Choosing hobby as a career

Choosing a hobby as a career?  Any youngster who wants to settle down always has this question in his or her mind. Now let us analyze two situations.

Imagine you love to swim underwater and want to take up diving as a career. You are hired by one of the well-known film directors to cover an underwater shoot or let’s say you are a photographer who has participated in a contest by National Geographic Channel. Your pictures get selected and you are invited to work as an intern with them. Won’t that be an exciting career proposition?

Now, let’s say you have been sitting for different competitive exams since the last seven years and still have not been able to crack any one of them. You have qualified for the interview but every time you got rejected. Only a year is left for you to appear for the exam. On the other hand, your parents keep nagging you every day or the other to pull up your socks and take charge of your future. You are annoyed and have heated discussions over the phone every day.

Comparing the above situations, the first situation might inspire a youngster to take up his or her hobby as a profession and excel in life. In the second situation, family pressure might ultimately force you to quit and take any extreme decision in life or else it can also inspire you to work hard and finally land you up a government job.

Both the situations are quite unique in their own way. You can succeed or you might not succeed. You might love diving as a hobby and you are an expert diver, but it is not necessary that you will really make it big when it will come to develop this hobby as a career. On the other hand, you can also crack the competitive exam and land up the job. No one can pre-determine the outcomes in both the situations.

It really doesn’t matter whether you are choosing your hobby as a career or not. It is necessary to follow the passion of your life.

What if I was a Mother?

The very next moment I felt amazing. I imagined myself as a pregnant woman.  I could feel a light bump inside my stomach. There was a small living thing that was shaping up inside me. Sometimes at night when I was deeply engrossed in my thoughts, it made its presence felt with a slight movement. I couldn’t express the joy of being a soon to be mother. I didn’t knew whether it was a HE or a SHE but was sure that the new member of my family will be the apple of my eye.

Few months passed , I could feel this tiny creature slowly growing up. Sometimes, in my dreams I could hear a cute voice utter the word, “Mamma.” Often while sleeping, I used to open my eyelids, look around and laughed at stupid me.  This continued for months until the D day arrived.

I woke up with a scream that day. My loved ones gathered around me, took me to the hospital. The pain was unbearable, but I was ready to undergo it. I could feel the baby trying its best to leave the dark place that it had been for the last nine months.

A state of happiness prevailed everywhere as he saw the light of the day followed by his doleful and innocent cries. I could not stop sobbing, the joy of being a mother was something which I could not express to the world.  Someone who lived with me for so long , is now in my hands. Wow! she is my daughter.

Her small eyes looked here, there and everywhere. Her tiny limbs and fingers made subtle movements. She tilted her head and yawned signalling that the slumber has arrived. I watched her staring at me and smiling. I was elated this time, a series of tears again rolled down my cheeks. I told myself, “See mamma, she is staring at you.”

As a writer, it is quite easy to describe and fantasize the feelings of being a mother, but I have failed here to describe more, because only a mother can express the true joy of being a mother

Thank you Mother for bringing me in this world, I will always remain indebted to you.

Pic credit: drematico.com

The #Earthquake tragedy

The morning was fresh. Mild dew drops covered the window panes. Two sparrows sat on the edge of the stone tablet which lay idly for more than a decade now at the edge of the pond near our house. They constantly chirped only to disturb the serene and cold January winter. I could hear a sound from a not too distant playground from our house. A series of footsteps paraded the ground following the instructor’s strict round. I looked at the calendar peeping from the mosquito net with heavily closed eyes. 26^th January, 2001. The early morning sunrays played hide-and-seek through the partially closed window. I stretched my hands and yawned, cuddled with the pillow and appreciated the beauty of the dawn.  

I eagerly waited for the DD broadcast of the Republic Day parade to be telecasted. As I took the remote, I felt a mild tremor. My attention went to the half-filled water bottle that was kept above the table. The uniformity of the horizontal water level inside the bottle changed. Tiny ripples formed. The gentle movement was now replaced by an aggressive one. Not able to withstand further, it finally gave away to the pull of the nature and fell over the floor spilling water. I suddenly heard the sound of conches outside, blown by the lady folks trying to please the God to relieve us from this natural calamity as soon as possible. “It’s earthquake.” A shriek came from my mother urging me to come out of the house as soon as possible. There was panic and jittery everywhere. Kids were frightened and shocked to see this strange phenomenon of Mother Earth (as they read in their geography books); some of them on the other hand were really curious. They stood in silence and tried to feel the tremor as they closely observed the reaction of others.

As the ladies continued to fill in their breath inside the conches, the men folk were busy evacuating, inspecting the neighbour’s house and the other adjacent areas to find out any casualty. I went near the pond; the tablet that lay idly now floated on the water in a way as if a paper boat was released by a kid on a rainy day. The water hyacinths on the surface made to and fro movements. After two minutes, there was utter calmness. The quake shrunk slowly, thus bringing a respite. Perhaps, the sound of the conches reached the ears of the Gods and convinced them.

Numbness followed thereafter. Everyone looked around to pacify themselves that the bad times are gone. No, it was not over yet. A cloak of sadness prevailed somewhere. I could hear cries of a mother followed by a loud moan of a father. Their child was killed under the thatched roof of the house as it collapsed. She looked up at the sky, raised her hands, blamed the almighty for this mayhem and for this moment of despair.

Was it her fault that she lost her little ones or was his untime departure destined. If it was destined, then why????????