never quite grasped the religiosity of the temple-going activity. I loved the temples for the sense of peace they offered. I really believe what they say about a place giving off vibes, and I think temples do too. The vibes of all those who have prayed there with pure hearts. Even today the sense of peace that i get in a temple is something I cherish…but not a crowded temple. My favourite kind of temple is one which is far away from the crowds, from civilisation, with only silence around it. I need to be alone, absolutely alone. There used to be such temples in those days…

6. Another solitary activity I loved was playing with cars and had a good collection. I used to run my cars in the garden, across pebbles and stones and puddles, all the while imagining myself to be in them, enjoying each ride and adventure. I played with dolls too, but that was only after the age of 12. I used to enjoy feeding my dolls, never dressing them up!

7. One more solitary activity I cherished – writing. This was after the age of 10, when I started writing a diary.

8. I was a collector…of everything! From funny shaped pebbles, dead insects, dried flowers to quotations, stamps and old coins! You name it and I collected it once! I also enjoyed keeping a scrapbook.

All those whose names (not blog names but personal names) start with B, D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, T, V, X, Z are tagged to do this meme.

Please do the tags only if they inspire you…or forget it!