Lucky are those who were in the times when hobby of collecting collectibles was common. In fact every other child or youth was into it. I was lucky to have been introduced to this fantastic hobby.
At the age of 10 years, we played street cricket regularly. At that time cricket was one of the most famous sports in India and players were followed like top most celebrities. 5 day cricket format was the only format played. In a year or two years, one series was played at the most. Months before the series, the air grew heavy with excitement and anticipation.
Those days it was common in cricket loving community to collect photographs related to cricket. Everyone used to cut out black and white photos from newspapers, colored ones from magazines and stuck them in registers turned into albums. There were no TVs then and photos were the only way of forming image of cricketer, his playing style, his action or flamboyance. The photos were duly marked with the occassion, date etc.
We read newsapers and flipped magazines just to get a good photo. We knew the individual records and accomplishments of all players and teams by heart. Showing collections to others was a soul satisfying activity.
By the time I was 12 years of age, friends introduced me to stamp collecting. Philately was a big thing then and collections had a big market value too. Carefully, stamps were taken off from envelopes. Many a times steam was used to soften glue. Neatly they were pasted in albums. You could purchase stamps also. By post, photos and pics used to come and we would select. Categories were there like stamps on flags, butterflies, flowers, monuments, leaders etc.
Then there were first day covers. We used to keep a lookout for stamp release date and on that day would rush to post office before they were exhausted. The stamp collection was as dear to us as a baby to mother.
Then I had an uncle who passed on his coin collection to me. There were jars and jars filled with coins of different nations and different denominations, shapes, size, texture and appearance. Emptying the jars on bed, taking one by one each coin in hand and then putting them back into jars was a fascinating pastime.
Same uncle passed on a fascinating collection of original newspaper cuttings . They were cuttings pasted in albums. There were full newspapers too like the one when India got independence. The cuttings had news on very important events of those times. There were a few related to coronation of kings and queens, there were many related to India’s freedom struggle, there were a few on President’s taking oath, assasinations etc. It used to be an emotional roller coaster ride reading those cuttings.
with times, interests changed. With an advent of fast paced life and electronic media, most of the above hobbies have gone extinct. Everything is stored in soft copies. In this transformation, my collection also lost its relevence and now memories remain.
These hobbies intoduced me to the world of geagraphies, histories, politics etc. They were soul satisfying activities and gave a sense of pride like a parent seeing their child grow.
Finally, now it is the collection of pens that I drool on. There are cheap ones like use and throw plastics to costly ones like Mount Blanc, cross, shaeffer , waterman etc. There are ball points, roller pens to ink pens. Ink pens have absolutely gone out of writing these days. Its only connossieurs who remember writing with ink pens. With ink pens there are various nibs like stainless steel ones, gold plated ones etc. Then there are lots of inks like parker, shaeffer, Lamy, waterman and every ink writes different.
It is fun spreading out pens on table, picking them one by one, fondling the grip, writing a few words on a freshly smelling crisp white paper and putting them carefully back in their cases.
Alas, this hobby too is bound to go extinct. Children are punching keyboards more than writing on papers. Even in offices, computors have eliminated writing.
Thats why lucky are those who could experience the joy of collecting collectibles before it went out of relevence.