86,400 seconds in a day...Idle time?

Look up the definition of the word HOBBY and this is what you will get on Wikipedia – a spare time recreational pursuit. Essentially it is what one likes to do in their spare time. One could either be fond of watching movies, dancing, playing some sport, anything. There are various types of hobbies – indoor activities, outdoor games, creative hobbies and many more. Like reading, collecting stuff, dancing would form a part of indoor hobbies. Any kind of sports or shopping, traveling etc would constitute outdoor hobbies. And creative hobbies are like cooking, pottery, knitting, glass painting, etc. It keeps one busy and occupied (meaning the same thing). I have lots of hobbies and since childhood they have been changing. At the moment I enjoy watching movies and reading, perhaps even writing. However, as a kid one of my hobbies was collecting stamps.

Speaking of which, I wonder if anyone has ever watched this movie or for that matter even heard of it. It’s called - ‘Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveler’. It’s another one of my favorites. As kids, many of my friends and I had a hobby of collecting stamps. It’s very interesting to collect stamps of different places. It was a hobby which we all grew out of eventually. Then, there was this movie which was released in the late 80s. It is about a few friends and their fascinating summer adventure. Tommy, who is a stamp collector, gets one of his friends, Ralph to trade him a stamp from his father’s precious stamp collection. From fear of getting into trouble for it, he and his sister (Nancy) try to buy the stamp back from the local store; however they are handed over a stamp collection in exchange. This contains a letter from a little boy named Charles. The letter contains magical rhymes, on reciting these rhymes, the person shrinks and he/she is then able to travel around the world on various stamps to different places. During Ralph’s journey, he finds out that he needs to get to Australia since a rare collection of stamps awaits him. And what happens next is something that even I don’t recall very well and to refresh my memory I will have to watch the movie again.

It’s an amazing movie and truly hilarious, which gets you laughing all the way till the end with the dragons, kangaroos, boomerangs, stamps and postcards. The chase, the suspense, the adventures are absolutely mind blowing and will certainly sweep you off your feet. One needs to watch the movie to figure out what I am saying. If memory serves me right, it also had a sequel. Something like - ‘The Return of Tommy Tricker’. I tried really hard to find more clips of the movie but this is all I could get. Check it out…

Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller

Now and Then - Stay Connected

I have been working for the last 3.5 years now. I am an adult. I drive, I go out with friends for drinks. I am a professional when it comes to my work. I know what I want and work towards achieving my goals. I have dreams and aspirations. I am a person who thinks logically and rationally, or so I'd like to believe. However, I wasn't always like this. A lot has changed about me since I was a child. So how was I any different from what I am now?

In every woman there is a little girl that she leaves behind as she grows up. I am no different from any one of them. Just like any other girl, I too had my dreams and fallacies. I was carefree, a feeling that I haven't experienced in a long time now. As I was growing up, there was this movie that played an important role in my adolescent years - Now and Then. It's about four twelve year old girls and a summer when they get involved in investigating a local mystery. Both happy and unfortunate events occur. These four friends make a pact, when they were younger, that if one of them ever needed each other they would be there. Now and Then used to be my favorite movie when I was younger and it still remains one of my favorites. This movie is absolutely wonderful, even now I could watch the movie all over again. It puts me in such a great mood. It makes me think that real friends do exist.

I was inspired by this movie in ways more than one. I still remember how I would cycle my way around the whole block from dawn to dusk during my summer vacations. It changed the way I thought and also my outlook towards things. As you are growing up, you tend to pick up a habit or a trait from everything around you. It could be actual people, a sitcom or a movie. All or any of it. It makes you who you are in today's world. I know I am one such person, a combination of many such things. Without them I wouldn't really be the person that I am today. And it's a good feeling when you relate to those things after all this time. 'Now and Then' reminds me of the times back THEN and then I see the NOW which is in front of me.

What's yours?

What do you really care about? What are the things in your life that make it rich and fill your days? What are the things that you consider yourself an expert on? Are you into gardening, photography, cooking, traveling, cars, bikes, jewelry and books? What is it that you enjoy doing? What is your passion?


Passion is the emotion of feeling very strongly about a subject or person, usually referring to feelings of intense desire and attraction.

What is it that I am passionate about? I don’t really know since there are more than just one thing that interest me. I enjoy traveling and meeting new people. I like exploring new places and this mixed with photography. When you are able to capture all those moments which with every passing minute keep becoming a thing of the past. It’s like only if I could hold that moment right there, for as long as I wished to. A camera allows me to do just that. And so when I think of photographs, every photograph reminds me of how a story or an incident is connected with each one of them. They become a part of our memories, which remind us of all the good times.

Ever think that you just want to let go of everything. Do you ever feel that you want forget everything that is worrying you and that’s on your mind? Think of something like dancing. Well that’s something I used to be passionate about. It allowed me to let loose, to forget everything and everyone. It was about me and only about me. It would let me focus on myself. It made me feel good and made me feel like I was on top of the world.

People who are passionate about bikes might probably look at this way. The open road, the wind blowing into your face as you cruise through the city life. The engine which roars like a lion and the feeling that you experience when you traveling at a high speed.

It's simply out of this world!