Paper – plane mania

Is keeping a hobby of some kind, an easy matter these days? Surely not, in my opinion. Whenever I ask an youngster, “What is your hobby?” he would tell me, “Reading newspapers, magazines, watching t.v., football, cricket, kabadi etc. Quite a number, Sir. You name it, I have it.?” In my turn I ask, “My dear young man, everybody does that….” If I hadn’t been interviewing him for a job, he would have cut me short and fired back angrily, “If it is so, why the hell do you ask?”

Many students out of college or school, don’t even know the meaning for ‘Hobby’. So, to expect the right answer from them is asking for too much presumably.

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It is agreed that any hobby is expensive in India. Its running cost cannot be met out of one’s pocket money and the parents are not prepared to foot your extra bill over and above the huge ‘education bill.’

That being so, we have to accept that anything you do   other than the actions connected with your ‘study’ and ‘work’ as hobby. I shall remember this rule when I take an interview next time or when I happen to talk to a college pass-out.

Young men and women nowadays take to all sorts of sports over and above the usual games. The condition is, “It must be cheap and not eat into your pocket, at lest not too much.

Once upon a time, ‘kite flying’ was considered a very cheap sport. In the present scenario, even that has become quite dear. Next, it could be practiced only in the month of January in India; you don’t get a good wind speed in other months.

Some college boys in my city Chennai have come out with a far cheaper idea having consulted some videos on the internet. It’s paper plane. Any old newspaper or possibly a page from a note book is enough. All you are required to do is to fold the paper into an arrow shape model or fashion it like a glider-look- alike thing and throw it in the air in a parabolic trajectory.

Three types of competitions will be organised – the longest distance the model could fly before it touches the ground, the longest air time and different designs of the paper plane. Hundreds of student are registered for this sport, or should I dare call it ‘hobby’? The winner from Chennai will participate in the world wide paper plane contest, due to be held in Austria sometime this year.

Great, isn’t it? What used to be the pastime of kindergarden children has become a world sport and a hobby at that. Henceforth, if anyone complains that ‘hobbies’ are beyond our pocket, perish the thought. Who knows, in course of time this sport may be accepted as an Olympic event as well. So, let all age groups try to become experts in this HOBBY.

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Israel Jayakaran